Planet SMC

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: RTOS Programming guide

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

RTOS Programming guide

May 16, 2012

I am writing a "beginners guide to programming real time operating systems" - you can check it out here: http://recursive-labs.com/rtos-guide/. This will be integrated with the ARM architecture and Programming online course I am currently developing.

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: Demonstrating priority inversion with ChibiOS/RT and STM32F4Discovery

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Demonstrating priority inversion with ChibiOS/RT and STM32F4Discovery

May 14, 2012

Read: Demonstrating priority inversion with ChibiOS/RT and STM32F4Discovery (from my Recursive Labs Blog)

Syntax: Fix for Rails 3.x.x error “[FATAL] failed to allocate memory” in OS X Lion

Thu, 10 May 2012 04:51:46 +0000

This error happens when mysql2 gem is either installed for some other version of mysql or when it cannot find required dynamic library. To fix this error, uninstall mysql2 gem and install as follows

$ env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql2 -v='0.3.11' -- --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql --with-mysql-lib=/usr/local/mysql/lib --with-mysql-include=/usr/local/mysql/include --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

Please change ‘/usr/local/mysql’ to your mysql installation path. Thank you.

r4g54g4r's h4ckl0g: ragsagar

Wed, 09 May 2012 17:22:06 +0000

While i was working on the project onspot_v2, i came across with a specific need. onspot_v2 makes use of the django admin interface for data entry. When employees are entering data, ‘branch’ field in the form will get populated automatically as per the branch of the employee. When a manager is entering data using the form, an extra field should appear to select the ‘branch’ instead of automatically populating. Googling didn’t help much. Finally i thought of overriding the ModelAdmin.add_view() method which is invoked when you try to add an entry using the admin. I changed the editable property of the field ‘branch’ inside after checking the request.user and it worked out. Part of my code in admin.py

from django.contrib import admin
from books.models import Agent, PolicyIssue

class PolicyIssueAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
 
    def add_view(self, request, form_url='', extra_context=None):
        if request.user.get_profile().is_employee:
            self.model.branch.field.editable = False
        else:
            self.model.branch.field.editable = True
        return super(PolicyIssueAdmin, self).add_view(request, form_url)

admin.site.register(PolicyIssue, PolicyIssueAdmin)

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: Getting started with the STM32F4Discovery and ChibiOS/RT on GNU/Linux

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Getting started with the STM32F4Discovery and ChibiOS/RT on GNU/Linux

May 8, 2012

Read: Getting started with the STM32F4Discovery and ChibiOS/RT on GNU/Linux

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: ARM Architecture and Programming - Next Online course from Recursive Labs!

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

ARM Architecture and Programming: Next Online course from Recursive Labs

May 8, 2012

Read: http://recursive-labs.com/blog/2012/05/08/arm-architecture-online-course/

JEFFREY's Log: BlueBoard LPC1768 Header board review

Sun, 06 May 2012 10:00:13 +0000

Above shown is a BlueBoard LPC1768 header board. I got this board from NGX technologies. This board contains an ARM cortex M3 based LPC1768 microcontroller from NXP (Philips). NGX technologies has similar ARM development boards which can be purchased from their webshop.

NGX technologies BlueBoard LPC1768 header board is of size 95mm x 55mm size. It has an power connector to connect DC power. The board can also be powered using its mini USB port. It also contains an LED and a switch(other than the rest switch) for basic operation. All the pins of the controller can be accessed through the header pin port. It also contains an JTAG port for debugging the ARM microcontroller. There is also an EEPROM chip to store information which is independent of the power.

The greatest advantage of this board is that it can be flashed using its USB port. There is no seperate flashing tool hardware or software needed. Just plug the board into the USB port and press a button sequence. The board will appear as an mass storage device(like our USB pen drives). The compiled bin just has to be pasted into the drive. Once the reset button is pressed, the new compiled software will start to work. More information can be found from here.

These type of header boards are really helpful when you want to prototype your designs. Its really hard for a newbie or even time consuming for an expert to design a PCB for the microcontroller and then start development. This board contains all the basic circuit to bring up the microcontroller and start development.

Some useful links
1) Google code page(contains complete source code and hardware design): http://code.google.com/p/blueboard-lpc1768/
2) Product page(Contains more information about this products and various tools): http://shop.ngxtechnologies.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=65
3) Documents form NXP for LPC1768: http://ics.nxp.com/support/documents/microcontrollers/?scope=LPC1768

Praveen Arimbrathodiyil blogs here: An idea for revolution

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:54:31 +0000

I wrote this as I was traveling to MES Kuttippuram, Kerala for Debian Utsavam. I read it out before I strted my session.

“I start with an idea today. I will tell you and you tell me what do you think about it.

I would like all of you to write about this two day event – how did you hear about it, what was good, what was bad, how to mke it better next time, what you learned, how you are going to use what you learned, how you are going to teach others…

If you have a blog, post about it, if you wish to start a blog, start now, ask people who already post about how it is. Or if you don’t want a blog, just write an email to any mailing list, smc, debian, mes fsug, or even add it directly in the wiki, read what others have written and comment on it, add all links to wiki, create a press release as a team. These are possible, it all depends on our will, today lets make a small history make this two days memorable for ever, not just for you, but a wonder and inspiration for so many. It is possible, and much more is possible, challenge ourselves not limit. I would be happy if some of you start maintaining packages, very happy if all of you do it, I would happy if you teach other to package and teach them to teach others this is how we write history, this is what revolution is, when people realize how much they are capable of and start acting like they believe in themselves and shed all their fears, just see how Tahrir Square changed history or Egypt. You believe you are part of something great and you belive you are making a difference and you tell others what you believe and what you do and you will see the difference. And we achieve something it will energize us to do even more. You might know the story of birds trapped in a net, there is a song in Vietnam Colony how they escape. This is our inspiration to change things together and build a new world based on collaboration. You can decide it today.”

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: Mailing list for former students

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Mailing list for former students

May 2, 2012

If you are a former student of mine, I will be very happy if you join the icalumni mailing list.

Praveen Arimbrathodiyil blogs here: Debian Utsavam at MES Kuttippuram, Kerala

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:18:00 +0000

Background

I was thinking about another Kerala trip as my friend and NIT Calicut classmate Pramod invited me for his marriage on 1st May. Since it is a long trip of more than 24 hours from Pune to Kerala by bus, I thought I should plan some Free Software talk so that I have more motivation for such a hard trip. I was very happy to see great enthusiasm for gnome release party on my last visit.

Group Photo of Debian Utsavam participants

I asked a few people if it would be possible to organize something on such a short notice. I was happy to get a positive response and we fixed the event for 28th and 29th at MES college of Engineering, Kuttippuram. But I can reach there only on Sunday if I leave Pune on Friday and take one day transit in Bangalore (I take this option because I get to meet my friends during day and I have to travel only at night). I asked around if someone can volunteer to take some basics session on Saturday so that particiants will be ready for the packaging session on the next day.

Nakul readily volunteered to take command line and shell scripting sessions. Since Ershad was coming, he agreed to take Free Software introduction. I have to mention his great grassroots Free Software promotion work here. Though he doesn’t post much about it on smc or plus lists I came to know about it from people who attended the sessions. (A request to Ershad to blog and talk about it on mailing lists). Since Labeeb was also there in Kerala he agreed to introduce Debian.

Haris volunteered to take a session on building from source. He is very enthusiastic and he writes beautiful blogs. Read his account of the two days here.

Since I was not present on day 1 you can read about it from Haris’ blog. Raju sir told me I could stay with him and I went to his place directly on Sunday morning. I reached Mannuthi at 3.45 am and he picked me up. I slept a bit and after breakfast we came to MES. One thing I really liked there was the fluroscent moon and star (I guess there were planets too) stickers on the wall! You feel like you are watching the sky at night!

We reached MES by 10.20 and they had already started discussing about personal privacy and tracking on the internet. I started with reading a note I wrote the previous night in the bus.

Read the full note here.

I asked them about what they learned on the previous day and I asked them a few questions like why we need to package software, who creates packages etc. I started discussing basic ideas around a package’s lifecycle from upstream tarball to a stable release. A few points I covered include “how and when a package first enters debian. Concepts of RFP, package maintainer, team maintained packages etc were covered.”

Distributions

There are many Free Software projects out there and role of a distribution like Debian is to provide a collection of these software in an easy to distribute and manage format. Distributions like debian make sure the software is in good condition and pass it through thorough testing before it is given out as a supported software. Since there are many distributions out there with different policies and packaging formats (deb, rpm, ebuilds etc). Also each of this distributions may be including different versions of its dependencies. So people specialising in packaging makes the job of upstream developers easier by making an easy to install version of the software available. Distributions include many Free Software but every day more Free Software is released. So who creates these debian packages? How does a person ready to create a package know there is a new software? What do one do when a software they need is not available as a package? How can one install such a software if it is not packaged?

Life cycle of a Software in Debian

Most Free Software projects release their work as a tarballs – a compressed file of all the source code with instructions to compile them. Many times people read about new software from news sites and some of them savvy enough start building it from source. If you are already familiar with development tools it may not be difficult to do. Some of those users may create a debian package. Sometimes people just request a software to be packaged. It is done by submitting a wishlist bug against ‘wnpp’ pseudo package. wnpp stands for Work Needing and Prosective Packages. Such requests for packages are commonly referred as RFPs. So there are two ways a package enters debian.

1. Some one who know about debian packaging creates a debian package from a source tarball provided by upstream developers.

2. Someone files an RFP in debian bug tracking system and people come to know about it via wnpp and then creates a package.

For small packages a single person may create a debian package alone and maintains it by providing newer packages when some bug is fixed or a new version is released. Sometimes there are many applications created by one project (eg GNOME, KDE) or packages are similar (for example packages written in one particular language like perl, python, ruby) or they are used in one particular area (for example software useful for medical doctors or useful in schools), in these situations a team maintains these packages.

I really like this team maintenance idea because you can help updating any package when you have time and other team members take care of it when you are busy. With teams distributed around the world most of the time there is someone available usually to take care of the packages. But more hands to help is always welcomed by the teams as it helps spread the load to more people and reduces work for each person.

“when does a package move to testing. Package priority and condition of release critical bugs were explained.”

All packages are normally uploaded to unstable branch. When a package is uploaded, their maintainer tells how important this upload is. For normal uploads a priority of ‘low’ is set and for critical fixes ‘medium’ and for security fixes ‘high’ priorities are used. Packages are kept for review in unstable branch for 10 days for low priority packages, 5 days for medium priority packages and 2 days for high priority packages.

Many people including this author use unstable distribution as their main operating system every day. When they encounter bugs they report them. I have to clarify what unstable means here, it means always changing and each software itself is stable (either the upstream developers or debian developers decide it is stable enough for every day use). For software which not stable for every day use experimental branch is used.

After 10, 5 or 2 days depending on package’s priority their status is checked (this is done by a software called britney) to see if they can be moved to testing branch. First condition it checks is if there is any release critical bug reported against this package. Second condition is its dependencies are already in testing. If both these conditions are met it will be moved to testing. So new packages keep coming to unstable and testing all the time except when testing is frozen for next release. So we can call both unstable and testing branches as rolling releases.

Every time a stable version is released goals for next stable release is set by the project after discussions with different teams. Each team may want a particular version of their software in the next release or project as a whole may decide on a new feature. These release goals are collected by release team and published early in the release cycle. When testing is very close to achieving these release goals release team declares testing is frozen.

At this point britney keeps all packages in unstable and only bug fixes are allowed into testing. Sometimes release team allows a few exceptions, but usually freeze time is spent on fixing bugs by all developers. When all release critical bugs are fixed in testing a copy of testing is released as stable. At this time normal movement of packages from unstable to testing is resumed and preparation for next stable release starts. Stable release is officially supported by the project and recieves security updates only, no new versions are uploaded into stable.

“when does it goes to stable. I told them about release goals and freeze. I told them we release when we are ready and that means zero release critical bugs.”

This time I did not take my favorite package lekhonee-gnome and instead I chose to introduce gem2deb tool. We took mixlib-log gem and easily created a deb file with just one command gem2deb mixlib-log. But there was a catch, they were running squeeze and gem2deb was not present in the normal repositories.

I just told them to install gem2deb, some people tried to install it from sid repo but failed matching correct dependencies (most of systems had a messed up sources.list file, presumably from yesterday’s apt session). Some figured they can install it from source and they downloaded gem2deb tarball from github and followed instructions in README file to build it. First application of what they learned yesterday. And dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc command given there came in very handy when they had to rebuild mixlib-log package.

Every one created a deb package with one easy command ‘gem2deb mixlib-log’. On some systems proxy was not set correctly so gem2deb could not download the gem file using ‘gem fetch mixlib-log’. So gem file was downloaded from rubygems.org and them gem2deb was run against this file.

Every one used lintian to check what is missing in packaging as per policy and they used help of New Maintainer’s Guide to fix those errors and warnings.

[TODO] chosing a new gem file to package or update to gem2deb based packaging.

(Posting it as incomplete, I may add more points and few more details later)

Links:

Wiki page of the event
Photos
Debian Handbook – a complete book on Debian

Changelog:

30/04/2012: First draft, outline

01/05/2012: Expanded on debian development stages

02/05/2012: added link to Haris’ blog, editing changes, splitted big paragraphs to small paragraphs.

03/05/2012: Link to the note I wrote added.

10/05/2012: Diagram from Debian Handbook describing the release process added.

PS: I think, I better make a book out of it because its going to be a big post otherwise

Note: I was just trying to dump my thoughts as I wrote this and I was in a hurry on the way to a friend’s wedding, plus it was typed in my almost-dead ‘first android phone’ my phone. So excuse if you see anything not in place. Thanks to Shirish for some corrections.

Core Dump: AYANA @PESIT 2012

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:19:02 +0000

Last saturday (28-04-2012) I reached PESIT by 2.45 PM. Dinesh was giving the presentation on CMakeLists and git. He was about to finish the talk.

Dinesh talks on CMakeLists.txt

After Dinesh’s talk, Shantanu gave a good introduction about KDE. His objective was to give audience a good understanding about KDE.

There was one more KDE hacker Sinny

Altogether it was fun and good get together for me. Thanks to Phaneendra Hegde for arranging

the KDE hackathon

Syntax: Set up Rails 3.2.2 with Passenger, rvm and ngnix

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:38:55 +0000

Ruby on Rails is becoming more feature rich and powerful by every release. Naturally the steps to get it working in production environment are also being changed. I’ve been trying to set up Rails 3.2.2 for a while and here’s the method that finally worked. This method should work for the new Rails release, 3.2.3 too.

Install Server Operating System

We have a large pool of operating systems to select for our server. Though Debian Squeeze and CentOS have proved their stability in serving rails applications, I would prefer a LTS version of Ubuntu Server edition. I did a small survey, Many experienced programmers said they are using Ubuntu server as it’s easy to maintain, Packages are in plenty and has better stability. Also Canonical promises to give us 5 years of support for LTS edition operating systems. Current LTS edition is Ubuntu Server 10.04

Install RVM

Ruby Version Manager(RVM) helps to manage multiple ruby versions in a single machine. RVM helps us to quickly switch Ruby/Rails versions. Before installing RVM, we need to install git, curl and autoconf. Use the following command to do it:

$ sudo apt-get -y install git curl autoconf

Then install and configure RVM,


$ bash -s stable < <(curl -s https://raw.github.com/wayneeseguin/rvm/master/binscripts/rvm-installer)

$ echo '[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM function' >> ~/.bash_profile

Source ~/.bash_profile to add rvm as a function to shell

$ source ~/.bash_profile

Install Ruby

Before installing Ruby, we need to install all dependency packages. The following command lists the dependency packages.

$ rvm requirements

We can see a line with lots of package names, something like the following. Execute it directly with sudo in shell to install packages:


sudo /usr/bin/apt-get install build-essential openssl libreadline6 libreadline6-dev curl git-core zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-0 libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt-dev autoconf libc6-dev ncurses-dev automake libtool bison subversion

Next step is to install Ruby. Current latest version of Ruby 1.9.3. Let’s install it

$ rvm install 1.9.3

It will take a few minutes to fetch source, configure and compile.

After completing installation, we can set 1.9.3 as the default version:

$ rvm use 1.9.3 --default

Install passenger

Passenger is a free module for Apache and nginx to run Ruby applications. Luckily it’s available as a Ruby gem and it’s easy to install and configure it.

Install passenger gem

$ gem install passenger

Install and configure nginx

$ rvmsudo passenger-install-nginx-module

This command downloads nginx source code, builds it and finally configures passenger for us. Default location of ngnix is /opt/nginx and we can find the configuration in /opt/nginx/conf/nginx.conf

If you open nginx configuration, you can see the following lines have been already added into it in ‘http’ configuration:


passenger_root /home/ershad/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p125/gems/passenger-3.0.11;
passenger_ruby /home/ershad/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-1.9.3-p125/ruby;

Install Rails

Before installing rails, we will create a gemset. Gemset is feature of RVM where we can create multiple gemset to store different gems of different versions.

Let’s create a gemset for Rails 3.2.2


$ rvm gemset create rails322

$ rvm gemset use rails322

Installing rails is pretty straight forward.

$ gem install rails -v 3.2.2

If you are not interested in the documentation that comes along with rails gem, use the following command instead

$ gem install rails -v 3.2.2  --no-ri --no-rdoc

Install nginx init script

nginx init script by Jason Giedymin helps us to administer web server easily.

$ cd
$ git clone git://github.com/jnstq/rails-nginx-passenger-ubuntu.git
$ sudo mv rails-nginx-passenger-ubuntu/nginx/nginx /etc/init.d/nginx
$ sudo chown root:root /etc/init.d/nginx

Deploying application
Let’s store all rails applications under /var/rails_apps/ directory. Let’s make such a folder

$ sudo mkdir -p /var/rails_apps
$ sudo chmod 777 /var/rails_apps/ #giving full file permissions

Let’s create a sample rails application in rails_apps directory

$ cd /var/rails_apps
$ rails new helloworld
$ cd helloworld
$ vim Gemfile # and uncomment the line to include 'therubyracer' gem. We need a javascript runtime
$ bundle install
$ bundle exec rake assets:precompile #Precompile assets to public/ dir

Next step is point ngnix to this location. Add the following snippet in /opt/nginx/conf/nginx.conf


server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com;
rails_env production;
root /var/rails_apps/helloworld/public; # <--- be sure to point to 'public'!
passenger_enabled on;
}

Restart the server

 sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Your application must be alive and running now!

Points to remember

1) Rails application doesn’t get updated when we change the code. This is because we need to restart passenger explicitly

Restarting passenger is easy, we just have to create a file ‘restart.txt’ in tmp/ dir of the application. For example


$ cd /var/rails_apps/helloworld

$ touch tmp/restart.txt

2) Always precompile assets after generating controller or scaffold

3) Make sure you are migrating in ‘production’ environment. This can be done using the following command.

 rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

4) When you get errors related to routes, check the list of all routes

 $ rake routes

5) When something goes wrong, see log/production.log

6) If you happen to get passenger errors related to missing gems, just add those gems in Gemfile and use the following command

 $ bundle install --path vendor/bundle

That’s it. Happy hacking with Ruby on Rails. Thank you.

abundance of the heart: DjVu Digitization - Edit window

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 05:14:54 +0000

Over the past few years, my interactions with different Indic language Wikimedians involved in sister projects of Wikipedia (such as Wikisource, wiktionary, and so on) revealed that help/supporting materials available for sister projects are very less. But many senior wikimedians from Latin languages had helped us in the past. On Wikisource, for example, John_Vandenberg from English Wikisource has provided support in various forms when we were struggling.

When it come to sister wiki projects in Indic languages the sharing of best practices is very less. This blog post is a small step towards bridge that gap. Going forward with the help of Indic Wikimedians working in indic wiki projects I will be sharing best practices and stories from Indic Wiki communities.

This blog post is about a particular type of method we use in Wikisource to digitize old source texts. This post is hugely based on the original post published by Manoj, a Malayalam Wiki librarian, a few months ago.

The current method of adding content in Indic language Wikisources is slow and pain-staking. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) – which allows electronic conversion of printed matter into machine-encoded text – is not currently available in Indic languages. Few OCR FOSS tools are under various stages of development. So the only available option for us (Indic wiki librarians) is to type the content. Now what community members are doing is to have the physical book open, and type it out manually. Sometimes, they have a PDF of the document and they keep switching screens to type out. As you can imagine both of these are tedious.

There is an alternative which can provide some remedy to this – though it is still nowhere near OCR (for Indic languages). It will help in digitization and is based on an open source technology called, DjVu. (It is currently widely used in English and other Latin language script wikis.) Among Indic Wikis only Malayalam and Sanskrit Wiki librarians currently use it for their respective Wikisources. I believe that most other communities are not using it because they might not even be aware of it – and hence this post is for all Indic communities so that they may adopt / adapt some ideas from this.

In Wikisource world the topic I explained here is known as enabling and using the Proofread extension. But here I am explaining it from user perspective.

Instead of PDF as the format for digital archiving, the format used here is the DjVu format – which is an open file format designed primarily to store scanned documents. PDFs can easily be converted to DjVu format.)

To use this method in your wikisource, you need to enable Index and Page name spaces and few other technical things in your wikisource. Please write to me at shiju@wikimedia.org if you need assistance in this regard. John Vandenberg has also extended all his support for the same.

Let me show you how this is done – through an example of the recent book digitized in Malayalam wikisource, Keralolpathi. The Index page of Keralolpathi is shown below.

Main Index page of the book for Digitization

This book is scanned and converted to DjVu format. (Thanks to Manoj who is coordinating all these activies in Malayalam Wikisource). The page numbers of the book are listed at the bottom of the Index page as shown in the above image. The back ground color of each page number denote the current status of the digitization of different pages of the book

Red – The digitization of these pages are yet to be started
Pink Digitized, but pages are not proofread
Yellow Digitized and proof read once
Green – Approved pages (proof read twice)
Light blue – No content
Dark blue – Problem pages

Looking at the Index page you can select a page for contribution according to your interest. For example if you would like to proofread a page select light pink page and proof read. If you would like to digitize a new page by typing content click on red link, and so on.

DjVu Digitization - Edit window

For example, this will be the view that you see once you click on a particular page from Index page. The corresponding page in Malayalam wikisource is here.

The page you see on the right column is the scanned page. Our task is to type on the left column by looking at the page on the right side. By default the OCR facility associated with this DjVu system will try to scan and convert the text. However, as there is still poor OCR technology for Indic languages, there is very little meaningful content that is provided through this.

So we need to type on the left side edit box by looking at the scanned image which is always displayed on the right side. All one needs to is to type the content and save. That is it.

The process is simple and any one who has interest in contributing to your mother language wiki projects can participate. It removes the complication of having to manage actual books or different screens while typing – and thereby reduces effort, improves speed and is easier to control quality.

I want to dedicate this post to Indic language speakers who want to contribute to Indic language wikis but just getting lost due to various reasons. Wikisource is really one of the easiest ways to start in Wikimedia movement – and many start their journeys through it. There are relatively simpler policies than on Wikipedias. There is much less technical mark-ups. I myself started my jouurney with wikimedia movement by creating an account in Malayalam wikisource (even before Malayalam wikipedia or English wikipedia!)

The beauty of this is that you can help digitize and preserve content of areas that are of interest to you – whether it is literature, religion, or fiction or whatever!

In all of this, don’t forget that while you are contributing to Wikisource, you also end up reading wonderful, ancient books and documents!

Please write to me at shiju@wikimedia.org if you need assistance in this regard.

NOTE: A good OCR software is urgently required for Indic languages. Hope tech guys reading this post will look into this.

aashiks'in: Malayalam fonts package for Arch Linux updated in AUR

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:20:12 +0000

SMC has updated their excellent font pack for Malayalam. Details are here.

AUR link here

 yaourt -S ttf-malayalam-fonts

The above should update it on your Arch Linux system.

aashiks'in: Career: Level Up and Achievement Unlocked! moments

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 08:40:46 +0000

Yup. This year I leveled up and unlocked an achievement i had pursued for a long time. The achievement is more important and the level up is nothing compared to it.

The level up

I had been developing software projects at different companies and have been lucky enough to have worked on a wider array of projects than a run of the mill developer like me usually does. This year I leveled up to a solutions person – what this means is that i have found a job that finally allows me to take a problem faced by a client and come up with a solution – ie a vision, and not a chunk of work tossed down to be implemented.

The Achievement

I make my living off free and open source software now.

Technology and FOSS have influenced my outlook and technology has always weighed more. This influence even what I choose to do for a living and I think making that choice has paid off handsomely so far.

I met GNU/Linux and other free and open source software way before my career, and has been a staunch proponent since. I started off my career as a .Net developer though – Gaurav Vaish from the Mono project told me that .Net runtime would be available for FOSS users on GNU/Linux machines via the then fledgling Mono project, and having decided that .Net was waay sexier than Java, I chose .Net.

The start of my career also saw my interest in FOSS grow outside of its technical implications. The creation of Linux Users group here in my city in 2007 only strengthened it, and I always found time to participate in its activities.

Ever since the start of my career, this dichotomy has existed though- I was a developer using proprietary tools, making my living off proprietary tools, but advocating FOSS tools instead. People have always accused me of not practicing what I preached. This started becoming a deep itch after a while – I wanted to use FOSS tools to make a living and dabble with interesting proprietary stuff instead of the other way around.

I took a break from my career, and when I got back into it again, it was on Java – still using proprietary tools, but at least it was Java and (though horrible) Eclipse. A year later, another break resulted in me joining QBurst where the first choice is always a FOSS tool – be it a browser, OS or technology for a solution. This happened a few months ago.

Having been given a Linux machine, I have been operating at a higher productivity, learning more in one day than I did previously. Doing more things – write a small, operations level script in the morning, solve a problem in the afternoon, deal with code without having to run a hefty IDE – these are things once I dreamed of, and it is finally here. And I have some peace now . And yes, I do consider it an achievement – being able to make a choice when it comes to making a living.

Santhosh Thottingal: New version of Malayalam fonts released

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 13:24:05 +0000

Swathanthra Malayalam Computing project announced the release of new version of Malayalam unicode fonts this week. In this version, there are many improvements for popular Malayalam fonts Rachana and Meera. Dyuthi font has some bug fixes. I am listing the changes below.

Meera font was small compared to other fonts. This was not really a problem in Gnome environment since fontconfig allows you to define a scaling factor to match other font size. But it was an issue in Libreoffice, KDE and mainly in Windows where this kind of scaling feature does not work. Thanks to P Suresh for a rework on glyphs and fixing this issue.
Rachana, Meera and Dyuthi had wrong glyphs used as placeholder glyphs. Bugs like these are fixed.
Virama 0D4D had a wrong LSB that cause the cursor positioning and glyph boundary go wrong. Fixed that bug
Atomic Chilu code points introduced in Unicode 5.1 was missing in all the fonts that SMC maintained because of the controversial decision by Unicode and SMC’s stand against that. Issues still exist, but content with code point is present, to avoid any difficulties to users, added those characters to Meera and Rachana fonts.
Rupee Symbols added to Meera and Rachana. Thanks to Hiran for designing Sans and Serif glyphs for Rupee.
Dot Reph(0D4E) – The glyphs for this was already present in Meera but unmapped to any unicode point. GSUB Lookup tables added to the glyphs according to unicode specification.

For a more detailed change description see this mail thread. There are some minor changes as well.

Thanks to Hussain K H (designer of both Meera and Rachana) , P Suresh, Hiran for their valuable contribution. And thanks to SMC community and font users for using the fonts and reporting bugs. We hope that we can bring this new version in your favorite GNU/Linux distros soon. Wikimedia’s WebFonts extension uses Meera font and the font will be updated there soon. Next release of GNU Freefont is expected to update Malayalam glyphs using Meera and Rachana for freefont-sans and freefont-serif font respectively. We plan to update other fonts we maintain also with these changes in next versions. There are still some glyphs missing in these fonts with respect to the latest unicode version.

സപര്യ: ഞാന്‍ വിക്കിപീഡിയയെ സ്നേഹിക്കുന്നു :)

noreply@blogger.com (manoj.k.mohan) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:50:09 +0000

മലയാളികൾ വിക്കിമീഡിയയെ സ്നേഹിക്കുന്നു പരിപാടിയെക്കുറിച്ച് കൂടുതല്‍ വിവരങ്ങള്‍ .

എല്ലാം പെറുക്കിക്കൂട്ടി 71 ഓളം ചിത്രങ്ങല്‍ അപ്ലോഡി. നടന്ന് പോട്ടം പിടിക്കനൊന്നും സമയം കിട്ടിയില്ല.
കുറച്ച് ഇവിടെം പങ്കുവയ്ക്കുന്നു. കുറെനാളായി എന്റെ ബ്ലോഗ് പോസ്റ്റനക്കം ഇല്ലാതെ മറാലപിടിച്ച് തുടങ്ങിയിട്ട്. കിടക്കട്ടെ ഒരു പോസ്റ്റ്. :)
ചവറ് പോലെ അപ്ലോഡ് ചെയ്ത കാരണം എല്ലാത്തിനും വിശദമായ കുറിപ്പ് കൊടുക്കാന്‍ പറ്റിയില്ല. പരീക്ഷയെല്ലം കഴിഞ്ഞ് സ്വസ്ഥമായിരുന്ന് ശരിയാക്കണം.

അടാട്ട് ഗ്രാമപഞ്ചായത്ത് കാര്യാലയം

വിലങ്ങന്‍ കുന്നില്‍നിന്ന് ഒരു കാഴ്ച.

കൊയ്ത് കഴിഞ്ഞ പാടം

കൊയ്തുയന്ത്രം

കൃഷി വിജ്ഞാനകേന്ദ്രം, ഒമ്പതുമുറി പാടശേഖരം, അടാട്ട്

കൃഷ്ണനാട്ടം 2

ബയോഗ്യാസ് പ്ലാന്റ്

ശ്രീരാമകൃഷ്ണ ആശ്രമം, പുറണാട്ടുകര

മുതുവറ ശിവക്ഷേത്രം

പുഴക്കല്‍ പുഴയോര ടൂറിസം 1

പുഴക്കല്‍ പുഴയോര ടൂറിസം 2

ഞാന്‍ പഠിച്ച ഗവ. സ്കൂള്‍. ചൂരക്കാട്ടുകര

അതിരപ്പിള്ളി വെള്ളച്ചാട്ടം

കാപ്പാട് ബീച്ച്

തുഷാരഗിരി [കോഴിക്കോട്]

തുഷാരഗിരി

ചാമ്പക്ക

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: Open Hardware workshop at MTI Thrissur

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Open Hardware workshop at MTI Thrissur

March 8, 2012

Check out: open hardware workshop

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: Announcing the Recursive Labs blog

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Announcing the Recursive Labs Blog

March 6, 2012

Check out: recursive-labs.com/blog

r4g54g4r's h4ckl0g: ragsagar

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:33:35 +0000

With the WA3002G4 wireless router i got recently from my friend i made a wifi hotspot in home. Haven’t been downloading a lot since my script to reboot old teracom router was not working with the new one.Thinking that I should do something on the day which will come only in every four years I modified the old script to work with the new wireless router and I am sharing it here.

#!/usr/bin/env expect

set username admin
set pass admin
set host 192.168.1.1

spawn telnet ${host}

expect -re "Login:"
send "${username}\r"

expect -re "Password:"
send "${pass}\r"

expect -re "Main Menu"
send "13\r"
send "1\r"
expect eof

Core Dump: Work on Calligra Active

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:32:58 +0000

This month( including Jan last week 2012) was really fruitful for me for many reasons. I had got a chance to work on Calligra Active(CA). I had pushed a feature and 4 enhancements. Let me go through each of them.

Enhancement:

1) Adding support to display the current slide number in the CA.

2) When user opens the CA Presentation, he/she finds the total number of slides along with the current slide.

3) Hide the left arrow button ( previous slide/Spread sheet ) when user is in the first slide/sheet.

4) Hide the right arrow button ( next slide/Spread sheet) when user is in the last slide/sheet.

Feature:

1) The left panel of the CA Text doc will have the number of pages displayed on the left. User can click on the “Page+Number” text and move to that page.

A few more changes are required. I would love to have thumbnails just like okular!!! Need some time to implement it.

I got an excellent opportunity to learn on some basic QML. And know how the ListView and ListModel works.

Altogether I enjoyed Feb 2012. I would like to enjoy more, need to think more on the next work though.

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: My new online education venture - Recursive Labs

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

My new online education venture: Recursive Labs

Feb 27, 2012

My online education venture, Recursive Labs, is finally coming out of the testing phase. I have a bunch of students doing a test-run of my first course and I am planning to roll out more courses on a regular basis.

The major benefit of doing things online for me is that it makes things much more scalable - and I also get the opportunity to attract participants without any geographic restrictions.

For the students, I believe online classes provide a much more active learning experience.

Depending on the time at which students come to class, I used to call my regular classes "morning show", "matinee", "first show" etc. For many students, the class is just that - sitting as dumb spectators while the teacher provided "entertainment" on the board (or using an LCD projector). The teacher is the active agent here and the student is reduced to the role of a passive listener. I believe the online format helps in establishing the right equation - the teacher as merely a "mentor" while the student does the learning herself.

My first online course is an introduction to microcontroller programming using the TI MSP430 processor (and the inexpensive Launchpad development kit). The objective is to give the students a feel of "low-level" programming using a processor with a very simple and elegant architecture. The students are provided pdf documents/screencasts and they work out the material independently, interacting with me over a forum for clarifications. The code that they write is hosted on github (eg: a https://github.com/vijeenroshpw/MSP430Hacks).

I built a simple "course management system" using the amazing Play! framework. Given my distate for Java, I should have done the whole thing in Python/Django. But the creators of Play are such amazing geniuses that you wont feel any pain when you write a Play app using Java! With Play 2.0 shaping up nicely, you will also be able to write Play apps in Scala, and use interesting stuff like Anorm (for db access without an ORM) and Akka (Concurrency)!

Good front-end designers are very expensive - so it was great that Twitter released Bootstrap. You can sit down for an hour or two in an afternoon, do a bit of tweaking and have something up and running which will not invite ridicule! That was precisely what I did for my Play app's front-end! (It seems bootstrap comes integrated with Play 2.0).

I have plans for some exciting courses in the future ... in the meantime, if you know somebody who is looking to get into embedded systems + GNU/Linux, just tell them about Recursive Labs!

ബ്ലോഗ് ഭൂമി - e lekhanangal: ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ കച്ചവടം കൊഴുക്കുന്നു

noreply@blogger.com (വി. കെ ആദര്‍ശ്) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:19:40 +0000

ഇന്ത്യയിലെ ഇ-കൊമേഴ്സ് വിപണി ഇന്ന് വന്‍‌കുതിപ്പിലാണ്. ആമസോണിന്റെ ജംഗ്‌ളീ ഡോട്ട് കോം കൂടി എത്തിയതോടെ വിപണി ഉഷാറായി. ഫ്ലിപ്കാര്‍ട്ട്, ഇന്‍ഫിബീം, ഇന്ത്യാപ്ലാസാ പോലെയുള്ള ഇ-കച്ചവടക്കാര്‍ നേരത്തേ തന്നെ നാട്ടില്‍ സജീവമാണ്. ഭാവിയില്‍ മൊത്തം വില്‍പ്പനയുടെ മുഖ്യപങ്കും നടക്കുന്നത് ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റിലൂ‍ടെയാകും എന്ന് കണക്കാക്കുന്ന സാഹചര്യത്തില്‍ ഉടനെ തന്നെ കുറെയധികം പ്രബല സ്ഥാപനങ്ങള്‍ കൂടി ഓണ്‍‌ലൈനായി സാധന സാമഗ്രികള്‍ വില്‍ക്കാന്‍ എത്തും.

ചില്ലറ വില്പന രംഗത്ത് സ്വ/വിദേശ കുത്തക കമ്പനികള്‍ വരുന്നതിനെതിരെ നാട്ടില്‍ പ്രക്ഷോഭം ഇപ്പോഴും അടങ്ങിയിട്ടില്ലെങ്കിലും നിശബ്ദമായി നടക്കുന്ന ഈ കച്ചവടം ചെറിയ തുകയുടെ ഒന്നുമല്ല. പലവ്യഞ്ജനം പോലെയുള്ള സാധനങ്ങള്‍ വാങ്ങാന്‍ അല്ല നിലവില്‍ ഇതില്‍ ആളുകള്‍ എത്തുന്നത്, ഭാവിയില്‍ അതും സംഭവിക്കില്ല എന്ന് പറയാനുമാകില്ല. സംഗീതം, സംഗീത ഉപകരണങ്ങള്‍ , കളിപ്പാട്ടങ്ങള്‍ , കം‌പ്യൂട്ടര്‍ , മൊബൈല്‍ ഫോണ്‍ , പുസ്തകം എന്നിവയാണ് ഇലക്‍ട്രോണിക് ചന്തയില്‍ വഴി ഇപ്പോള്‍ വില്പന പൊടി പൊടിക്കുന്നത്. 2005 ന് ശേഷമാണ് ഇ-കൊമേഴ്സ് ഇന്ത്യയില്‍ കാര്യമായി വേരൂന്നാന്‍ തുടങ്ങിയത് എന്ന് വേണമെങ്കില്‍ പറയാം. ഇതൊക്കെ ഇവിടെ നടക്കുമോ എന്ന് ആശങ്കപ്പെട്ടവര്‍ പോലും അത്ദുതപ്പെടുന്ന തരത്തിലാണ് ഇപ്പോള്‍ കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ പുരോഗമിക്കുന്നത്.

കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ കുറച്ച് കൂടി വ്യക്തമാകാന്‍ ഇന്ത്യന്‍ ഇ-വിപണിയിലെ മുഖ്യതാരം ആയ ഫ്ലിപ്പ്കാര്‍ട്ടിലെ വ്യാപാരം ഒന്ന് അപഗ്രഥിച്ചാല്‍ മതിയാകും. ഡല്‍ഹി ഐ‌ഐടി യിലെ സഹപാഠികളായ സച്ചിന്‍ ബെന്‍സാലും ബിന്നി ബന്‍സാലും ആമസോണ്‍ ഡോട്ട് കോം എന്ന അമേരിക്കയിലെ പുകള്‍പെറ്റ ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ വില്പനശാലയില്‍ ജോലി ചെയ്യവേ ആണ് സമാനമായ ഒരു ഇന്ത്യന്‍ സംരംഭത്തെ പറ്റി ആലോചിക്കുന്നതും 2007 ല്‍ ഫ്ലിപ്പ്കാര്‍ട്ടിന് തുടക്കം കുറിക്കുന്നതും. വെബ് നിരീക്ഷകരായ അലക്‍സാ ഡോട്ട് കോമിന്റെ റാങ്കിംഗ് പ്രകാരം ഇന്ന് ഇന്ത്യയിലെ ആദ്യ 30 പോര്‍ട്ടലുകളില്‍ ഒന്ന് ഇതാണ്. 4500 പേര്‍ 27 നഗരങ്ങളിലെ ബാക്ക് ഓഫീസുകളിലായി പണിയെടുക്കുന്നു. പുസ്തകങ്ങളുടെ മാത്രം കണക്കെടുത്താല്‍ 1.15 കോടി ടൈറ്റിലുകള്‍ , 80 ലക്ഷം സന്ദര്‍ശകര്‍ ദിനേന 30,000 വില്പനകള്‍ ! ഇത് വര്‍ഷം തോറും കുത്തനെ കൂടുകയാണ്. കേവലം ഒരു ഫ്ലിപ്കാര്‍ട്ടിലെ മാത്രം നഖചിത്രമാണിത്. ഇത് പോലെ എത്രയെണ്ണം ഉണ്ട് അതിലേറേ വരാനിരിക്കുന്നു.

പുതുനിര ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ വില്പനശാലകള്‍ പല മുന്‍‌ധാരണകളെയും പൊളിച്ചെഴുതുന്ന തരത്തില്‍ തന്നെയാണ് വില്‍‌പനാതന്ത്രങ്ങള്‍ ഒരുക്കിയത്. പുസ്‌തകങ്ങള്‍ ആയാലും മറ്റ് സാധനങ്ങള്‍ ആയാലും പെട്ടെന്ന് തിരഞ്ഞെടുക്കാനും ഉപയോഗിച്ചവര്‍ എഴുതിയ അഭിപ്രായം വായിച്ച് നോക്കി എടുക്കാനും സാധിക്കുന്നു. ക്രെഡിറ്റ്/ഡെബിറ്റ് കാര്‍ഡോ ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് ബാങ്കിങ്ങോ ഇല്ലാത്തവര്‍ ഇതെങ്ങനെ ഉപയോഗിക്കും അതായത് പണമടവ് എങ്ങനെ നടപ്പാക്കും എന്ന് സംശയിച്ചവര്‍ ഏറെയായിരുന്നു. എന്നാല്‍ COD (കാഷ് ഓണ്‍ ഡെലിവറി) എന്ന സംവിധാനം ഇത്തരം കച്ചവടത്തെ അടിമുടി മാറ്റി, അതായത് ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് വഴി ബുക്ക് ചെയ്‌ത സാധനം കൊറിയര്‍ കമ്പനിക്കാര്‍ നമ്മുടെ വീട്ട് പടിക്കലെത്തിക്കുമ്പോള്‍ മാത്രം പണം കൊടുത്താല്‍ മതി, കാര്‍ഡ് പോയിട്ട് ബാങ്ക് അക്കൌണ്ട് പോലും വേണ്ട. തീര്‍ന്നില്ല 30 ദിവസത്തെ തിരികെയെടുക്കല്‍ ഉറപ്പ് (Replacement Guarantee), പല തവണകളായി പണം അടച്ച് തീര്‍ക്കാനായി പ്രമുഖ ധനകാര്യ സ്ഥാപനങ്ങളുമായുള്ള സന്ധിക്കലുകള്‍ (tie up) ഒക്കെ ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ സ്റ്റോറുകളെ പൊടുന്നനെ ജനപ്രീയമാക്കി. ഇന്ത്യയിലെ എത് ഭാഗത്തും ഉത്പന്നങ്ങള്‍ എത്തിക്കാനുള്ള സംവിധാനം ഇന്ന് മിക്കവര്‍ക്കും ഉണ്ട്. നല്ലൊരു തുക ഡിസ്‌കൌണ്ടും കിട്ടും എന്ന് മാത്രമല്ല കൊറിയര്‍ കമ്പനിക്കാരുമായി ധാരണയായിട്ടുള്ളതിനാല്‍ മിക്ക വാങ്ങലുകള്‍ക്കും ഉപയോക്താവ് പണം നല്‍കേണ്ടതുമില്ല.

പുസ്‌തകങ്ങളുടെ കാര്യം മാത്രം എടുത്താല്‍ തന്നെ ഓണ്‍‌ലൈന്‍ വില്പനാശാലകള്‍ക്ക് സാധാരണ നമുക്ക് കടന്ന് ചെല്ലാവുന്ന കടകളുമായി താരതമ്യപ്പെടുത്തുമ്പോള്‍ ഏറെ മെച്ചങ്ങളുമുണ്ട്. നഗരത്തിലെ ഏറ്റവും വലിയ ബുക്ക്ഷോപ്പില്‍ ചെന്നാല്‍ പോലും എല്ലാ പുസ്തകങ്ങളും ലഭ്യമാകണമെന്നില്ല. എന്നാല്‍ നേരത്തെ ഇവിടെ സൂചിപ്പിച്ച പോലെ ദശലക്ഷക്കണക്കിന് ടൈറ്റിലുകള്‍ ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് വഴി പരതാം ബുക്ക് ചെയ്യാം. രാജ്യത്ത് -ഒരു പക്ഷെ വിദേശത്തോ- പലയിടത്തായി എവിടെയാണോ നമുക്കിഷ്ടമുള്ള പുസ്‌തകം ഉള്ളത് അവിടെ നിന്ന് നമ്മുടെ വീട്ട്പടിക്കലേക്ക് ദിവസങ്ങള്‍ക്കകം തന്നെ കൊറിയര്‍ വഴി എത്തും. മാത്രമല്ല ഉത്പന്നം ഏതായാലും അതിനെ പറ്റിയുള്ള റിവ്യൂ അതാത് പേജില്‍ തന്നെ വായിക്കാം. നമുക്ക് വേണമെങ്കില്‍ അഭിപ്രായം എഴുതുകയും ചെയ്യാം. ഇപ്പോള്‍ നമ്മള്‍ ചര്‍ച്ച ചെയ്‌ത ഫ്ലിപ്പ്കാര്‍ര്‍ട്ട് എന്ന ഒറ്റ സൈറ്റില്‍ മാത്രം പോയ വര്‍ഷം 75 കോടി രൂപയുടെ കച്ചവടം നടന്നു. ഒന്നോര്‍ക്കുക കേരളത്തില്‍ മൊത്തം പോയ വര്‍ഷം എല്ലാ കടകള്‍ മുഖാന്തിരം നടന്ന ഇടപാട് ഇത്രയും വരണമെന്നില്ല! കേരളത്തിലെ അടക്കം പുസ്തകക്കടകളില്‍ നമ്മള്‍ ചെല്ലുമ്പോള്‍ രണ്ട് ദിവസത്തിനകം പുസ്‌തകം വരുത്തി തരാം എന്ന് ഉറപ്പ് ലഭിക്കുന്നത് ഫ്ലിപ്പ്ക്കാര്‍ട്ടിലോ ഇന്‍ഫിബീമിലോ നോക്കി ഉറപ്പാക്കിയിട്ടാണ് എന്നത് പരസ്യമായ രഹസ്യം.

ലോകത്തിലെ ഈ മേഖലയിലെ വമ്പന്മാരായ ആമസോണും പോയ വാരം ഇന്ത്യയിലെത്തിയത് മത്സരം കൊഴുക്കുന്നതിന്റെ സൂചനയാണ് നല്‍കുന്നത്. junglee.com എന്ന പേരിലാണ് ഇന്ത്യന്‍ സംരംഭം. തുടങ്ങി 5 ദിവസങ്ങള്‍ക്കുള്ളില്‍ തന്നെ ഫ്ലിപ്പ്ക്കാര്‍ട്ടില്‍ വരുന്നതിന്റെ ആറിലോന്ന് മറ്റോരു പ്രമുഖ സ്ഥാപനമായ ഇന്‍ഫിബീം സന്ദര്‍ശകരുടെ പകുതിയോളവും ജംഗ്‌ളീ യിലെത്തി. ഇങ്ങനെ എത്തുന്നവര്‍ ശരാശരി പത്ത് മിനിട്ടോളം സൈറ്റില്‍ സാധനങ്ങള്‍ തിരയാറുമുണ്ട്. ആമോസോണിന്റെ ഇന്ത്യന്‍ പതിപ്പ് നിലവില്‍ വന്നത് പരസ്യകോലാഹലമോ പത്രസമ്മേളനമോ നടക്കാതെ തന്നെയാണ് എന്നിട്ടും ഈ കനത്ത തോതിലുള്ള വില്പനാകണക്കുകള്‍ രേഖപ്പെടുത്തുന്നത് ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ വിപണിയുടെ സാധ്യത തന്നെയാണ് ചൂണ്ടിക്കാട്ടുന്നത്. ആമസോണിന്റെ പ്രശസ്‌തമായ കിന്‍ഡില്‍ ഇബുക്ക് റീഡര്‍ മുതല്‍ നാട്ടിലെ പ്രശസ്‌തമായ ഫാബ്‌ഇന്ത്യ തുണിത്തരങ്ങള്‍ വരെ വിപുലമായ ഉത്പന്ന നിരയുമായാണ് ജംഗ്‌ളി നെറ്റിസണ്‍മാരെ കാത്തിരിക്കുന്നത്

എക്‍സ്ട്രാ ബൈറ്റ് : ഇങ്ങനെ വരുന്ന സാധന സാമഗ്രികള്‍ അതാത് സംസ്ഥാനങ്ങളുടെ നികുതിക്കണ്ണിന് മുന്നിലൂടെയാണോ പോകുന്നത്. ഭൌതികമായി കാണാനാകുന്ന വില്പന കൊറിയര്‍ കമ്പനി റെയ്ഡ് ചെയ്‌തെങ്കിലും നമ്മുടെ സെയില്‍ ടാക്‍സ് ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥര്‍ക്ക് നികുതിയടിപ്പിക്കാം എന്നാല്‍ സംഗീത ആല്‍ബങ്ങളും സിനിമാ സിഡികളും ഓണ്‍‌ലൈനായി പണമടച്ച് ഡൌണ്‍ലോഡ് ചെയ്‌ത് ആസ്വദിക്കുന്നതിന് വല്ല കണക്കും ഉണ്ടോ. വരുന്ന ബഡ്‌ജറ്റില്‍ ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ വില്‍പ്പനക്കാരെ മാണി സാര്‍ പിടികൂടുമെന്ന് ഒരു പ്രസംഗത്തില്‍ കേട്ടു. എങ്ങനെയാണ് നടപ്പാക്കുകയെന്ന് കാത്തിരുന്ന് കാണാം .

abundance of the heart: shijualex

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 07:24:15 +0000

I have compiled the, statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias for the year 2011. In this report, my aim is to provide an analysis as well as my perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language wikipedias for the year 2011. (The period of analysis is editor contributions between 2011 January 1 and 2011 December 31). (Read 2010 report here). As always, a lot of the data for this report and analysis are based on the statistical data published at http://stats.wikimedia.org. Thanks to Erik Zachte for compiling all this information. I must also point out that this annual update contains a number of insights that are derived not from this data but directly from community members who have shared a very real-world picture.

2011 has been a very interesting year for Indic Wikipedias with the results of community building bearing fruit and some communities emerging as shining stars.

Here is my executive summary after analyzing the data for 2011:

Every Indic wikipedia community that has focused on community building has done well. Progress is slow but is steady and sustainable.
Doing outreach is not enough. Communities which have provided adequate support systems for newbies are beginning to show early results.
Projects where the emphasis is on article count are in trouble. Further the over usage of bots for article creation has affected the community strength of few languages.
Readership of Indic projects continues to increase and it makes our effort on community building not just central but now urgent as well.

There is so much potential – but that also means so much work!

Starting from this report, I would like to a slightly different from how we have looked at these figures in the past. According to me, community is central. Community will give us content which will drive readership. Therefore, I would like to report in the following sequence.

Community
Content
Readership

This is not merely a structuring nuance. It reflects a very profound conviction that we should all focus only on community building. Content and readership will inevitably follow.

Community

Community is the backbone of Wikimedia movement. It is important that respective language wiki communities is giving adequate importance to community building to achieve the goal of wikimedia movement. The following table give information on 3 important parameters about community.

Number of newly registered users who converted to wikipedians (new Wikipedians)
Number of users who had at least 5 or more edits a month (active Wikipedians)
Number of users who had 100 of more edits a month (high active Wikipedians)

Some of the important information that we can make out from this table are.

Most of the major Indic languages have number of speakers in crores. However, it is unfortunate to note that even the most active Indic wiki communities – Tamil and Malayalam – have only about 100 active users. (Tamil & Malayalam are the 5th & 11th most spoken languages of India respectively. This points to a huge disconnect between number of speakers and number of active users for all Indic language wikis.)
The shining stars of 2011 are Assamese, Sanskrit, and Odia for the smaller communities, Marathi for the medium-sized communities, and Tamil amongst the larger communities.
My personal view is that Assamese is the biggest success story of 2011 for a new community. Their systematic efforts have resulted in a high conversion rate in attracting newbies. (I have noted that in the recent outreach sessions in Assam, ~10% of attendees ended up becoming wiki editors. This is not only because of strong outreach but also because of staying in touch and providing them the “blanket” of warmth of a community.)
Marathi, Tamil, and Malayalam are doing well in converting new users to wikipedians.
Marathi’s growth in converting newbies to wikipedans is laudable especially when considering the fact that one year ago, the story was so different. Congrats to Marathi community for taking care of newbies and thereby building the community.
Tamil leads the path amongst all Indic communities on community building. Tamil community had held organic growth (that is, no bots or translation tools for article creation) as a very core belief and the results are fantastic. Also there are many projects inside wiki (for example, the photo contest.) I would encourage Tamil community to continue down this route and to encourage more community-wide collaboration so that a wider cross-section of editors feel they own the projects and more Tamil speakers join the project.
Assamese and Odia have driven growth through outreach and WikiProjects and this is wonderful as these are the most sustainable and effective channels. As you might know, one year ago there were no wiki communities for both the wikis.
Odia needs to focus on getting greater heterogenity in the community (age, sex & and profession wise) of editors. Right now, the profile is largely young people who are known to each other prior to wiki. Odia wiki needs more diversity. This applies to many other Indic Wiki communities where current active users belong to a particular age group.
Sanskrit is a great story on how a partnership can result in new community members. But the challenge is how to embed this partnership seamlessly into the Sanskrit Wikipedia community. For instance, it is extremely important that Sanskrit wikipedians start documenting in Sanskrit wikipedia all the outreach programs as well as all work on Sanskrit wiki – and start having more on-wiki discussions. These all are essential to building an integrated wiki community.
Malayalam has the highest number of active editors but in the last one year, the growth in the number of active editors is not encouraging. Even though community had done many outreach programs conversion rate is very less. Malayalam needs to have more impactful outreach sessions – as the number of outreach session happening now is decent, but the results are not.
Telugu and Kannada have shown declines in the active community members. It is important that we start communicating more frequently and regularly as a community, start collaborating on WikiProjects with other editors (even if there are only 2 editors in a WikiProject) and get newbies to join (by conducting outreach and providing hand-holding to them after these session.) I would add that Telugu needs to get more young editors. It is happy to note that both the language communities identified the importance of increasing the number of active users and already started working towards it. I am hopeful that the situation can change in the next few months with concerted community efforts.
Urdu, and Nepali must work across political borders to redress the issue of declining editors – which is alarming given the small community sizes.

Content

Number of articles is an important parameter, but it has misguided some wiki communities. Hindi is the biggest Indic language wikipedia in terms of number of articles. Hindi wikipedia crossed the 1 lakh article milestone 2011 August 30. Odia and Assamese shown higher percentage in article growth due to the fact that till 2011 both these wikis were inactive and were having less than 500 articles. Among active communities, Tamil and Sanskrit wikipedia’s growth in number of articles is impressive since both the communities insist on the biological growth of the articles.

Considering the number of articles and number of active editors, far and above the greatest success on content is Tamil and Malayalam. Tamil community has consistently driven new articles. I am sure community is giving importance to enhancing the quality also. Malayalam has focused on article quality and the edits per article show a consistently high level.
Edits per article for Bengali article is high. Bengali needs more active editors and need more articles as a natural outcome of that.
Newari and Bishnupriya Manipuri are in trouble in terms of number of articles (and number of active users also) because of the use of bots (in the past) to create articles and the lack of emphasis on community building and collaboration to improve articles. Similarly, Hindi, though it crossed the 1 lakh article count (which is great) has a big issue of not having an adequate community size to manage the volume and nature of tasks created by bots.
Assamese and Odia showed dramatic growths in the number of articles. Both the communities need to increase the strength of community which will increase the number and quality of articles.
Inspiringly, Sanskirt with just 50,000 speakers now has >7,000 articles – which is probably one of the best article to population ratios in the world. It needs much more collaborative editing though.

Readership

Readership is increasing for all Indic language wikipedias and the total figure has moved from 2 crore page veiws per month to 3 crores – which is more than 40% jump!

Most of the major Indic language wikis show 40% or more growth in readership which is quite impressive. Remember for most of the communities, this has happened without any outreach efforts. This suggests that we have readers and this will continue to increase.
Increase in readership for Odia, Assamese and Nepali point to strong potential for community building and outreach in these communities. This is a common conclusion across languages.
Incredibly, Sansrit has 4.5 lakh page views in December 2011- for a total number of 50,000 language speakers, which averages out to 9 page views per speaker (if one considers all speakers!)

Implications

I know you might think that I keep repeating myself but the lessons I am taking from the above (for ALL languages) are as follows:

Focus on community building through community interaction (through meetups, talk pages, village pumps, and mailing lists.)
Focus on community building through community collaboration (WikiProjects or planning outreach efforts or advocacy)
Focus on community building through doing more outreach, better outreach, and being supportive of newbies.
Do not get obsessed by article counts or readership. These are natural outcomes of community building.
Stay away from bots and translation tools for article creation as they do more harm than good. Use bots in such a way that it is not affecting the growth of community.

I welcome your comments on this annual update.

This annual update is also placed on meta wiki at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Indic_Languages/Statistics/2011_Annual_Update

Praveen Arimbrathodiyil blogs here: Little bit playful!

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:13:35 +0000

Rishma Damodar

Hearing about the life of Kani, daughter of social activist Maithreyan and Dr AK Jayashri is wonderful…

‘I call my dad Maithreyan only. And my mother Jayashrichechi (chechi is elder sister in Malayalam). They are not legally married. Rather, I call Jayashri chechi’s father and mother as dad and mom. I lived with them till I was 15. In a very conservative atmosphere. Maithrayen and chechi lived two houses far.” Kani remembers it with a smile in her small house.

This daughter is also in a different path as her parents. Started acting in plays since 15. Kani acted in movies when she felt it was not enough to live.

”There is only one thing Maithreyan and Chechi told me, don’t respond if you are asked about caste or religion. None of the school certificates have my caste or religion.”

Your father and mother seems different?…

Certainly. They have given me all the freedoms. In our country when a girl has to ask so many people for permissions even when choosing a frock. I’m not saying that is bad. But, there won’t be a place for that girls wishes.

But, it is not like that in my case. Even if I feel like smoking a cigarette, I don’t have to ask anyone. That doesn’t mean I believe smoking cigarette is a bad thing. But even that wishes I don’t have to let go.

Maithreyan and Chechi will tell about its bad effects. but, they never push their decisions on me. I’m not saying there is no difference of opinions. We criticize each other and get angry. But, only for a small time. If I feel like doing something, they only say ‘do it if you like’. But, suppose I do something on my own. If there is a problem in that, they won’t move aside saying, ‘you decided it, you deal with it’. They will be with me.

Are you also opposed to marriage like them?

I have not decided anything now. My dad and mom won’t say ‘you are this old, why don’t you get married’. They will say live with anyone you like. It is my choice.

How did you get into acting in plays?

I used to participate in Sanskrit festival in school. I used to act Kavalam Narayanappaniker’s plays.

Even before that, feminist movement in Thiruvananthapuram ‘Sakhi’ organized many street plays. When mom and dad goes for that, I used to go with them. I was studying in 5th then. I did not have any reluctance to act like this, then.

I learned about requirement of a girl actor in ‘Abhinaya’ theater research center of Thiruvananthapuram when I was in 10th.

By then I had a feeling that play is good. Then, as I grew up, I became very body conscious. I was not in a state to decide anything. After seeing my state, Jayashri Chechi said, ‘you just go and check there. Don’t act if you don’t like. I started liking plays when I reached ‘Abhinaya’. I thought I can make a it my profession.

At last, I went to study in Thrissur school of drama. I acted in one or two plays. it was then that play director Abhilash Pillai came to take ‘Khasakinte Ithihasam’ (History of Khasak). He told me about ‘International school of Jacques Lecoq‘. So I joined a one year course.

I learned more about acting when I went to France. Perspective about life also changed a lot. I only wanted everyone to talk good about me. I even moved aside even small things I wanted to do. But life in France changed all that.

Here we do even things we like secretly saying it is against culture. A small example. I go to a public space. Boys can drink there openly. But if any girls drink at all? It will be a big problem. Earlier I used to give up even if I wished to do it.

But, after that I occasionally drank as part of socializing. But, I don’t drink now. I don’t like its taste, that’s the reason. I don’t think there is anything bad in drinking.

In short you became a rebel after coming back from France?

I don’t think living as one wish is rebelling.

There was a letter from Maithreyan, recently. It read like this, ‘you also have a right to smoke and drink like anyone. Smoking cigarette is comparatively bad. Because, it affects others too. There is nothing wrong in drinking socially. But please don’t drink like it is bad in secret.

I don’t compromise on things I like. I am careful to create a space for that always. Suppose when I travel at night and someone try to grab me. I will try not to provoke him by saying ‘I don’t like anyone touching me’. There were many experiences like that. When traveling at night, one or two men come to me and ask ‘where are you going this night?’. I say something like ‘Aiyyo, sorry brother, I came here by mistake’ and leave.

When you decided to try a hand at movies?

When I was back from France, Shankar Ramakrishnan asked me to act in Island Express in ‘Kerala Cafe’. After that I did ‘Cocktail’. It was the role of a prostitute. Then, Naxal girl in ‘Shikar’ (Prey), then small roles in ‘Karmayogi’ and ‘Urumi’.

Do anyone come with you in film-play sites?

I go alone wherever it is. I didn’t feel girls are not safe be it in play or films. So, if someone likes me physically. When I say I’m not interested, I have seen only people who say ‘ok’ and leave, in both fields. Nobody behaved badly with me.

Name also seems different like the person?

Maithreyan and Chechi named me Kani. When I was enrolled in school, Principal asked, ‘What is her initials?’, so Chechi added an initial just like that, ‘Kani K’. When I reached 10th, teacher asked me, ‘I need expansion of your name.’ When I came home and narrated this, Maithreyan and Chechi told me ‘you pick anything you like.’ So I chose ‘Kani Kusruthi’. (Kusruthi means playful in Malayalam). My passport and all has that name.

Future endeavors?

There is a famous theatre group. Footsbarn. I’m with footsbarn for 2 years. Go inside and outside India with play acting. That is my plan.

Originally appeared in Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi

Anoop John: Script to connect automatically to Reliance broadband internet connection

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:42:45 +0000

We had switched to a Reliance broadband internet connection recently from our Asianet connection. Reliance connections requires you to authenticate via http to get connected to the Internet. This was a minor inconvenience since we wanted to connect and remain connected without having to login manually. For this we created a script that will login automatically to the Reliance broadband connection and will also reconnect automatically if the connection is dropped. The script that we created has been released via our github account as Free Software under GPL.

Praveen Arimbrathodiyil blogs here: SOPA and PIPA are not Dead.

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:11:17 +0000

Some of you are probably pretty happy around now. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Yay, we’ve defeated SOPA and PIPA! Yay, victory us!!!”

Actually, you’ve lost. You’ve lost this war, because you… along with everyone else in this half-decayed republic of ours, allow a specific hot button issue to cloud your judgement and allow public sentiment to be unanimous concerning one specific topic.

Pedophiles.

You may be wondering what the hell Pedophiles have to do with Internet Censorship. The answer is; Everything. You cannot win, you are going to lose your internet freedom. You will be monitored, you will be followed and every act and idea you commit to the web will be logged and archived in the halls of Government.

All because you’re afraid of Pedophiles. If you aren’t, then maybe I am using the Royal “YOU” to comment on the public at large; the ignorant Baby Boomers who don’t understand the interwebs, the vacuous youth who haven’t learned the hard way that real opinions don’t make you many friends and often alienate you.

The sort of “YOU” that cannot argue that Pedophiles, just like Homosexuals, have a right to Exist.

It’s that “YOU” that is responsible for the death of the internet.

“But Wait, Heretic,” You might say. “The Net isn’t DEAD yet, we beat SOPA! We Beat PIPA!”

Wrong. You’ve insured your defeat. Consider the following;

http://investmentwatchblog.com/threatening-new-bill-worse-than-sopapipa-this-bill-entitled-the-protecting-children-from-internet-pornographers-act-of-2011-is-a-bill-with-overly-broadened-language-that-greatly-threatens-all/#.Tx0xqPk8d8G

No no. Follow the link. Copy-pasta if you must. You read it. You understand it… and realize that it is from the same corporate schill that propose SOPA and PIPA.

“What is this thing?” You might ask. Well if you’re part of the vast illiterati, I’ll explain you the thing (Bad grammar intentional).

H.R. 1981 is titled “The Protect Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″.

It is a bill that requires the following; Your real, legal I.D. name, personal home address, IP address, browsing history, search terms you’ve searched and the complete details of your online habits are to be made trackable and must be logged by all ISP’s.

“Wait a second!” You might argue, “That has nothing to do with Children!”

At this point in the discussion is where I typically chime in with; I told you so.

For the last twelve years of my life, I’ve been arguing rationality in the face of rampant, frothing at the mouth hatred concerning Pedophiles and the various scaremongering news articles that are propogated and proliferated across the news media services and sites.

I recognized that this one topic, out of any topic, is where people lose any sense of proportion or reason; people cease thinking or functioning when a discussion starts involving, “People that diddle children”. Or people that might, hypothetically, because of pornography they look at, decide to diddle children.

“That’s monstrous, Heretic,” You might say. “Why would you defend people such as this?”

The answer is I am defending you. I am defending humanity, because if you allow a portion of humanity to become classified as sub-human, you allow the Government to abuse that concept for it’s own gain.

I am defending Pedophiles as human beings, because if I don’t, someone will be next. And then another. Who would it be? The Furries? People into BDSM? Japanese Hentai fans with their schoolgirl fetishes?

It turns out, no. They didn’t just move on to other fetishists and people with peculiar or abnormal paraphilias. They skipped them and decided to bilk the public.

Oh, fat surprise.

This bill will pass. It will pass because nobody in the Congress or House will vote against it. They won’t vote against it because it’s to protect children from Pedophiles.

And there you have it, folks. Because Pedophiles are universally reviled by society, you have your reason that all of your freedom gets to be stripped away.

Not because you are guilty, and it certainly isn’t because you might have child pornography on your computer.

H.R. 1981 isn’t for pornography, it’s the mechanism of control. It is the perfect tool to combat piracy, to punish the public and to create… as some writers would term it… Total Criminality.

You’re a criminal because you’re on the internet.

Who is to blame for this? You are. You are because you didn’t defend the most reviled people in society, did not argue for their rights, did not protect them from having their human rights stripped away.

You can blame yourself for the death of the Internet, because you never put yourself on the line to take the stand nobody else would take.

But I’m sure it’s fine. I’m sure you’re okay with this, because after all, some of you MIGHT be pedophiles.

So when your children ask you when the internet died, you can look them straight in the eyes and tell them it was murdered by everyone who couldn’t stand to think of Pedophiles existing on earth, and how the very idea of such a thing was enough for us to hand our betrayers the keys to the house.

If, on the other hand, you aren’t okay with this bill… I encourage you to fight against it. I say this while laughing, because good fucking luck; the entirety of the U.S. super-ego will crush you into a fine powder rather than hear anyone object to a bill protecting kids from Pedophiles.

Oh, and if you do want to fight the destruction of the internet, why don’t you share this with everyone you know. Print it and give it to your mum, pass it out to the elderly and the infirm, read it to your teenage children, make people understand.

Though I don’t have much hope of THAT happening.

This has been your Heresy of the Day.

Note: Repost of a diaspora update by The Heretic Of Ethics

r4g54g4r's h4ckl0g: ragsagar

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:12:20 +0000

Last month itself there were talks that the final year BE/BTech results will be available by January first or second week. When it became January there were posts in various unofficial blogs that the results will be coming out by January 4th. Blogs said that on worst case it will be postponed to January 5th and they even stated the time University will be updating it in the database. But days passed, nothing happened. And this cycle is still going on. I was thinking how much traffic will they be getting during these days. I just wanted to know how much clicks they will be getting for using those particular keywords in their posts. Even if they are providing fake news they will be getting lots of hits. Even i am checking those blogs twice daily. They are exploiting students’ eagerness to know about their examination results. Let me check the increase in number of traffic to this blog after posting this. I will come up with an update to this post if there is considerable increase in number of clicks.
BTW, now one of the University site says that the results are expected to come out by January 12th.

Update: Yeah, This post did bring more than 100 hits in a single day as expected.

ബ്ലോഗ് ഭൂമി - e lekhanangal: 2012 ഐ ടി

noreply@blogger.com (വി. കെ ആദര്‍ശ്) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:13:11 +0000

ലാപ്‌ടോപ്പ് , സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണ്‍ , ടാബ്‌ലറ്റ് കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറുകള്‍ എന്നിവ തമ്മിലുള്ള അതിര്‍വരമ്പുകള്‍ ഇല്ലാതാകാന്‍ അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ നേര്‍ത്തതാകാന്‍ ഇടയുണ്ട്, ഇതിനോടകം തന്നെ സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണും ടാബും തമ്മില്‍ വലിപ്പത്തിന്റെ വ്യത്യാസം മാത്രമേ ഉള്ളൂ എന്ന് പറയാം. ചുരുക്കം ചില കമ്പനികളേ ടാബ് , സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണ്‍ വിപണിയില്‍ ഇത് വരെ ഇറങ്ങിയിട്ടൂള്ളൂ എങ്കിലും ഈ വര്‍ഷം വിപണിയില്‍ ഭാവികാലത്തും പിടിച്ച് നില്‍ക്കണം എന്ന് താത്പര്യമുള്ളവരെല്ലാം ടാബുമായി എത്തും. ഒപ്പം തന്നെ ടാബിനും സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണിനും മധ്യേ ഇരിപ്പുറപ്പിക്കാവുന്ന തരത്തിലുള്ള ഉപകരണങ്ങളും മത്സരിക്കും , നിലവില്‍ ഗാലക്‍സി നോട്ട് ഈ വിടവില്‍ സാന്നിദ്ധ്യമറിയിച്ച് കഴിഞ്ഞു. ലോകമാകമാനം സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണുകളുടെ സഞ്ചിത ശരാശരി വളര്‍ച്ചാ നിരക്ക് (CAGR) ഇരട്ട അക്കത്തിലാണ്, സാധാരണ ഫോണുകളുടേതാകട്ടെ ഒറ്റ അക്കത്തിലും. ഇത് കൃത്യമായി വിരല്‍ ചൂണ്ടുന്നത് വരും വര്‍ഷങ്ങളിലെ സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണ്‍ വിപണിയുടെ വളര്‍ച്ചയിലേക്ക് തന്നെയാണ്. ഫോണ്‍ വിപണിയുടെ ചരിത്രം തന്നെ നോക്കിയാല്‍ ഇത് മനസിലാകും. ഒറ്റവര്‍ണ സ്‌ക്രീനില്‍ നിന്ന് ബഹുവര്‍ണ സ്‌ക്രീന്‍ സൌകര്യത്തിലേക്ക് നാം പറിച്ച്നടപ്പെട്ടതിലും വേഗത്തിലാകും സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണിലേക്കുള്ള വളര്‍ച്ച. കേവലം വിളി ഉപകരണം മാത്രമല്ല കൈഫോണുകള്‍ എന്ന തിരിച്ചറിവാകാം ചില ഉപഭോക്താക്കളെ എങ്കിലും മാറ്റത്തിന് പ്രേരിപ്പിക്കുന്നത്.

മൊബൈല്‍ ഫോണിലേക്ക് ആദ്യം കൂട്ടിയിണക്കപ്പെട്ടത് ക്യാമറ ആയിരുന്നെങ്കില്‍ പിന്നീട് പാട്ട് പെട്ടി , സഞ്ചരിക്കുന്ന സിനിമാ തീയേറ്റര്‍ , സ്ഥലമാപിനി (ജി പി എസ് ), ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് (ജി പി ആര്‍ എസ് / ത്രി ജി) , വായന (ബുക്ക്/ പി ഡി എഫ് റീഡര്‍ ), ബാങ്കിംഗ് (ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് /മൊബീല്‍ ബാങ്കിംഗ് ) ഒക്കെയായി ഫോണ്‍ മാറി. പോയ രണ്ട് വര്‍ഷങ്ങളിലായി മൊബൈല്‍ ഓപ്പറേറ്റിംഗ് സിസ്റ്റത്തിന്റെ വ്യാപകമായ സ്വീകാര്യത നവം‌നവങ്ങളായ എത്രയോ ആപ്ലിക്കേഷനുകളാല്‍ ഇന്ന് നമ്മുടെ ഫോണുകളെ വിവര സമ്പന്നമാക്കി കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. ആന്‍‌ഡ്രോയ്‌ഡ്, ആപ്പിള്‍ ഐ ഓ‌എസ് , ബ്ലാക്ക് ബെറി എന്നിവയിലായി അഞ്ച് ലക്ഷത്തിലേറേ ആപ്ലിക്കേഷനുകള്‍ നിലവിലുണ്ട് ഒരു പക്ഷെ ഈ വര്‍ഷാവസാനത്തിന് മുന്നെ തന്നെ ഇത് പുതിയ കടമ്പ കടന്നേക്കാം.

മൊബൈല്‍ ഫോണില്‍ സന്നിവേശിപ്പിച്ചിട്ടുള്ള ഒരോ ഘടകത്തിനും സാമാന്യ ചിന്തയ്‌ക്ക് അപ്പുറത്തെ പ്രയോഗ സാധ്യതകളാണ് വരുന്നത്. ഒരു ഉദാഹരണം എടുത്ത് കാട്ടാനായി കാമറയുടെ കാര്യം തന്നെ നോക്കാം. ഉചിതമായ ഒരു ആപ്ലിക്കേഷന്‍ കൂട്ടിച്ചേര്‍ത്താല്‍ ഫോണ്‍ ക്യാമറയെ ബാര്‍ കോഡ് ഒപ്പിയെടുക്കല്‍ സംവിധാനമാക്കാം. വിപണിയിലെ പല ഉത്പന്നങ്ങളുടേയും പുറം‌ചട്ടയില്‍ കുത്തനെയുള്ള വരകളുടെ കൂട്ടം കാണമല്ലോ. സാധാരണയായി ബാര്‍കോഡ് സ്‌കാനര്‍ എന്ന ഉപകരണം ഉപയോഗിച്ച് കടകളില്‍ വിലയിടല്‍ വേളയിലാണ് ഈ വരകളെ വിവരമാക്കി ബില്ലില്‍ അച്ചടിച്ച് തരുന്നത്. എന്നാല്‍ ഇതിന് വേണ്ടിയുള്ള ആപ്ലിക്കേഷന്‍ സജീവമാക്കിയാല്‍ ഉടന്‍ തന്നെ മൊബൈല്‍ ഫോണ്‍ കാമറ വരകള്‍ക്ക് അഭിമുഖമായി പിടിച്ച് ക്യാമറ ക്ലിക്ക് ചെയ്താല്‍ ഉത്പന്ന/പുസ്തക വിവരം ഫോണ്‍ സ്‌ക്രീനില്‍ എത്തും. അതായത് ക്യാമറയെ വെറും പടമെടുക്കല്‍ സംവിധാനമായല്ല സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണ്‍ കാണുന്നത്. സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണ്‍ ഉപയോഗിച്ചുള്ള വൈദ്യശാസ്ത്രവുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട പ്രയോഗങ്ങളും നിലവില്‍ വന്നു കഴിഞ്ഞു, ചിലത് പണിപ്പുരയിലുമാണ്. വരും വര്‍ഷങ്ങളില്‍ ഫോണിന് മെഡിക്കല്‍ മേഖലയില്‍ വര്‍ധിച്ച സാധ്യതകളാകും തുറക്കപ്പെടുക.

എടുത്ത് പറയേണ്ട മറ്റൊരുമാറ്റം സമീപസ്ഥ വിനിമയ ധാര -സവിധ! (Near Field Communication) ആകും. സവിസം പ്ലാസ്റ്റിക് പണമായ ഡെബിറ്റ്/ക്രെഡിറ്റ് കാര്‍ഡുകളെ ഇല്ലായ്‌മ ചെയ്യും എന്ന് പോലും പ്രവചിക്കുന്നവര്‍ ഉണ്ട്. ക്യാമറ പോലെ തന്നെ ഫോണിനുള്ളില്‍ കൂട്ടിച്ചേര്‍ക്കപ്പെടുന്ന ഈ ഹാര്‍ഡ്‌വെയര്‍ ഉപയോഗിച്ച് തൊട്ടടുത്തുള്ള ഫോണുകള്‍ തമ്മിലോ അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ കടകളിലെ ബില്ലിംഗ് ഉപകരണമായോ ബന്ധിപ്പിച്ച് പണമടവ് നടത്താം. എ ടി എം ന് പകരം വ്യാപകമായി ഉപയോഗിക്കപ്പെട്ടേക്കാം, പെട്ടെന്ന് മറ്റോരു മികച്ച ബദല്‍ ഉപകരണം ഉരുത്തിരിഞ്ഞ് വന്നില്ലെങ്കില്‍ അടുത്ത കാലത്ത് സമീപസ്ഥ വിനിമയ ധാര മേല്‍‌ക്കൈ നേടും. എ ടി എം മുറിയില്‍ ഇത് മതിയാകും പണമെടുക്കാന്‍ . 2014 ആകുമ്പോള്‍ 50 ശതകോടി ഡോളര്‍ പണം സവിധ ഉപകരണങ്ങള്‍ കൈകാര്യം ചെയ്യുമെന്ന് അനുമാനിക്കപ്പെടുന്നു. വീസ , അമേരിക്കന്‍ എക്‍സ്‌പ്രസ്, മാസ്റ്റര്‍ കാര്‍ഡ് എന്നീ‍ പ്രബലര്‍ ഇതില്‍ നേരിട്ടോ അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ സാങ്കേതിക പങ്കാളി വഴിയോ നിക്ഷേപമിറക്കി കഴിഞ്ഞു. രസകരമായ മറ്റൊരു സമാന ഉപകരണം സ്‌ക്വയര്‍ ആണ്. ഐ ഫോണിലെ ഹെഡ്ഫോണ്‍ ജാക്കില്‍ പിടിപ്പിക്കാവുന്ന കാര്‍ഡ് റീഡര്‍ ആണ് ഇത്. പണക്കൈമാറ്റം ആവശ്യം വരുമ്പോള്‍ കാര്‍ഡ് ഇതില്‍ ഉരസിയാല്‍ പണം നല്‍കാം. സവിധ ആയാലും സ്‌ക്വയര്‍ ആയാലും ഇ-കൊമേഴ്സിന്റെയും എം-കൊമേഴ്സിന്റെയും വരും കാല ഉപയോഗത്തിന്റെ സാധ്യത ആണ് ഉറപ്പിക്കുന്നത്. സ്‌ക്വയര്‍ എന്ന സംരംഭത്തിന് ചുക്കാന്‍ പിടിക്കുന്നത് ട്വിറ്ററിന്റെ സഹസ്ഥാപകനായ ജാക്ക് ഡോഴ്സിയും.

എടുത്ത് പറയാവുന്ന മാറ്റം ഈ വര്‍ഷം നടക്കാനിടയുള്ളത് ടെലിവിഷനിലാകും. ഇതിനോടകം തന്നെ കേരളവിപണിയിലടക്കം സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ടിവി വരവറിയിച്ച് കഴിഞ്ഞു. സോഷ്യല്‍ നെറ്റ്വര്‍ക്കിംഗും യൂ ട്യൂബ് വീഡിയോയും ഒക്കെ ലഭിക്കുന്ന ടി‌വിക്ക് വര്‍ധിച്ച സ്വീകാ‍ര്യത ആണ് ലഭിച്ച് വരുന്നത്. ടി വി യും ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റും സമ്മേളിക്കുന്ന അനുഭവം (Convergence) . ഒപ്പം തന്നെ സ്‌ക്രീന്‍ സാങ്കേതികവിദ്യയിലും വന്‍‌കുതിച്ച് ചാട്ടമാണ് സംഭവിക്കുന്നത്, ഇത് ഊര്‍ജ ഉപഭോഗത്തില്‍ കുറവ് ഉണ്ടാക്കുന്നു , മിഴിവുള്ള ചിത്രങ്ങള്‍ നയനാന്ദകരമായി സ്വീകരണ മുറിയിലെത്തുന്നു. ഗെയിമിങ്ങ് സൌകര്യങ്ങളായ ഹാര്‍ഡ്‌വെയര്‍ കൂട്ടിയിണക്കാനും ഇന്ന് ടി‌വിക്ക് സാധിക്കുന്നു. ചില നിര്‍മ്മാതക്കള്‍ ആകട്ടെ ഉള്‍ച്ചേര്‍ന്ന (in built) രീതിയില്‍ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടര്‍ ഗെയിമിങ്ങ് ഹാ‍ര്‍ഡ്‌വെയര്‍ ടി വി ക്കുള്ളില്‍ തന്നെ ചേര്‍ക്കുന്നു. പ്രകടമായ മറ്റൊരു മാറ്റം കാണാന്‍ സാധ്യത ഉള്ളത് ടി വി റിമോട്ടുകള്‍ക്കാകും. വിവരം ടൈപ്പ് (text input) ചെയ്യലും മൌസ് മുന ചലിപ്പിക്കാന്‍ പറ്റുന്ന സ്‌ക്രോള്‍ വീലും റിമോട്ടില്‍ വ്യാപകമായി വരാന്‍ ഇടയുണ്ട്. ഇതില്ലാതെ പൂര്‍ണ ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് അനുഭവം പെട്ടെന്ന് സാധ്യമാകുവതെങ്ങനെ ! ശബ്ദ നിയന്ത്രിത സൌകര്യവും റിമോട്ടിലേക്ക് / ടി വി യിലേക്ക് വരുമെന്ന് കണക്കു കൂട്ടുന്നവരും കുറവല്ല, ചാനല്‍ മാറ്റാന്‍ ആജ്ഞാപിച്ചാല്‍ മതി ബട്ടന്‍ അമര്‍ത്തേണ്ടതില്ലന്ന് ചുരുക്കം

സിനിമാ ഗാനങ്ങള്‍ ട്യൂണിനൊപ്പിച്ച് എഴുതുന്നു എന്ന ആക്ഷേപം പോയ ദശകങ്ങളില്‍ പലവുരു ചര്‍ച്ചയായതാണ്. എന്നാല്‍ ഇനി കേള്‍ക്കാനാകുക പാട്ടെഴുതുന്നത് റിംഗ് ടോണിനൊപ്പിച്ചാണ് എന്നതാകും. സംവാദങ്ങളില്‍ ഇത് ഇടം പിടിച്ച് തുടങ്ങിയിട്ടില്ലെങ്കിലും ഹിന്ദിയില്‍ ഇത് തുടങ്ങിക്കഴിഞ്ഞെന്ന് പറയാം. വരാനിരിക്കുന്ന സിനിമ ഹിറ്റാകാന്‍ ഉപകരിക്കുമെന്ന് മാത്രമല്ല , ഇത് വഴി നല്ലോരു തുക വരുമാനമായും നിര്‍മാതാവിന് ലഭിക്കുമെന്ന സാമ്പത്തിക മേന്മയുമുണ്ട്. സിനിമാ മാര്‍ക്കറ്റിംഗിന് സോഷ്യല്‍ നെറ്റ്വര്‍ക്കിംഗ് ഉപാധികള്‍ മികച്ച തന്ത്രബോധത്തോടെ തന്നെ 2012 ല്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കും എന്നതില്‍ തര്‍ക്കമില്ല. സിനിമ ടെലി‌വിഷനില്‍ റിലിസ് ചെയ്യുന്നത് പോലെ വീഡിയോ ഷെയറിംഗ് സൈറ്റുകളായ യൂ ട്യൂബ് പൊലെയുള്ളവ വഴി എല്ലാ നാടുകളിലെയും കാഴ്ചക്കാരെ തേടി ഔദ്യോഗികമായി തന്നെ എത്തും.

പ്രാദേശിക ഭാഷകളിലെ ആപ്ലിക്കേഷനുകള്‍ മൊബീല്‍ ഫോണുകളില്‍ ഇടം പിടിക്കേണ്ടത് അനിവാര്യതയാകും. വിവിധ കമ്പനികള്‍ തമ്മിലുള്ള പേറ്റന്റ് യുദ്ധം മുറുകാന്‍ ഇടയുണ്ട്. കമ്പനികളും സര്‍ക്കാരും പരമ്പരാഗത മാധ്യമങ്ങളും എങ്ങനെയാകും ഫേസ്‌ബുക്ക്, ട്വിറ്റര്‍ , യൂ ട്യൂബ് തുടങ്ങിയ സോഷ്യല്‍ നെറ്റ് വര്‍ക്കിംഗ് ഉപാധികളെ ഉരുക്ക്/നിയമ മുഷ്ടി കൊണ്ട് നേരിടുമോ സക്രീയമായി ഈ നവമാധ്യമത്തെ വരിക്കുമോ എന്നും 2012 തീരുമാനിക്കും. 2011 ന്റെ പാഠം അതാണല്ലോ സൂചിപ്പിക്കുന്നത് .

Jaggu's world: Hadoop Database access experiment

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:28:57 +0000

Over a couple of weeks I was reading and practicing the book "Hadoop in Action". After getting some insight on Hadoop and Map Reduce I worked out a couple of examples from the book and some example problems which I created too. Then I was discussing about features of Hadoop with some of my colleagues over a cup of tea. One of the guy asked a question regarding accessing database from Hadoop and process the data. I saw some discussions related to Hadoop and database access some where in the internet. Finally I digged-out the article "Database Access with Hadoop" for Cloudera blog. After reading the same I decided to work with a sample problem.

To workout the Hadoop database access sample program. Before some times I extracted a bunch of Tweets related to Gmail's new look and feel. I extracted the Tweets for some social media analysis practice. The extraction was done using Twitter4j API. The data is stored in MySQL database. The database table contains one table called NewGamil with following structure.
        +-----------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
        | Field           | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
        +-----------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
        | TweetId        | int(11)      | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
        | Tweet           | varchar(240) | YES |     | NULL    |                |
        +-----------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
The problem which selected to workout is fetch all the tweets from the table 'NewGamil' and perform a word count. The word count result has to be stored in HDFS. In-fact there are ways to write data back to database itself. But I decided first experiment with read from database ;-).

Hadoop provides a handy API for accessing database; the DBInputformat API. The API allows us to read data from RDBMS like MySQL, PostgreSQL of Oracle . To access the data from DB we have to create a class to define the data which we are going to fetch and write back to DB. In my project I created a class namely GetTweets to accomplish the same.

    public static class GetTweets implements Writable, DBWritable {
        String strTweet;

        public GetTweets() {

        }

        public void readFields(DataInput in) throws IOException {

            this.strTweet = Text.readString(in);
        }

        public void readFields(ResultSet resultSet) throws SQLException {
            // this.id = resultSet.getLong(1);
            this.strTweet = resultSet.getString(1);
        }

        public void write(DataOutput out) throws IOException {

        }

        public void write(PreparedStatement stmt) throws SQLException {

        }

    }

Since I am accessing only one field from the table I defined the same in readFields() method. The write() methods are kept blank because the project does not aims to write back the data to DB. I'll experiment with writing data and post it soon. In the readFileds() method we have to define how the data had to be extracted from the DB table. Since 'Tweet' the data which I extractes for processing is VARCHAR() I am reading it as string and casting it to Text() data in hadoop. This class "GetTweets" will be used in our Mapper and Reducer class.

Now lets write our Mapper class:

    public static class TweetWordCountMapper extends MapReduceBase implements
            Mapper<LongWritable, GetTweets, Text, IntWritable> {
        private final static IntWritable intTwordsCount = new IntWritable(1);
        private Text strTwoken = new Text();

        public void map(LongWritable key, GetTweets value,
                OutputCollector<Text, IntWritable> output, Reporter reporter)
                throws IOException {
            GetTweets tweets = new GetTweets();
            tweets.strTweet = value.strTweet;
            TwitterTokenizer twokenizer = new TwitterTokenizer();
            List<String> twokens = twokenizer.twokenize(value.strTweet
                    .toString());

            for (int i = 0; i < twokens.size(); i++) {
                output.collect(new Text(twokens.get(i)), intTwordsCount);
            }

        }

    }

In the mapper class 'TweetWordCountMapper' I used the 'GetTweets' class to fetch the values for processing. Then we can access the data by creating object of the class inside the Mapper class.
NB: The code for TwitterTokenizer is taken from https://github.com/vinhkhuc/Twitter-Tokenizer.

Now we can write our reducer class :

    public static class TweetWordCountReducer extends MapReduceBase implements
            Reducer<Text, IntWritable, Text, IntWritable> {
        public void reduce(Text key, Iterator<IntWritable> values,
                OutputCollector<Text, IntWritable> output, Reporter reporter)
                throws IOException {
            int intTwokenCount = 0;
            while (values.hasNext()) {
                intTwokenCount += values.next().get();
            }
            output.collect(key, new IntWritable(intTwokenCount));
        }
    }

This reducer is responsible to sum the word count and produce the final output.

After this we have to configure the job with database connection details and driver class.

        JobConf twokenJobConf = new JobConf(TweetWordCount.class);
        twokenJobConf.setJobName("twoken_count");

        twokenJobConf.setInputFormat(DBInputFormat.class); //Set input format here
        twokenJobConf.setOutputFormat(TextOutputFormat.class);// Sets the output format

        Object out = new Path("twokens");

        twokenJobConf.setMapperClass(TweetWordCountMapper.class);
        twokenJobConf.setCombinerClass(TweetWordCountReducer.class);
        twokenJobConf.setReducerClass(TweetWordCountReducer.class);

        twokenJobConf.setOutputKeyClass(Text.class);
        twokenJobConf.setOutputValueClass(IntWritable.class);

        DBConfiguration.configureDB(twokenJobConf, "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver",
                "jdbc:mysql://localhost/GmailTrend", "jaganadhg", "jagan123"); //Specifies the DB configuration

        String[] fields = { "Tweet" }; //Specifies the Fields to be fetched from DB
        DBInputFormat.setInput(twokenJobConf, GetTweets.class, "NewGamil",
                null /* conditions */, "Tweet", fields); // Specifies the DB table and fields

        SequenceFileOutputFormat.setOutputPath(twokenJobConf, (Path) out);

        JobClient.runJob(twokenJobConf);

Before compiling and running the program we have to some additional setup in the Hadoop ecosystem. The MySQL connector library has to be put in $HADOOP_HOME/lib folder. To download the connector .jar file go to MySQL Connector/J download folder. I used the mysql-connector-java-3.1.14-bin.jar file in my program. After putting the jar in $HADOOP_HOME/lib restart the hadoop ecosystem. Viola !! now you are ready to run the program. Convert the code to .jar file and run it.

The complete project is available in my bitbucket repository .

Happy hacking !!!!!!!!!!!!

Solid Smoke: Fedora 16 - Uninstall proprietary Nvidia driver and switch back to Nouveau

noreply@blogger.com (Solid Smoke) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 23:42:19 +0000

If you have an Nvidia graphics card, then one of the first things you'd probably do after installing Fedora is to disable nouveau driver and install the Nvidia proprietary driver. The easiest way to do this is using the packages from RPMFusion.

But if you happen to be unlucky like me, you'd have KDE apps (and some others too) crashing all around the place with this proprietary Nvidia driver. Apparently, there's some compatibility problem between glibc and the Nvidia driver. Switching back to nouveau is the best way out.

Here's how to uninstall the proprietary Nvidia driver from RPMFusion and get back to nouveau driver.

Switch to a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F3 and login as 'root'
Switch to runlevel 3 (terminate X):
init 3
Get a list of all nvidia packages installed:
yum list installed "*nvidia*"
Remove these packages. Use the following sample command:
yum remove kmod-nvidia kmod-nvidia-PAE nvidia-settings nvidia-xconfig xorg-x11-drv-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs
Confirm that none of the following files exists. If they do, delete them or move them to some backup location.
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-nvidia.conf
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf
Re-create initramfs to remove the blacklisting of nouveau
dracut --force
Reboot the computer
reboot

The above steps worked for me and brought back nouveau. All these days, I was waiting for the proprietary driver to be fixed. In the mean time, I was using LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 in my profile file to avoid the crashes. But so many days have passed without any improvement. With nouveau, I get reasonable 3D performance and desktop effects. Best of all, no crashes :-)

freebird: To be washed away by Mullaperiyar.

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 08:22:20 +0000

Yesterday, the Christmas day I had gone out to get few vegetables which we had missed out during the shopping. Everywhere the discussion was about Indian Prime minister meeting with the head of a province / state to discuss about a dam which is supposed to collapse any moment killing millions of people. For the uninitiated: Mullapperiyar is masonary [...]

Solid Smoke: Kochi Flash Mob - No Hate Mate!

noreply@blogger.com (Solid Smoke) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:05:21 +0000

This happened last week - 16th Dec, 2011 at the Oberon Mall, Kochi. Over 150 dancers took to the floor - for a noble cause.

With the Mullaperiyar issue going viral and threatening the livelihood, and more importantly the lives, of people, it's heartening to see such efforts. Kudos to the organisers!

I'm supposed to travel to Kanyakumari district on official business tomorrow. Who knows what awaits me at the border!

PS: The music and choreography reminds me of Step Up 3. May be it was indeed inspired from the movie.

Pramode C.E - The GnuVision Blog: Play! framework + BeagleBone workshop at NSS Engineering College

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Play! framework + BeagleBone workshop at NSS Engineering College

Dec 21, 2011

I was at the NSS Engineering College, Palakkad on the 20th (at the invitation of "ABACUS", the association of CS tudents of the college) to conduct a workshop on the broad topic of "do something fun with GNU/Linux". The audience was a bunch of 6th semester CS students with very little exposure to GNU/Linux. My plan was to show them how to develop a small web-app which will interact with some Python code running on the BeagleBone. This was going to be my first public demonstration of the amazing Play! framework as well as the lovely BeagleBone.

As there were students in the audience who did not even have exposure to HTML, I started with a quick intro to HTML and then explained the basics of the HTTP protocol, how does a web client interact with a web server and stuff like that. This was followed by an introduction to Play. I didn't get enough time to explain the working of some Python code I had written for the BeagleBone (the code simply turns LED's ON/OFF) - so, I had to be content with just giving a demo of the final program which lets you turn ON/OFF the LED's on the BeagleBone through a web interface.

The surprising thing for me was the very low level of awareness about GNU/Linux among the students. The college CS labs still seem to be using primitive stuff like Turbo-C and the only notion students have of an "IDE" is the Windows Notepad!! Hopefully, things will now change for the better, as there are some students who are taking the initiative to bring more FOSS awareness.

abundance of the heart: shijualex

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:25:18 +0000

Here are the statistics of Indic language Wikipedias for the month of October 2011. The data for this report is taken from http://stats.wikimedia.org/

I have restructured my report to make it shorter and easier to read and compare – but without losing any of the data points. I have divided it into Quality of Projects, Community Building, and Readership.

NOTE: I have used the Indian way way of denoting large numbers: Crore is equal to 10 million, and Lakh is 100,000.

Community

In the table below are new users who have edited at least 10 times, existing editors with at least 5 edits in that month, and existing editors with more than 100 edits in that month. Once again, it is essential to look at all three numbers in conjunction with each other.

Something that I have been reflecting on is how even in relatively small communities (which is what almost all Indic communities are) there is still a relatively low number of new users coming on board and a very tiny number of editors have edited more than 100 times. The former is self-evident as a problem because it means we need to do so much more to encourage new editors. The latter is worrying because it means we also need to do much more to encourage editor retention as well as editor motivation.

(For context the number of speakers of each language is provided in all the tables.)

Malayalam and Tamil have the healthiest position on this table – across all three parameters and looking at progress month-on-month. This is most probably because of the strong efforts at community building in both communities. It is really important that these communities continue to build on their strong foundations.

I am particularly excited about two languages in this list. Both Marathi and Bengali editor counts have increased across all parameters and that is very encouraging. They are large languages with massive potential. I am also really hopeful that the Marathi media coverage around last month’s WikiConference is going to support the community as they go about encouraging and supporting new and existing editors.

Overall, though, it must be said that the total number of new editors coming to new Indic wikipedias is low. So focus need to be on bringing new editors to wiki and retaining existing users.

Quality of Projects

The following table gives data on the total number of articles, new articles per day, and the number of edits per article on each language wikipedia as of October 31, 2011. The data for September 30, 2011 is also given to provide a comparison point on progress over the past month.

These three numbers should be read in conjunction with each other. Theoretically, the number of edits per article can be taken as a surrogate for the quality of that article (based on the assumption that more edits on an article increases its quality.) To that extent, it would be good to have large numbers in all three – and not only one or two of them. For instance, if there is a large number of articles but a low number of edits, it might point to either poor article quality or high use of bots.

The Tamil and Sanskrit Wikipedias are showing encouraging growth in the number of articles. The Sanskrit Wikipedia’s growth is particularly laudable given the tiny number of speakers and the efforts the community is putting into increasing community strength. Assamese is a relatively tiny Wikipedia, but is growing with increasing edits per article. Malayalam has the highest consistent number of edits per article – which speaks well of the kind of collaborative editing environment that is being fostered by Malayalam community.

Hindi with more than 1 lakh articles continues to be on the top of the article count list. However, article growth is relatively low and number of edits per article is also low. A reason for this is probably the low number of active contributors (see next section). One of the reasons might be (and this is something that I have mentioned in various channels in the past) the relatively higher emphasis on increasing article numbers to reach the 1 lakh article milestone instead of putting greater emphasis on community building. It is also similar to what is happening on Newari Wikipedia which has nearly 70,000 articles but with an average of just 4 edits per article and with no increase in article count.

The Pali, Bishnupirya Manipuri, Newari, Bhojpuri and Sindhi communities have been inactive as far new articles are concerned.

Readership

The following table gives a rough estimate on the number of readers for each language wikipedia.

Given the huge speaker base of Hindi, it is not surprising that the Hindi Wikipedia continues to be on top with close to 87 lakh readers. Marathi also has a huge readership of 59 lakh. News coverage during WikiConference India has helped the Marathi Wikipedia to increase its readership. The near doubling of readership for Malayalam can probably be attributed to a recennt update in Google search (canonical equivalence of atomic chillus and non-atomic chillus).

The above table shows a very interesting trend. The readership on Indic language wikipedias is much higher than most people think – and is growing dramatically! Despite being involved in Indic languages for quite a while now, I was personally amazed to know that there are 4.3 crore readers across all Indic languages in October. Even more amazingly, this number grew by 1.2 crores in October over September!

This data is particularly important because at many times, Indic language Wikipedians feel a sense of dissatisfaction because there is a perception that there aren’t enough readers. By looking at the above statistics itself we know that perception is not true. So we have large number of readers waiting to read what we write. But do we have enough community members to work on different language wikis? The answer is not encouraging. We should be able to convert a small of our readers into editors. For that we all need to work together.

Mail me at shiju@wikimedia.org if you have any queries related to this post or about Indian language wiki projects.

Core Dump: Updated folderview’s TODO

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:34:07 +0000

Its been long time that I had blogged. May be the facebook had engulfed me for a while. Or may be post marriage effect? There are plenty of questions which roam around me, why I was inactive? So lets keep the past as “PAST”. Good news is that, I found time to work with KDE at least for the folderview patch. I need to thank Aron, Shantanu and my new colleague at office Vimal Singh. Started working on next bug(bug: 256187). Nothing more to write

Jaggu's world: Hadoop Comic by Maneesh Varshney

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 07:33:18 +0000

There was a discussion on Hadoop Comic in Apache Hadoop Mailing list. I found that Maneesh Varshney created a wonderful comic strip to describe the entire Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). It is quite useful to understand the HDFS in easy way.
I am sharing the comic at my Slideshare account.
Kudos to Maneesh Varshney for the wonderful and creative work.

Here it is .

Hdfs

View more documents from jaganadhg.

Jaggu's world: The Mozilla Story: the story of how Mozilla helped shape the web we know today

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:19:13 +0000

Solid Smoke: കോക്‌ടെയില്‍ - Movie Review

noreply@blogger.com (Solid Smoke) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:42:09 +0000

അടുത്തിറങ്ങിയ ചില ചിത്രങ്ങളില്‍ നിന്ന് വ്യത്യസ്തമായി വലിയ hype ഒന്നുമില്ലാതെയാണ് കോക്‌ടെയില്‍ (cocktail) ഇറങ്ങിയത്. അരുണ്‍ കുമാര്‍ എന്ന സംവിധായകന്റെ ആദ്യ ചിത്രം. തിരക്കഥ സംഭാഷണം അനൂപ് മേനോന്‍. ജയസൂര്യ, അനൂപ് മേനോന്‍, സംവൃത സുനില്‍ എന്നിവര്‍ കേന്ദ്ര കഥാപാത്രങ്ങള്‍.

മലയാളത്തില്‍ ഈയിടെയായി ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് സിനിമകളുടെ റീമേക്കുകളുടെ കാലമാണെന്ന് തോന്നുന്നു. ഈ ചിത്രവും വ്യത്യസ്തമല്ല. Butterfly on a wheel (2007) എന്ന കനേഡിയന്‍ ചിത്രത്തിന്റെ അസ്സല്‍ മലയാളം പതിപ്പാണീ ചിത്രം. ഒരുവിധം എല്ലാ രംഗങ്ങളും, സംഭാഷണങ്ങളും എല്ലാം അതേപടി പകര്‍ത്തിയിട്ടുണ്ട്. ഇതൊക്കെയാണെങ്കിലും കോക്‌ടെയില്‍ ഒരു തരക്കേടില്ലാത്ത ചിത്രമാണ് (കോപ്പിയടി ഒരു അപരാധമായി കണക്കാക്കുന്നില്ലെങ്കില്‍).

കൊച്ചിയിലെ ഒരു പ്രമുഖ കണ്‍സ്ട്രക്ഷന്‍ കമ്പനിയില്‍ ഉന്നതനായ ഒരു ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥനാണ് രവി എബ്രഹാം (അനൂപ് മേനോന്‍). ഭാര്യ പാര്‍വതിയും (സംവൃത സുനില്‍) മകളും കൂടിയ സന്തുഷ്ട കുടുംബമാണിദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റേത്. ജോലി സ്ഥലത്തും പിന്നെ മറ്റു ബിസിനെസ്സുകളിലും അസൂയാവഹമായ നേട്ടങ്ങള്‍ കൈവരിച്ച ഇയാള്‍ക്ക് ചില്ലറ ശത്രുക്കള്‍ ഇല്ലാതില്ല. ഭാര്യയും ഭര്‍ത്താവും ഒരു നാള്‍ മകളെ വീട്ടിലാക്കി ഒരു യാത്ര പുറപ്പെടുന്നു. രവി എബ്രഹാമിന് തന്റെ ബോസിന്റെ വീട്ടില്‍ പാര്‍ട്ടിയാണെങ്കില്‍ ഭാര്യക്ക് അവളുടെ കൂട്ടുകാരുടെ കൂടെയൊരു പാര്‍ട്ടി. മകളെ നോക്കാന്‍ ഒരു ഏജന്‍സി വഴി ഒരു ആയയെ ഏര്‍പ്പാടാക്കി അവര്‍ കാറില്‍ യാത്ര തിരിക്കുന്നു. വഴിയില്‍ ലിഫ്റ്റ് ചോദിച്ച് സൗമ്യനായ ഒരു അജ്ഞാതന്‍ (ജയ സൂര്യ) കാറില്‍ കയറുന്നതോടെ കഥയില്‍ ട്വിസ്റ്റ് സംഭവിക്കുന്നു. ഇയാള്‍ ആരാനെന്നും എന്താണിയാളുടെ ലക്ഷ്യമെന്നും വെളിപെടുന്നതിലേക്കാണ് സിനിമയുടെ ഗതി.

സിനിമയുടെ കഥ സാമാന്യം നല്ലതാണ്. പക്ഷെ cocktail എന്ന പേരുമായി വലിയ ബന്ധമൊന്നുമില്ല. ഒറിജിനല്‍ ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് ചിത്രത്തിന്റെ പേര് അല്പം കൂടി അര്‍ത്ഥവത്താണ്.

ജയസൂര്യയും സംവൃത സുനിലും നന്നായി അഭിനയിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്. പിയേഴ്സ് ബ്രോസ്ണന്‍ അവതരിപ്പിച്ച കഥാപാത്രം ജയസൂര്യ വിശ്വസനീയമായ തരത്തില്‍ ചെയ്തിട്ടുണ്ട്. അവസാന ക്ലൈമാക്സ് രംഗങ്ങളില്‍ സംവൃത സുനിലിന്റെ പ്രകടനം കുറച്ചുകൂടി ലഘുവാക്കാമായിരുന്നു എന്നെനിക്ക് തോന്നുന്നു. അനൂപ് മേനോനും കുഴപ്പമില്ല, പക്ഷേ ഉഗ്രന്‍ എന്ന് പറയുക വയ്യ. സാധാരണ രംഗങ്ങള്‍ നന്നായി കൈകാര്യം ചെയ്യുന്നുണ്ടെങ്കിലും കടുപ്പമുള്ള ഭാഗങ്ങള്‍ അത്ര convincing ആയി ചെയ്യാന്‍ കഴിഞ്ഞിട്ടില്ല.

ചിത്രത്തിന്റെ കഥ, തിരക്കഥ, സംഭാഷണം, സംവിധാനം എന്നിവയ്ക്കൊന്നും ആര്‍ക്കും പ്രത്യേകം ക്രെഡിറ്റ് കൊടുക്കാനില്ല. ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് സിനിമയിലെ സംഭാഷണങ്ങള്‍ മിക്കതും അതുപോലെ മലയാളത്തിലേക്ക് തര്‍ജ്ജമ ചെയ്തിട്ടുണ്ട്. എന്നാലും മോശമാക്കാതിരുന്നതിന് നന്ദി. ഗാനങ്ങളെല്ലാം നിര്‍ഗുണങ്ങളും അനവസരത്തില്‍ കുത്തിക്കേറ്റിയതുമാണ് (ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് സിനിമയില്‍ ഗാനങ്ങളില്ലല്ലോ..). ഉദാഹരണത്തിന്, 'വാ മോളേ, നമുക്ക് മമ്മിക്കൊരു ബര്‍ത്ത്ഡേ സോങ്ങ് പാടിക്കൊടുക്കാം' എന്ന് അച്ഛന്‍ പറയുന്നതോടുകൂടി പൊട്ടിവീഴുകയായി ഒരു പാട്ട്! ഇതുപോലൊരു സസ്പെന്‍സ് ത്രില്ലറില്‍ ഈ വക ഗാനങ്ങള്‍ ഒഴിവാക്കാമായിരുന്നു.

മികച്ചത് എന്ന് അവകാശപ്പെടാനില്ലെങ്കിലും, സാമാന്യം നല്ല പടമാണ് കോക്‌ടെയില്‍. ക്ലൈമാക്സ് രംഗങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് ശേഷം ഏച്ചുകെട്ടിയ ഭാഗം ഒഴിവാക്കാമയിരുന്നു എന്നെനിക്ക് തോന്നുന്നു.
പുതിയ സംവിധായകന് ആശംസകള്‍. ഒപ്പം, വെറും റീമേക്കുകളില്‍ നിന്ന് ഉയര്‍ന്ന് കുറേക്കൂടി original വര്‍ക്കുകള്‍ വരട്ടേ എന്ന് ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നു.

വാല്‍: 'സിനിമ കഴിയുമ്പോള്‍ പ്രേക്ഷകര്‍ കൈയടിക്കുന്ന ചിത്രം' എന്നാണ് ഈ സിനിമയുടെ പല പരസ്യങ്ങളിലും പറയുന്നത്. സംഗതി സത്യമാണ്. ആള്‍ക്കാര്‍ കൈയടിക്കുന്നുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. എന്ന് വച്ച് അത് അത്ര വലിയൊരു കാര്യമാണെന്ന് ആരും ധരിക്കേണ്ട. പ്രേക്ഷകരുടെ മച്യൂരിറ്റിക്കൊരു ഉദാഹരണം: സിനിമയുടെ ഇടയില്‍, അനൂപ് മേനോന്‍ പറയുന്ന ഒരു ഡയലോഗ് ഉണ്ട് - "ഇതിപ്പോള്‍ പദ്മശ്രീ ലെഫ്റ്റ്. കെര്‍ണല്‍ മോഹന്‍ ലാല്‍ പറഞ്ഞത് പോലെ.....". ഇത്രയും പറഞ്ഞപ്പോള്‍ തന്നെ ബാല്‍ക്കണിയില്‍ നിലക്കാത്ത കൈയടിയും വിസിലും. ബാക്കി ഡയലോഗ് ആര്‍ക്കും കേള്‍ക്കാന്‍ പോലും പറ്റിയില്ല! ഇത്രയേയുള്ളൂ ഇവിടത്തെ ഓഡിയന്‍സ്!

Solid Smoke: Fedora 16 / Windows 7 - Dual booting with GRUB2

noreply@blogger.com (Solid Smoke) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:33:01 +0000

Fedora 16 was released almost a month back. This is the first Fedora release to have switched to the GRUB2 boot loader. I had some trouble installing Fedora 16 - the boot loader won't get installed on my MBR since there wasn't enough space to accommodate the boot image. The details of my struggles can probably be the subject of another post. Here, it must suffice to say that I had nuked my first partition, containing Windows 7, to make sufficient space (unallocated sectors) at the beginning of the HDD for grub2 boot image.

After installing F16, I reinstalled Windows 7 on to the first partition on the HDD. Everything was fine, except, unsurprisingly, that it replaced grub2 boot loader with its own.

Getting back grub2 to boot Fedora was a matter of doing this:

Boot using Fedora 16 DVD
Select 'Troubleshoot' and use the 'rescue mode'
Let Anaconda autodetect existing Linux installations, and when prompted, select your F16 installation from among the multiple existing installations
Read the message that says the partition has been mounted under /mnt/sysimage and I could do: chroot /mnt/sysimage if I wanted
Do exactly that:
chroot /mnt/sysimage
Reinstall GRUB2 on to my MBR:
grub2-install /dev/sda
Reboot and viola! I was able to boot in to Fedora again :-)

That being said, should I be able to boot in to Windows 7 now? I wasn't! This one was a bit surprising since old grub-install used to auto-detect other operating systems and made everything work. Things have changed, and apparently for the worse!

After booting in to F16, I tried to get Windows entry in to GRUB2 menu. After reading a little bit, here's what I should've done:

Make sure a package called os-prober is installed:
yum install os-prober
Back-up my existing grub.cfg file
cp /boot/grub2/grub.cfg /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.bak
Re-create the cfg file, hoping grub2 would autodetect Windows
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
Reboot and hope it works

It seems that the above four steps would've worked. If you reached this page after searching for a way to dual boot Fedora 16 and Windows 7, this is exactly what you should do.

As for me, I did a lot of other stuff:

Assume that grub2 was unable to auto-detect Windows and I should do it manually
Add the following entry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom

menuentry "Windows 7" {
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,1)
chainloader +1
}
Find the wrong grub2 configuration file at /etc/grub2.cfg and replace it with:
grub2-mkconfig -o /etc/grub2.cfg
Reboot and find that Windows entry is still missing
Boot back in to Fedora and find that /etc/grub2.cfg indeed contains the entry for Windows
Re-install grub2 in a desperate attempt:
grub2-install /dev/sda
Reboot and find that nothing has changed
Search the internet and repeat steps 4-7 above without any use
Again verify /etc/grub2.cfg and find that there are in fact two entries for Windows 7 - one that I added manually and one, wait for it, auto-detected by grub2 (os-prober)! Apparently, the assumption I made in step-1 was wrong and step-2 wasn't really necessary!
Get back in to the reality that Windows entry is still missing in grub2 boot menu even though it appears in the cfg file
Search more and stumble up on a bug report that indicates /boot/grub2/grub.cfg is the right grub2 file for Fedora!
Do it right this time with:
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
Reboot and find that everything's merry

Apparently, /boot/grub2/grub.cfg is the real file that grub2 uses. On Fedora, /etc/grub2.cfg is a symbolic link to /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.
But if that's the case, then everything should've worked when I used grub2-mkconfig to overwrite the file in /etc, right? Again, as my luck would have it, grub2-mkconfig is buggy in that it doesn't follow the symlink. It just replaced /etc/grub2.cfg with a real file - a file that nobody cares about!

So, if you find that the entries you very clearly see in the cfg file are missing in the boot menu, check if you're using the right cfg file.

Jaggu's world: Experiments with NoSQL databases: CouchDB

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:00:06 +0000

I started reading about NoSQL databases for a long time. Occasionally I used some NoSQL databases like Apache CouchDB and Apache Cassandra for some analytics purpose(Some minor projects) with Python. This time I just thought why can't try something on Java + NoSQL. I created a small for project to play with. The idea of this project is: store Twitter search result to CouchDB.   I used the following Operating System, Programming Languages and Libraries in this project.

        Operating System                  :     Fedora 16 (verne)
        Programming Language     :     Java (JDK 1.6.0_29)
        IDE                    :     Eclipse 3.7.1
        Apache CouchDB       :    1.0.
        External Libraries                   :     Couchdb4J
                                  Twitter4J
                                                              Apache Commons httpclient, logging, codec,commons,collections, beanutils
                                                              Jsonlib, ezmorph

Installing CouchDB
To install CouchDB fire the terminal and type the command
    $su -c 'yum -y install couchdb'

After succesful installation start the CoucbDB server by issuing the command in the terminal
    $su -c '/etc/init.d/couchdb start'

Now your CouchDB instance will be up and running. You can check this by opening CouchDB Futon in the broswer by navigating to http://localhost:5984/_utils/. If everything will fine you will see the Funton Interface.

Let's start out project.
First create a function to connect to the CouchDB instance,create and retrun a database with given name. If the database already exits it has to return the database.

    /**
    * @param strDBName
    * @return dbCouchDB
    */

    public static Database connectCouchDB(String strDBName) {
        Database dbCouchDB = null;
        Session dbCouchDBSession = new Session("localhost", 5984);
        List<String> databases = dbCouchDBSession.getDatabaseNames();
        if (databases.contains(strDBName)) {
            dbCouchDB = dbCouchDBSession.getDatabase(strDBName);
        } else {
            dbCouchDBSession.createDatabase(strDBName);
            dbCouchDB = dbCouchDBSession.getDatabase(strDBName);
        }

        return dbCouchDB;

    }


Now we can create a function to search in Twitter Search and return the tweets.

    /**
    * @param strQuery
    * @throws TwitterException
    * @return queryResult
    */

    public static QueryResult getTweets(String strQuery)
            throws TwitterException {
        Twitter twitter = new TwitterFactory().getInstance();
        Query query = new Query(strQuery);
        QueryResult queryResult = twitter.search(query);
        return queryResult;

    }

To insert the tweets to the CouchDB document collection(database) it has to be converted to a document. Lets create a function to convert individual tweets to CouchDB document.

    /**
    * @param tweet
    * @return couchDocument
    */

    @SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
    public static Document tweetToCouchDocument(Tweet tweet) {

        Document couchDocument = new Document();

        couchDocument.setId(String.valueOf(tweet.getId()));
        couchDocument.put("Tweet", tweet.getText().toString());
        couchDocument.put("UserName", tweet.getFromUser().toString());
        couchDocument.put("Time", tweet.getCreatedAt().toGMTString());
        couchDocument.put("URL", tweet.getSource().toString());

        return couchDocument;

    }

Now we can try to write the Twitter Search results to the CouchDB document collection with the following function.

    /**
    * @param tweetQury
    * @param dbName
    * @throws TwitterException
    */

    public static void writeTweetToCDB(String strTweetQury, String strdbName)
            throws TwitterException {
        QueryResult tweetResults = getTweets(strTweetQury);
        Database dbInstance = connectCouchDB(strdbName);
        dbInstance.getAllDocuments();
        for (Tweet tweet : tweetResults.getTweets()) {
            Document document = tweetToCouchDocument(tweet);
            dbInstance.saveDocument(document);
        }

    }

Now it is time to execute our project. Add the following lines to the main() and run the project.

        String query = "java";
        String dbName = "javatweets";
        System.out.println("Started");
        writeTweetToCDB(query, dbName);
        System.out.println("Finished");

That is all !!!!!! .

The entire code is available at my bitbucket repo

Happy Hacking !!!!!!!!

Sarath Lakshman: Preparing for your first-job interviews

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:16:18 +0000

It has been a long time since i wrote a blog entry. Here is some interesting piece for final year computer science students.

Getting a job is one of the happiest things in the life of a final year guy. I also had such wonderful moments during my final year. I would like to share some bytes of info that can help you out.

University/College studies and your first job

In the long four years of engineering course, you study a lot of things. Lot of junk and little good. In reality very few subjects really help and are useful for a computer science job. For getting a job, you will need even fewer set of subjects among them. Hence, finding a job is easy. But you have to master the subjects that you love. I will list out the few subjects that will help you find a job.

Data structures, Algorithms and Analysis, Operating Systems, Computer Networks, C Programming, Object Oriented Programming, Database Management systems, Compilers (Optional), Distributed Computing (Optional), Microprocessors (Optional)

The perspective of current education system and the industry goals diverge very much. In colleges, we study for obtaining some marks. The teachers also have the goal to help their students to obtain marks rather than learning something that may help gain the ability to solve computer science programs using their skillsets. In industry, the ultimate goal is to produce good quality software within short span of time. That means, the skill requirements are good coding skills, ability to understand and solve problems algorithmically with analysis to validate and come up with optimal and practical solution. To grow up as a software engineer that meets the industry requirements, the education system at college fails.

You have to put good self effort to gain the skillsets and the passion for learning. You should have good coding skills with proficiency in one or more programming languages, understanding of standard algorithm techniques at basic level. Let us have a run through objectives during preparation for a job.

Preparing your CV

Curriculum Vitae is important while applying for a job. Your CV is a blueprint of your personality. It is the first phase during a recruitment that gives the recruiters an overall view of your skillset and your background. Hence, it is worth to spend few days in preparing your CV. Note the following things while preparing your CV.

Use a different layout from other candidates who are applying for job along with you. Make yourself different from others. Write a career objective that states your interest. If you are applying for a specific role, Write a highlights section as the first section in your CV. Highlights should list out important achievements and your skillsets in bullets. This section is indented for HR who screens your resume. The next section can be ‘Skills’, which lists out your skill sets and programming languages. Write in an order separated by commas such that less proficient technologies should come last. You should also mention the operating systems you are familiar with. The next section can be Achievements. But you can move this section to the end of the resume if you think that you do not have considerable good technical achievements for highlighting. The next section should be Projects. This is the most important section in your resume. You should spend some time in writing this section. You should specify the title of the project, duration (optional), the technologies used, a summary of the project describing the project in few words, and project highlights section. The project highlight section should list key features about your project listed as bullets. Write them in an impressive manner stating the facts properly.

Eg.

1. Implemented a H.263 video streaming library for android 2.3

2. Implemented video frames collector and device mapper that converts video stream to v4l linux device

3. Tested on Android 2.3 and found that 25 % performance improvement than the bundled video library

If you have lot of numbers to showcase the benchmarking or awesomeness of your project. that is great. If your project bagged some awards or deployed for some good numbers of users, mention that figures and achievements in the highlights.

I would prefer to order the project in the order of significance rather than chronological order. After the project section, have an achievements section which lists all technical and non-technical achievements. You can split your achievements section into subsections like publications, events, etc. Write the educational background section as the last section of your resume. Because it is the most insignificant portion of a resume if you are looking for a good computer science job. It states few figures that indicate your marks which is not an indicator of your knowledge.

Tips for interview preparation

You should acquire sound knowledge about few of the subjects listed in the earlier section of this article. Usually recruitment process consists of a written test paper followed by a couple of interviews. Focus of your preparation should be based on the job position you are applying for. If you are preparing for a developer interview, you should be sound with Data Structures and Algorithms. You might be bored with the subject since you attended some boring series of lectures from colleges to grab marks. Try again approaching the subject in a different manner. You will definitely enjoy it. Start reading the book ‘Programming Pearls’ before you start preparing. It will give you a wonderful insight you never had before. I will focus on developer interviews.

Companies usually ask some technical aptitude questions, puzzles and questions from the subjects along with the test paper. Most of the questions will be repeated. Search for programmer interview aptitude questions and brain teasers for programmers on Google. You will find a good list. Try to solve them. Learning algorithms are not hard. But understanding the use cases and ability to apply them to solve problems require some effort and practice. Whenever you learn an algorithm, try to implement it using a programming language. For practicing algorithms to coding, you should use some highly object oriented and simple languages. The best language you can learn is python. You can practice coding algorithms with Python without any implementation complexity and it will look like a pseudo code. Learn python today. Seriously it won’t take more than a day to learn things that you will require to implement algorithms. C is a great language. Implementing certain Data structures or algorithms in C gives you a good experience to code well in C. I will write some notes on few algorithms that you should try implement in C. Algorithm analysis for important algorithms should be understood. You should know the worst case complexity (Find out the worst cases in the case of a particular algorithm), Best Case complexity (Also the best case) and the average case complexity (Also the average case example). Space complexity of the algorithm should be known in order to select the best algorithm according to problem environment.

Data Structures and Algorithms

Binary Search

This is a very important algorithm you can apply at many different problem environments you never expect.

Understand the runtime complexity for the Binary Search and understand how to derive the complexity from algorithm. Note that it can be applied for only sorted lists. Learn how to apply Binary Search in a Rotated Sorted List by using recursion and how the algorithm complexity varies. Implement Binary Search using C for a list of strings. You should familiarize the terms in place sorting, stable sorting and also should understand which sorts come into these categories.

Insertion Sort

Understand the algorithm and derivation of algorithm analysis. Compare it with Card game in which we move the cards to the suitable position. Keep the example in mind and apply to similar problems. In Insertion sort, we sort the element set by consequently moving the current element to the appropriate position in an already sorted set.

QuickSort
QuickSort is a very important sorting technique. It uses divide and conquer technique. Divide the given set of elements into smaller sets recursively and apply comparison and swap. When comparison and swap is performed to formulated smaller sets, it results in the larger sorted set. Learn algorithm analysis. Learn how to find kth smallest element by modifying the Quicksort algorithm in O(nk) complexity. Find out mean of a set of elements in O(n) by modifying the above problem.

MergeSort
Mergesort is also a divide and conquer sorting technique. The concept is to merge two sorted list to obtain larger sorted set. By dividing the given array into smaller subset by recursion, smaller subsets are formed. Merging the subsets from lower level to higher level, we obtain sorted array. Learn algorithm analysis. Note that merge sort takes an extra array. Hence this is not an in place sorting. It has O(n) space complexity. You should practice problems related to merge sort. Eg. You are given two sorted arrays with size n and 2n. The second array contain n elements in the positions 0 to n-1. Now without using extra space, formulate the elements in 1st and 2nd array into 2nd array and return a sorted array of size 2n.

HeapSort
Heapsort is an interesting sorting technique. Heap is a tree in which parent node is always >= child nodes (called as max-heap) or parent node is always <= child nodes (called as min-heap). This is the basic property for a heap. Let us have an overview of how to create a heap and manage it. When we need to add an element into an existing heap, we add the element as root or to the rightmost bottom element in the heap. Then apply heapify operation. Heapify operation can be of two types: shiftup and shift down. When we add a new element to an existing heap as root element, we perform shift down operation. Shift down operation performs a traversal from root level to bottom level, at each level of traversal, it compares whether heap property is violated, if so it will perform swap between parent node and child node to obey the heap property. Hence the element we added as root will move to the accurate position when the traversal reaches the bottom level. If we add a new element to the bottom right element, we need to perform a shift up to position the element to the right position. We traverse from parent in the bottom level to the root, by checking the heap property at each level and swapping elements to meet the heap property, we get a balanced heap when traversal reaches the top element.

Heapsort makes use of these operations to obtain a sorted set. Let us assume we have a heap (1,n). the root element will be the highest value (max-heap). Hence it will be the last element in the sorted list. We swap the root and the last element. Now the heap property is lost. But the nth position of array has the correct element in the sorted list. So we exclude nth element and heapify the heap(1,n-1) by using shift down operation. Because the root element is the one breaking the heap balance. After doing heapify 2nd time, we get 2nd highest element as root element. Now swap root element with n-1 element. Hence n-1, nth elements are 2nd largest and largest elements. Now exclude the n-1 and nth element, heapify heap(1,n-2). Follow the procedure until the newly formed heap size become one. You will get a sorted list. Read the chapter Heaps from Programming Pearls (It will give you a wonderful insight). Practice the problems: Find kth largest element from a given unsorted array. Implement priority queues.

External Sorting

External sorting is an important sorting technique used when the amount of data we need to process is greater than the available memory. For eg, we have 1GB of integers and 256MB of RAM. Hence it is clear that we cannot load entire list of numbers into ram and perform in memory sorting. External sorting techniques are to be used to solve this problem. K-Way merging is one of the simplest methods to solve the problem of RAM < data size. We can split the data into K parts. The part split is performed such that each split is less than the size of RAM. Then we can sort each part individually using any sorting algorithm. Then we can perform a special type of merging to obtain sorted output. Let us see how to perform the merge.

For eg, we split the data into 4 parts and we individually sorted them. Then take the first element from each 4 sorted lists and sort them and find out the lowest element. It will be the first element in the sorted output. Add it to the new list called full sorted array.

Now, from the array from which we obtained the lowest element, take the next element, sort the list again and find out the second lowest element. From the array we obtained 2nd lowest element pop out the next element and sort again to find out the third lowest element. Proceed the process until all arrays becomes empty or one array remains few elements. If an array remains unempty add those elements in the order to the full sorted array. Have a look at implementation code (http://code.google.com/p/kway/)

Bit array technique for solving RAM < Data problem for sorting counting numbers

In a 32 bit system an integer takes 32bits to store an integer and a 64 bit system takes 64bits to store a number. But for storing counting numbers, we can use bit vectors which are formulated by using 64 or 32 bits in an integer. If we set 0th bit in 32 bit we can represent it as 1. If we set 2nd position, we can represent it as 2. If we define an integer array of size N, we can actually represent 32*N numbers using that integer array. In order to sort large number of unique counting numbers we can use, bitsorting by setting and clearing bit positions. If we need to represent 1 to 68 numbers we need only 68 bits. We can represent it using an integer array of size 3. Ie, 32*3 = 96 bits. To set 68^th bit, we know that 68^th bit is situated in the array offset 2. To obtain the array offset, divide the number by 32. (68/32 = 2). Now we need to know which bit position needs to be set in the 32 bits available in array[2]. For that, findout modulus by 32. 68%32 = 4. Hence set the 4^th bit in the array[2]. This can be performed without division and modulus operators by using bit shift operators.

i=68
array[i>>5] |= 1 << (i & 0x1F)

Here we find out i/32 using right shift operator (Each right shift causes division by two. Five times rightshift = division by 2^5 (32) ). By using AND operation with 0x1F, we get 5 Least significant bits, the value of 5 LSB returns in the position in 32 bits. Hence we shift 1 towards that much positions to left and is ORed to do the bit set operation.

Have a look at the implementation code. http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/pearls/bitsort.c

Bit manipulation problems

By using bit manupulation, we can do lot of tricks over numbers. See http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html for lot of interesting bit twiddling hacks.

One of the very common problems, is counting the number of set bits in a number.

int count=0

while (n){
n=n&(n-1)
count++
}

n&(n-1) will return a number obtained by setting rightmost set bit in number n to zero.

Another problem is to check whether a number is power of 2. For a number which is power of 2, there will be only one set bit in the number. Hence if we do n=n&(n-1), we will obtain zero. Using a single line operation we can identify power of 2 or not.

Hashing

Hash is an important data structure that can be used to solve different problems. When you are asked to find the number of occurrence of numbers in a given list of numbers, you can simply use hash for solving the problem. Iterate through the list of numbers, like:

for (n in numbers)
{
hash[n] = 0
}

for (n in numbers)
{
hash[n] = hash[n] + 1
}

We can solve many problems in O(n) using hash.
Implementing a hashtable in C is not easy at a first attempt. Try to code yourself a hashtable in C using pointer to pointer.

Binary Tree and Traversals

Binary trees are common interview questions. There are lot of BT based questions. Have understanding of common questions like the following.

* Difference between full binary tree and complete binary tree

* Find out Maximum/Minimum height of a tree (Recursive and Non-Recursive)

* What is the maximum number of elements in a tree with height H.

* Nth smallest/largest element in a binary tree

* Algorithm to find out Least Common Ancestor (LCA)

For your information, Least Common Ancestor is the common node in a binary tree which is obtained by traversing from two selected leaf nodes to the root element.

Linked list problems

- Reversing linked list

Linked lists are also very common interviewer question. First practice to be done for linked list problem is to write a linked list structure in C yourself and implement linked list traversal. Then add functions to reverse the linked list in place as well as by creating new linked list. If you do not want a new linked list, but you only need to print the elements of linked list in reverse order, use a recursive function that can do recursive calls till the end of linked list and print the elements.
Eg.

void reverse(struct linked_list *list)
{
if (list->next!=NULL)
reverse(list->next);

printf("%s\n", list->element);
}

- Cycle in a linked list

Test for cycle/loop in a linked list is a commonly asked problem. You can initialize two variables as start node for linked list and traverse in a while loop such that while loop ends when one of them becomes null or both variables becomes equal. In the while loop, we traverse two variables with different speed.
(varA=varA->next, varB=varB->next->next)

Have a look at well explained tutorial, ?http://ostermiller.org/find_loop_singly_linked_list.html

Tree traversals

It is very important to understand all the tree traversals and implementation.

1. Preorder traversal

2. Post order traversal

3. Inorder traversal

Traversals can be easily implemented using recursion. But interviewers might ask about non-recursive algorithm. In that case, use stack based algorithm to explain inorder traversal. You can easily implement inorder traversal using stack.

Graph Traversals

Graph traversals are commonly asked in interviews. Have the understanding of Shortest path algorithms.

Depth First Search

In depth first search initially traversal goes deep into deepest node and traversal proceeds. You can use a stack to implement depth first search or else ?you can use recursion to implement this.

Breadth First Search

In breadthwise traversal, you can use it to print the tree in the sorted order. You can use the same algorithm used for depth first search by changing stack into queue to obtain the algorithm for BFS.

Dynamic programming
Dynamic programming is an important algorithm technique to solve a large problem by splitting into smaller overlapping problems. When overlapping small problems are solved, the larger problem solution is obtained. Problems like finding shortest path can be solved using dynamic programming. It usually involves using a storage of subsolutions so that they are used in solving bigger problems which overaps the subsolutions. The dynamic programming is difficult to identify as well as apply to solve problem scenarios. It requires considerable spending of time to learn and master it. When you look into some problems and look at its solutions, you may feel it is not that hard. But when you are given a different problem you may not be even able to identify it can be solved using dynamic programming. Even if you identify, you will find hard to code the problem solution. Hence, give considerable time to work on this one.

Try to learn the problem to find subsets of a set using dynamic programming

Trie data structure
Trie is an interesting data structure that can be used to implement autocomplete feature. You can read more about trie from my older blog post. (Implementing autocomplete with trie data structure)

Conceptual Questions

Lot of conceptual questions are being asked during interviews. It will test your basic knowledge and understanding. Find some of the commonly asked topics

* CPU Scheduling algorithms

* Layers of TCP and OSI network stack

* Understand how Virtual Memory/Paging works

* Understand what happens when you enter a URL on web browser and how website is loaded

* Understand how a computer boots and explain the story

* What is the difference between 32 bit and 64 bit machine and OS

* Understanding TCP/UDP protocol

* Understanding ARP/RARP

* Understand DHCP

* Understand DNS (Recursive, Iterative resolution)

* Understand how email works (POP, SMTP)

* Understand Web 2.0, REST, Thrift, RPC

* Understand IPV4 vs IPV6

Books/References

1. Programming Pearls
Programming pearls is a great book you should read as a computer enthusiast. You will be inspired to learn about data structures and algorithms.

2. Cracking the Code interview
It is a nice book consisting of lots of interesting questions

3. Glassdoor.com
Glassdoor is a great website consisting of lots of questions being asked for different companies. As a first programming exercise, write a perl/python/bash script to parse questions into a text file. I had a python script that I had written long time ago. (Lost that somewhere)

Choosing your first job

Every job interview is a great experience. In my life, i had attended three job inteviews and ended up in receiving 3 offers. Each of the interviews were different experiences. Once you face interviews build positive approach in finding feedback yourself. When you receive multiple offers, put enough effort to understand about what you are going to do with each of the job offers your receive. Choose the job you love to do, so that you never have to work a day in life. Thanks and all the wishes.

You can find few posts about interviews from this blog here, http://www.sarathlakshman.com/category/interview/
I dedicate this blog post to all my juniors in Computer Science Dept, Model Engineering College, Cochin

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevefrog8/

Jaggu's world: Lucene Index Writer API changes from 2.x to 3.x

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 07:46:38 +0000

The 3.x version of Lucene introduces lots of changes in its API. In 2.x we used IndexWriter API like this:

Directory dir = FSDirectory.open(new File(indexDir));
writer = new IndexWriter(dir,new StandardAnalyzer(Version.LUCENE_30),true,IndexWriter.MaxFieldLength.UNLIMITED);

I used the same code with 3.x version for one of my project. The tool was working fine. But my IDE(eclipse) told that some of the things are deprecated hmm...... I decided to dig the new API and I found that the above given code has to be changed to this :

        Directory indexDir = FSDirectory.open(new File(strDirName));
        IndexWriterConfig confIndexWriter = new IndexWriterConfig(Version.LUCENE_CURRENT, analyzer);
        writer = new IndexWriter(indexDir, confIndexWriter);

If you would like to use the "IndexWriter.MaxFieldLength.UNLIMITED" the IndexWriterConfig should be like:
        IndexWriterConfig idxconfa = new IndexWriterConfig(Version.LUCENE_30, new LimitTokenCountAnalyzer(new StandardAnalyzer(Version.LUCENE_30), 1000000000));

The int '1000000000' is set as maximum limit here. max(int) is the maximum you can set in IndexWriterConfig.

Jaggu's world: Taming Text : Review

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:57:37 +0000

We are living in the era of Information Revolution. Everyday wast amount of information is being created and disseminated over World Wide Web(WWW). Even though each piece of information published in the web is useful in some way; we may require to identify and extract relevant/useful information.Such kind of information extraction includes identifying Person Names, Organization Names etc.. ,finding category of a text, identifying sentiment of a tweet etc ... Processing large amount text data from web is a challenging task, because there is an information overflow. As more information appears there is a demand for smart and intelligent processing and text data. The very field of text analytics has been attracted attention of developers around the glob. Many practical as well as theoretical books has been published on the topic.

This book, "Taming Text", written by Grant S. Ingersoll, Thomas S. Morton and Andrew L. Farris is an excellent source for Text Analytics Developers and Researchers who is interested to learn Text Analytics. The book focuses on practical Text Analytics techniques like Classification,Clustering, String Matching, Searching and Entity Identification. The book provides easy-to follow examples in using well-known Open Source Text Analytics tools like Apache Mahout, Apache Lucece, Apache Solr, OpenNLP etc.. The entire book is based on the author's experience in contributing to relevant Open Source tools, hands on experience and their industry exposure. It is a must-read for Text Analytics developers and Researchers. Given the increasing importance of Text Analytics this book can be served as a hand book for budding Text Analytics Developers and Industry People. Definitely it can be used in Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning and Computational Linguistics courses.

Chapter 1: Getting Started Taming Text
The first chapter of the book introduces what is Taming Text? The authors gives list of challenges in text processing with brief explanations. The chapter is mostly an introductory stuff.

Chapter 2: Foundations of Taming Text
This chapter gives a quick warm up of your high school English grammar. Starting from words, the authors presents essential linguistic concepts required for text processing. I think "Taming Text" will be the first technical book which gives a good warm up on basics of Language and grammar. The chapter gives a detailed introduction to words, parts of speech, phrases and morphology. This introduction is sufficient enough to capture the essential linguistic aspects of Text Processing for a developer. The second part of this chapter deals with basic text processing tasks like, tokenization, sentence splitting, Part of Speech Tagging (POS Tagging) and Parsing. Code snippets for each of the task has been given in the chapter. All the code examples are narrated with the tool OpenNLP . The chapter gives some basic of handling different file formats using Apache Tika. This chapter gives a step by step intro to the preliminaries of Text Processing.

Chapter 3: Searching
This chapter introduces the art of Search. It gives a brief but narrative description of the Search mechanism and scene behind the curtains. The chapter discusses the basics of Search with the help of Apache Solr. There is an interesting discussion on search evaluation and search performance enhancements and page rank too. The chapter gives a detailed list of Open Source search engines. But I think the authors forgot to add the "Elasticsearch" library to the list. I hope that it may be added in the final print version of the book.

Chapter 4: Fuzzy String Matching
Everybody might have wondered how the "Did you mean:" feature in Google or any other search engine works. Long ago I saw a question in Stackoverflow; querying about the availability of source code for "Did you mean:" feature !!! (something similar I think). If you wonder how this feature is working this chapter will give you enough knowledge to implement something similar. There is a simple discussion on different fuzzy string matching algorithms with code samples. There is practical examples on how to implement the "Did you Mean" and type ahead (auto suggest) utility on Apache Solr. Over all this chapter gives a solid introduction and hands on experience on Fuzzy String Matching.

Chapter 5: Identifying People, Places and Things
Diving deeper into text processing ocean, the authors narrates many deeper concepts in Text Processing starting from this chapter. The main focus of this chapter is Named Entity Identification (NER), one of the trivial tasks in Information Extraction and Retrieval. The chapter gives a good introduction to the task on Named Entity Identification along with code samples using OpenNLP. The code samples will help you to make your hands dirty. There is a section which deals with how to train OpenNLP to adopt a new domain. This will be one of the most useful tip for working professionals. The only thing which I feels to be missing is a mention about GATE and Apache UIMA. Both of the tools are famous for their capability to accomplish the NER task.

Chapter 6: Clustering Text
The sixth chapter mainly deals with Clustering. Clustering is an unsupervised (i.e. no human intervention required) task that can automatically put related content into buckets.[Taken from the book "Taming Text"]. The initial part of this chapter narrates clustering with reference to real world applications. A decent discussion on clustering techniques and clustering evaluation is also there. Code examples for clustering is given in this chapter. Apache Solr, Apache Mahout and Carrot are used to give practical examples for clustering.

Chapter 7: Classification, Categorization and Tagging
Seventh chapter deals with document classification. As like in the other chapters there is a reasonable discussion on document classification techniques. This chapter will teach you how to perform document classification with Apache Lucene, Apache Solr, Apache Mahout and OepnNLP. There is interesting project called 'tag recommender' in this chapter. The only hiccup which I faced with this chapter is the "TT_HOME" environment variable which used through out the book. I think the authors forgot to mention how to set TT_HOME. I was familiar with Apache Mahout so ther was no issue with MAHOUT_HOME environment variable. A totally newbie will find it difficult to spot the TT_HOME and MAHOUT_HOME used in the code samples. A little bit light on setting these variables may help reader a lot. I think this will be included in the final copy(I am reading a MEAP version).

Chapter 8: An Example Application: Question Answering
This chapter gives a hands on experience in Taming Text. The entire chapter is dedicated for building a Question Answering project using the techniques discussed in all the chapters. A simple make your hands dirty by Taming Text chapter. Here also you will be caught with the TT_HOME ghost.

Chapter 9: Untamed Text: Exploring the Next Frontier
The last chapter "Untamed Text: Exploring the Next Frontier" mentions other ares in Text processing such as Semantics Pragmatics and Sentiment Analysis etc.. Brief narration on each of these field are included in this chapter. There are a lots of pointers to some useful tools for advanced Text processing tasks like Text Summarisation and Relation Extraction etc ..

Conclusion
Grant S. Ingersoll, Thomas S. Morton and Andrew L. Farris have done a nice job by authoring this book with lucid explanations and practical examples for different Text Processing Challenges. With the help of simple and narrative examples the authors demonstrates how to solve real world text processing challenges using Free and Open Source Tools. The algorithm discussions in the book is so simple; even a newbie can follow the concepts without much hiccups. It is a good desktop reference for people who would like to start with Text Processing. It provides comprehensive and hands-on experience in Text Processing. So grab a copy soon and be ready for Big Data Analysis.

Free and Open Source Tools Discussed in the Book
Apache Solr
Apache Lucene
Apache Mahout
Apache OpenNLP
Carrot2.

Disclaimer : I received a review copy of the book from Manning

My Experiences with Free Software: Starting MySQL Server in Fedora 16

noreply@blogger.com (മണിലാല്‍ കെ എം : Manilal K M) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:36:39 +0000

The selinux-policy package in Fedora 16 had a bug which prevents MySQL server from starting when SELinux is in enforcing mode. Fedora has released an update for selinux-policy which can be updated from updates-testing repository.

To install thisupdate run the following command:

yum update selinux-policy --enablerepo=updates-testing

The relevant error messages in /var/log/message:

Nov 17 18:44:12 es016 kernel: [ 172.476165] type=1400 audit(1321535652.092:14): avc: denied { read } for pid=1907 comm="mysqld_safe" path="/bin/bash" dev=dm-1 ino=396459 scontext=system_u:system_r:mysqld_safe_t:s0 tcontext=system_u:object_r:shell_exec_t:s0 tclass=file
Nov 17 18:44:12 es016 systemd[1]: mysqld.service: control process exited, code=exited status=127
Nov 17 18:44:12 es016 systemd[1]: mysqld.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart.
Nov 17 18:44:12 es016 systemd[1]: Job pending for unit, delaying automatic restart.
Nov 17 18:44:12 es016 systemd[1]: Unit mysqld.service entered failed state.

More details:
Bug Report: RHBZ #754072
Package update: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/selinux-policy-3.10.0-56.fc16

Praveen Arimbrathodiyil blogs here: ओकुपै वालस्ट्रीट आन्दोलन में हमारी भूमिका क्या है?

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:32:54 +0000

अमेरिका में न्यूयोर्क शहर में दो महीनों से चलने वाली ओकुपै वालस्ट्रीट आन्दोलन के बारे में सब सुना ही होगा। अब वह न्यूयोर्क के बाहर अमेरिकी शहरों में ही नही पूरी दुनिया में फैली है। अमेरिकी समाज में आज हम को बहुत खैर बराबरी दिखाइ देगा, बहुत सारे लोगोंको अपना घर और नैकरी आज नहीं है, बहुत युवा लोग अपनी शिक्षा के लिए जो खर्चा लिया वो वापस कर नहि पा रहा है, उनको अच्छी नैकरी की प्रतीक्षा भी नहीं है। यह सभी लोग यह अन्याय व्यवस्था खतम करके एक न्याय समाज लाने के लिए आज रस्ते पर आयें है। यह लोग आज पूरे दुनिया के लिए – हम सब के लिए लड रहें है। जो लोग आज एक न्याय समाज और सच्ची लोकशाही का सपना देखते है, उन सबको आज इसमें शामिल होना है और उनकी आवाजको हमारे समाज में पहूँचाना जरूरि है, क्योंकि ये हमारी ही लडाई है। हम भी इधर एक नया समाज बनाने की कोशिश शुरू करेंगे। हम यह लडाई जीत सकेंगे की नहीं ये मुझे पता नही, एक बात तो पक्कि है, हम कोशिश ही नहिं करेंगें तो बदलाव नहीं होने वाला है। कम से कम ये मुद्धे हम सबकी बातचीत और सोच में ला सकते है। जब और लोगोने इसपर सोचना शुरू किया तो शायद कुछ जवाब मिल सकता है। पूरे दुनिया में आज बदलाव के लिए लोग अपने घर और ओफीस के बाहर आकर रस्ते पर आ चुका है, और सबके मन में बदलाव की आशा मजबूत है, आज हमारे सामने यह एक ऐतिहासिक मोका है, हमको इसका पूरा फायदा उठाना है। आप भी हमारे साथ इसमें जुडें।

अधिक जानकारि के लिए http://piratepad.net/18octpune देखे।

PS: Thanks to Sandeep for spelling and grammar help!

JEFFREY's Log: How are devices reverse engineered

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:06:37 +0000

This post contains mail written by me to the famous hacker Héctor Martín. The mail was regarding the basic steps in reverse engineering devices.

– MAIL BEGIN –
> 1) After opening a device, how do you understand which chip is the CPU ?

This is usually fairly obvious from the layout and the connectivity on the board. It really depends on the device, but it’s usually one of the larger chips, and may be connected to Flash memory, and/or to a quartz crystal. On larger devices it will have its own power supply, while on smaller ones the only telltale might be that it’s connected to most parts of the board. And of course, often you can just look up the part numbers and figure out what most chips are.

> 2) How are the firmwares extracted from the devices ? Is there a general principle ?

This depends heavily on the device. It can be as easy as connecting to a debug serial port and getting a text-based console into a bootloader that lets you dump the flash. Or it can be as hard as requiring a clock/power glitching setup in order to dump an internal mask ROM buried inside the CPU. Usually if the flash is external, you can remove it and dump it externally, or there might be a JTAG port through which you can read/write it. Microcontrollers with embedded flash usually have programming ports but the code is usually protected from readout; these are nearly impossible to dump unless you know of a specific vulnerability in the particular chip’s protection.

> 3) After getting a firmware dump how do you read it ?

If you know the CPU architecture in use, you run it through a disassembler and see if it makes sense. If you don’t know the architecture, you can try some educated guesses. After a while you learn to recognize some popular CPU architectures from a simple hex dump (e.g. ARM code sticks out like a sore thumb due to the condition code field, which means that every 32-bit word almost always starts with ‘E’). You can just use GNU binutils (objdump) to disassemble code (usually), but the IDA disassembler by Hex-Rays is quite popular in the reverse engineering community (albeit quite pricey). Sometimes the CPU architecture is unknown. I know some crazy people who can eventually make sense of an unknown binary and figure out what the opcodes mean, but I’m not one of them.

And sometimes if the firmware has very high entropy (it looks like “garbage” – no patterns, you learn to recognize this too) it usually means it’s either encrypted or compressed, so you might look to see whether you can find an offset after which there’s valid compressed data using a popular algorithm (zlib, LZMA, etc…). If it’s encrypted sometimes there are blockwise patterns (e.g. duplicated 16byte or 8byte blocks) that often mean it’s encrypted using a block cipher in ECB mode.

– MAIL END –

Syntax: Python script for automatic synchronisation of ‘Read it later’ list and webpage

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:58:28 +0000

Adding to 'Read it later' list

One of the powerful features of firefox is that it has thousands of useful addons. We are going to deal with such an addon – Read it later. It allows us to book mark page to read later with just a click. I was happy living with it.

But on one fine day, Hrishiettan told me about sharing the links we read and its advantages. Sharing links will help many people to find interesting articles easily and it will also act as a link-index in case if we want to refer it again. The idea is really good and he told he would start working on a php app.

On another day, I told about this to Raghesh sir. He told there’s an option to export our list to html in ‘Read it later’. That’s it! They have an API too! Got the API key from their website, cleared all existing links as they contain irrelevant news links, and wrote following script. It now updates the links in http://ershadk.com/links/ every 5 minutes automatically from my ‘Read it later’ list. Thank you

ps: The standard way of xml parsing didn’t work, that’s why I wrote it rude

Syntax: A python script to generate SQL queries for importing links/blogroll in another wordpress blog

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 07:47:13 +0000

Here’s the problem: There are 30 precious links in my old blog under blogroll. Exporting feature of wordpress does not export the contents in blogroll/links. The task is to import those links in this new blog with minimum effort.

Well, Adding 30 links manually ain’t difficult – it may take a maximum of 15 minutes to complete the task. But it’s too repetitive and boring. The best way is obviously writing a script.

Here’s a small python script that generates SQL queries to insert old blogroll items in new database. It will ask for old blog URL and new database name – that’s it, it will search your old blog for blogroll links and print INSERT statements in stdout suitable for executing in phpmyadmin or directly in mysql shell

Hope you like it, Thank you

Syntax: New home!

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:18:22 +0000

It was one of my dreams to have an own domain. With god’s grace, It’s cherished now.

Thank a lot to Manuettan and his firm Coolwrks for kindly hosting this website. If he hadn’t provided me free hosting, I wouldn’t have even registered this domain

Please update your feed /email subscriptions from old blog to this one. Thank you

My Experiences with Free Software: GNOME 3 - A Quick Review

noreply@blogger.com (മണിലാല്‍ കെ എം : Manilal K M) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:28:39 +0000

I have been experimenting with the latest and greatest version of GNOME desktop for the last 4 days. I was allured by the Simply Beautiful tag line of GNOME 3, and it was not completely wrong. The new desktop is really clean, simple and elegant. But there are some usability issues which made me crazy while using the new desktop. I did an upgrade to the beta release of Fedora 15 to test GNOME 3.

I don’t want to re-iterate all the fancy features of GNOME 3 which have been discussed else where. This scribbling is basically about the issues I faced while using the desktop and I'm not sure whether it qualifies as a review. May be the issues I faced are side-effects of a better desktop architecture and it’s due to my ignorance or unfamiliarity with GNOME 3.

The notable change in the new desktop is the absence of the bottom panel, which saved some space for the opened windows, but it costs several clicks to re-open a window. In GNOME 2, I need only a single click to re-open a window from the bottom panel, but in 3 I have to click on the Activities, and then click on the Favourites icon to get the previously opened window. If you have multiple windows opened, then you have to do another click to open the window other than the last one.

I was really frustrated, whenever I need a fresh Terminal. I was able to open a new terminal only by right clicking on the Favourites icon, if there is already an open terminal.

The Activities-->Applications has a section called Other. I thought that it may be some less important applications/utilities for the desktop. But, later I discovered that it had some really important utilities such as Firewall, Network, Input Method, Date & Time, Printing, etc... I’m not sure why these are aggregated under Other.

GNOME 3 doesn’t have a easy Shut down button to power off the machine. However, if I click on the username on the top-right corner and then hold the ALT key, I can see the Power off menu item.

I cannot change the format of date & time displayed on the top panel. The main issue is that if I have to check today’s date, then I have to click and open the calendar every time. The panel displays only the weekday and hours. I still can’t figure out how the date can be displayed.

A really great application I missed in GNOME 3 is the Hamster Time tracking applet. I know that it’s not a GNOME issue, but I have to return to gnote for tracking time at work.

There are no Minimize and Maximise button for the windows, but it’s not a big issue since I rarely used them. I always preferred double-clicking on top of the window to maximise/minimise them.

The keyboard shortcut to move files to trash have changed in Nautilus. I have to press control+delete(Same as copy, paste, etc..) to move files to trash. This is useful, since it avoids accidental removal files to trash. But it's an important usability change and users should get used to it.

I’m still exploring the new features and I wish to update the list as I progress. Since I’m using the bleeding edge of Fedora, things may change in the GA release.

Update - 6/6/2011

Solved the date issue on panel by running the following command:

 $ gsettings org.gnome.shell.clock show-date true

You can also install gnome-tweak-tool(available in YUM repository) to change the advanced settings in GNOME 3.

ബ്ലോഗ് ഭൂമി - e lekhanangal: സിരി - ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് തിരയലിന്റെ ശബ്‌ദ വസന്തം

noreply@blogger.com (വി. കെ ആദര്‍ശ്) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:59:27 +0000

ആപ്പിള്‍ 4എസ് മൊബീല്‍ ഫോണിലെ ഒരു പേഴ്‌സണല്‍ അസിസ്റ്റന്റ് ആപ്ലിക്കേഷന്‍ മാത്രമായി സിരീ എന്ന ശബ്‌ദ തിരയല്‍ സംവിധാനത്തെ കാണുന്നത് ശരിയാകില്ല. നിര്‍മ്മിത ബുദ്ധി (ആര്‍ട്ടിഫിഷ്യല്‍ ഇന്റലിജന്‍സ്) യുടെ സമര്‍ത്ഥമായ പ്രയോഗമാണ് ഈ സ്വഭാവിക ഭാഷാ വിശകലന ഉപാധി. ഈ ആപ്ലിക്കേഷന്‍ സജീവമാക്കിയ ശേഷം ആവശ്യമുള്ള വിവരം ഫോണിനോട് ചോദിക്കുക. ഉടന്‍ തന്നെ ഉത്തരം ലഭിക്കും. സാങ്കേതികതയുടെ ബാലാരിഷ്ടതകള്‍ ഒഴിവാക്കിയാല്‍ സീരി അടുത്ത ടെക് വിപ്ലവം എന്ന് തന്നെ പറഞ്ഞാലും തെറ്റില്ല. കാരണം ഫോണിനോ സമാന ഉപകരണങ്ങള്‍ക്കോ അതിന്റെ സന്തത സഹചാരിയായ ബഹുവര്‍ണ സ്‌ക്രീന്‍ തന്നെ ആവശ്യമില്ലാത്ത തരത്തിലാണ് കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ പുരോഗമിക്കുന്നത്. സമീപ ഭാവിയില്‍ ഒരാളെ വിളിക്കണമെങ്കില്‍ ഫോണ്‍ എടുത്ത് വിളിക്കണം എന്ന് പറയുക. തിരികെ ആരെ വിളിക്കണം എന്ന് ഫോണ്‍ ചോദിക്കും. പേര് പറയുക. ഒന്നിലേറേ പേര് ഫോണ്‍ ബുക്കില്‍ ഉണ്ടെങ്കില്‍ അതില്‍ എത് വേണമെന്ന് ഫോണ്‍ വീണ്ടും ചോദിക്കും അതനുസരിച്ച് വിളിച്ച് തരും. ഇനി അങ്ങേപ്പുറത്തെ ആള്‍ തിരക്കിലോ അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ ഫോണ്‍ ഓഫ് ചെയ്‌തിരിക്കുന്ന അവസ്ഥയിലോ ആണെങ്കില്‍ ചിലപ്പോള്‍ സീരി ഇങ്ങനെ മറുപടി പറയാം. അദ്ദേഹത്തിനെ ഈ നമ്പറില്‍ കിട്ടുന്നില്ല വീട്ടിലെയോ അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ ഓഫീസിലെയോ നമ്പറില്‍ ശ്രമിക്കണോ. അതുമല്ലെങ്കില്‍ കുറച്ച് കഴിഞ്ഞ് വിളിക്കാം. എസ് എം എസ് വേണമെങ്കിലും അയക്കാം വേണ്ടത് പറഞ്ഞ് കൊള്ളൂ. അല്‍‌പം കഴിഞ്ഞ് വിളിക്കാം എന്നാണ് മറുപടി എങ്കില്‍ ഉടനെ വരും അടുത്ത ഉപദേശം എത്ര സമയം കഴിഞ്ഞ് വിളിക്കണം സമയം പറഞ്ഞോളൂ !

കഴിഞ്ഞ വര്‍ഷം ഏപ്രിലിലാണ് സീരിയെ ആപ്പിള്‍ സ്വന്തമാക്കുന്നത്. ഉത്പന്നം എന്ന നിലയില്‍ അവതരിപ്പിക്കുന്നത് കഴിഞ്ഞ മാസം അവതരിപ്പിച്ച എറ്റവും പുതിയ ഐ ഫോണിലും. നാല് വര്‍ഷം മുന്‍‌പ് ഒരു ചെറു സംരംഭമായി വികസിപ്പിച്ച് തുടങ്ങിയതാണ് സിരീ. അമേരിക്കന്‍ പ്രതിരോധ സ്ഥാപനമായ ദര്‍പ (ഡിഫന്‍സ് അഡ്വവാന്‍സ്‌ഡ് റിസര്‍ച്ച് പ്രോജക്‍ട്) യുടെ സഹകരണവും ആവോളം ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു. SRI International ആണ് ഈ പദ്ധതിയുടെ ഇടനാഴിയായി പ്രവര്‍ത്തിച്ചത്, ഏതാനും സര്‍വകലാശാലകളുടെ അക്കാദമിക-സാങ്കേതിക സഹായവും പിന്നിലുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. ആന്‍‌ഡ്രോയ്ഡ്, ബ്ലാക്ക്‍ബെറി തുടങ്ങിയ സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണുകളിലും ശബ്ദത്തിരയല്‍ ആയി ഇത് വരുമെന്ന് അനുമാനിച്ചവര്‍ ഏറെയായിരുന്നു. എന്നാല്‍ ആപ്പിള്‍ ഇത് എറ്റെടുത്തതോടെ ഇനി ഐ ഫോണിലൂടെയാകും മുഖ്യമായും സീരി ശബ്‌ദമുണ്ടാക്കി നീങ്ങുന്നത്. നമ്മുടെ ശബ്‌ദാന്വേഷണത്തിന് വിവരം ലഭിക്കുന്നതിനായി ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റിലെ ആശ്രയിക്കാനാകുന്ന ഇടങ്ങള്‍ക്കൊപ്പം ഫോണിലെ റിമൈന്‍ഡര്‍ , ഫോണ്‍ ബുക്ക്, എസ് എം എസ് പെട്ടി, നോട്ട്സ് ,കലണ്ടര്‍ , സമയവിവരം, ഭൂപട സൌകര്യം എന്നിവയും ഉപയോഗിക്കും. ഓഹരി വിപണി വാര്‍ത്ത കാലാവസ്ഥാ വിവരം എന്നിവയും അവിഭാജ്യ ഘടകമാണ്. മഴവരുന്നോ, ഓഹരി വിപണി ഉയര്‍ന്നോ എന്ന് വിളിച്ച് തന്നെ ചോദിക്കാം ഉടനെ ഫോണ്‍ മറുപടിയും പറയും. നമ്മള്‍ നില്‍ക്കുന്നയിടം ഫോണിന് അറിയാവുന്നതിനാല്‍ അവിടെ മഴപെയ്യുമോ ഇല്ലയോ എന്നാകും മിക്കവാറും ആദ്യം മറുപടി പറയുക എന്ന് ഊഹിക്കുന്നതില്‍ തെറ്റില്ലല്ലോ. ഒപ്പം തന്നെ മറ്റ് സ്ഥലങ്ങളുടെ കാലാവസ്ഥാ വിവരം ആണ് വേണ്ടതെങ്കില്‍ സ്ഥലനാമം പറഞ്ഞു കൊള്ളൂ എന്ന് ഉപദേശിച്ചാലോ!

നിലവില്‍ തന്നെ മൊബീല്‍ ഫോണുകള്‍ മൂകരും ബധിരരുമായവര്‍ക്ക് അനുഗ്രഹമാണ്. എസ് എം എസ് വഴിയും മൊബീല്‍ ഫോണ്‍ സ്‌ക്രീനിലെ മറ്റ് ഇന്ദ്രജാലങ്ങള്‍ വഴിയും അവര്‍ എത്ര സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തോടെയാണ് നമ്മളുമായി ആശയവിനിമയം ചെയ്യുന്നത്. ഇക്കഴിഞ്ഞ പതിനഞ്ചുവര്‍ഷം കൊണ്ട് മൊബീല്‍ ഫോണ്‍ വ്യാപകമായപ്പോഴും അന്ധരായ ചങ്ങാതിമാര്‍ക്ക് അത്ര ചങ്ങാത്തം കൂടാന്‍ പറ്റിയ ഉപകരണമായിരുന്നില്ല ഫോണുകള്‍ .ചില മോഡലുകളില്‍ വോയ്സ് റെക്കഗ്നിഷന്‍ സംവിധാനം ഉണ്ടെങ്കിലും അത് ഫോണിന്റെ പൂര്‍ണ ഉപയോഗം സാധ്യമാക്കിയിരുന്നില്ല. എന്നാല്‍ സീരിയും ഇതിനെ പ്രതിരോധിക്കാന്‍ ആന്‍‌ഡ്രോയ്‌ഡും ബ്ലാക്ക്ബെറിയും അടങ്ങുന്ന എതിരാളികള്‍ ഇറക്കാന്‍ ഇടയുള്ള സംവിധാനങ്ങളും കൂടി എത്തുന്നതോടെ കണ്ണുകാണാത്തത് ഒരു തടസമായി കുറഞ്ഞ പക്ഷം ഫോണുപയോഗിക്കുന്നതില്‍ അവര്‍ക്ക് അനുഭവപ്പെടില്ല. ഇതുവരെ അന്യമായിരുന്ന എസ് എം എസ് അവര്‍ക്ക് ഇനി ഇണങ്ങും. ആളിന്റെ പേര് പറയുക അയക്കാനുള്ള സന്ദേശം നിര്‍ദ്ദേശാനുസരണം നല്‍കുക. പൂര്‍ത്തിയായ ശേഷം ഫോണ്‍ തന്നെ ടൈപ്പ് ചെയ്യിപ്പിച്ചത് വായിച്ച് കേള്‍പ്പിക്കും അയക്കട്ടെ എന്ന അവസാന ചോദ്യത്തിന് യെസ് പറയുന്നതോടെ സന്ദേശം ഫോണ്‍ കടന്ന് അടുത്ത ഫോണിലേക്കോ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറിലേക്കോ പറക്കും.

ഫോണിലെ വിവരവിശകലന ശേഷിയുള്ള അത്യാധുനിക ചിപ്പ്, പ്രത്യേക ആപ്പ്(ളിക്കേഷന്‍), ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് ബന്ധം, ഇതിനായി ആ‍ശ്രയിക്കാവുന്ന വിവരയിടങ്ങള്‍ എന്നിവയുടെ ചേരുവയാണ് ശബ്‌ദതിരയല്‍ നടത്തുന്നത്. നിര്‍മ്മിത ബുദ്ധി അടിസ്ഥാനമാക്കി പ്രവര്‍ത്തിക്കുന്നതിനാല്‍ വരും കാലത്ത് അതിശയിപ്പിക്കുന്ന മാറ്റങ്ങള്‍ ഈ സംവിധാനത്തില്‍ ഉണ്ടാകും. നിലവില്‍ പരിമിതികള്‍ ഏറെയുണ്ട്. കൂടുതലും അമേരിക്ക അടിസ്ഥാനമാക്കിയുള്ള വിവരങ്ങളാണ് ചികഞ്ഞെടുത്ത് പറയുന്നത്. ആംഗലേയവും സഹായവാണികളുമാണ് ഇപ്പോള്‍ അനുസരിക്കുന്നത്. എന്നാല്‍ എല്ലാ കണ്ടുപിടുത്തങ്ങളെയും പോലെ ഇതും ചിറക് വിരിച്ച് പറക്കാന്‍ തുടങ്ങും എന്നതില്‍ സംശയമില്ല. 1903 ല്‍ റൈറ്റ് സഹോദരന്മാര്‍ വിമാനം കണ്ടുപിടിച്ചത് നാം ഇന്ന് കാണുന്ന രൂപത്തിലും ഭാവത്തിലും അല്ലല്ലോ. ഒരു പക്ഷെ അവരുടെ ഭാവനയ്‌ക്കും അപ്പുറത്താണ് ഇന്ന് വിമാനങ്ങളുടെ ഭൂഖണ്ഡാന്തര സഞ്ചാരം. അതുപോലെ ഈ ശബ്‌ദത്തിരയല്‍ വസന്തം ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റിനെയും മൊബീല്‍ ഫോണിനെയും സമാനതകളില്ലാത്ത പുതിയ വഴികളിലൂടെ നടത്തും. ഒരു പക്ഷെ ഭാവി സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ട് ഫോണുകള്‍ക്ക് സ്‌ക്രീന്‍ ഇല്ലാത്ത മോഡലുകളും ഉണ്ടാകും. ഒരു പേനയുടെ അടപ്പ് പോലെ കീശയില്‍ കുത്തിക്കൊണ്ട് നടക്കാനായേക്കാം.

ബിറ്റ്സ് ആന്‍ഡ് ബൈറ്റ്സ് : കല്‍‌പിത കഥ പോലെ ഒരു കാര്യം പറയാം. പുലര്‍കാലെ 4.30 നുള്ള ഒരു തീവണ്ടിയില്‍ കയറിപറ്റാനായി 4.00 മണിക്ക് അലാറം വച്ച് കിടന്നുറങ്ങുന്നു. രാവേറെ വൈകി കിടന്നതിന്റെ ക്ഷീണവുമുണ്ട് അതേ സമയം യാത്ര ഒഴിവാക്കാനും വയ്യാത്തത് കൊണ്ട് മാത്രമാണ് അലാറം വച്ചത്. പക്ഷെ ഫോണ്‍ അലാറം ശബ്‌ദിച്ചത് കൃത്യം 7 മണിക്ക് എന്നിട്ടും തീവണ്ടി കിട്ടാതെയുമിരുന്നില്ല യാത്ര മുടങ്ങിയതുമില്ലത്രേ! എങ്ങനെയെന്നോ വണ്ടി മൂന്ന് മണിക്കൂര്‍ വൈകിയോടുന്നു എന്ന വിവരം തീവണ്ടിയാപ്പീസിലെ സമയവിവര പട്ടികയില്‍ നിന്നോ റേഡിയോ അറിയിപ്പില്‍ നിന്നോ മൊബില്‍ ഫോണ്‍ സ്‌മാര്‍ട്ടായി മനസിലാക്കി. തന്റെ യജമാനന്റെ ദിനക്കുറിപ്പ് നോക്കിയപ്പോള്‍ ഈ സമയത്തിനിടയ്‌ക്ക് വേറേ പരിപാടികള്‍ ഒന്നും കണ്ടതുമില്ല, അതു കൊണ്ട് പാവം കിടന്നുറങ്ങിയതല്ലേ എന്ന് ഫോണ്‍ കണക്കുകൂട്ടി. ആര്‍ട്ടിഫിഷ്യല്‍ ഇന്റലിജന്‍സിന് അല്പസ്വല്‍പ്പം ബുദ്ധിയൊക്കെ ഉണ്ടെന്ന് മനസിലായില്ലേ !

abundance of the heart: 2011_Sep_Mobile

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:05:04 +0000

After a long gap of almost 7 months, I have compiled the statistical report for the Indian Language wikipedias.

As all of you know recently I joined the India Programs of WMF to support the Indic language wiki projects. In the past I was interacting with various Indic language wikipedians for various community related and technical things (for example, the FAQ booklet translated to various Indic languages, the typing tool integrated to several Indic wikipedias (now rechristened as Narayam extension and now has the official backing of WMF), Wiki India Newsletter, and so on). Now onwards I will be able to spend more time on the Indic language wiki projects.

The data for this report is taken from http://stats.wikimedia.org/. I thank Erik Zachte for providing me the support for the same.

Due to the long processing time, the report at stats.wikimedia.org is getting generated after one month. Hence in this report I have captured the data for 2011 September (also data for 2011 August is given for comparison).

Unlike the previous reports, now onwards I will be analyzing data only for the languages spoken in India. So from this report I have excluded languages of neighboring countries of India like Sinhala, Burmese, and so on (even though personally I am interested to watch the growth of these language wikipedias also since those languages are closely related to one or the other language spoken in India).

Following are the languages of India I have selected for preparing this report. The number of speakers for each language is given against each language.

NOTE: I have used the Indian way way of denoting large numbers, since that make more sense in India. Others please note, Crore is equal to 10 million, and Lakh is 100,000.

Indian languages having wikipedia

In India, Hindi is the language with most number of native language speakers. There are few more languages with huge speaker base. But when it comes to Wikimedia movement of India, speaker base is not making much impact.

The number of speakers for Punjabi (the language spoken in the Punjab state of India) is often misquoted at many places including the WMF stats. Punjabi language has two variants (Eastern Punjabi and Western Punjabi). According to various Indian statistics reports, the Punjbai language (also called Eastern Punjabi according to en Wikipedia) that uses Gurumukhi Script, is spoken by almost 2.9 crore people. The Western Punjabi (a language spoken by close to 6 crore people in Pakistan) has its own wikipedia (http://pnb.wikipedia.org). I assume the issue is similar to that of Hindi and Urdu where languages are closely related but use different scripts due to various reasons. Since my interest is in the Punjabi wikipedia (http://pa.wikipedia.org) that uses Gurumukhi script, I considered the number of speakers for that language.

Also I found that the Bhojpuri wikipedia (http://bh.wikipedia.org/) still uses the wrong language code (bh), the code that represents the Bihari language family. Bihari (ISO-639-1 bh) is a language family and the Bhojpuri language is just one of the languages in this family (Angika, Fiji Hindi and Maithili are few others). Bhojpuri has the language code bho. So we need to do two things in the case of Bhojpuri wikipedia. 1. update the language code to bho, 2. change the language name to Bhojpuri (instead of Bihari) in wikimedia records.

I have included almost all the important parameters (for which there is required and updated data) in this report. From the next report onwards I will be adding few more relevant parameters. The placement of languages in the all the tables of this report is based on the number of speakers.

Article statistics

Hindi with more than 1 lakh (100,000) articles is on the top. Newari wikipedia with 69,826 articles comes second, and Telugu comes third with 48,803.

In the span of 9 months (from 2011 January) Hindi wikipedia has added more than 40,000 articles. But did the community size increased? See the next few parameters for more information.

Odia and Assamese wikipedias made much progress since my last report. Both the article number and community strength are increased for both. The article number in Punjabi wikipedia is going high.

Edits per article

Edits per article shows the number of times a wikipedia article is edited. More edits for an articles means more people contributed to it and neutrality of the article is also high. For active wikipedias it is a rough indicator of quality. Wiki article will have more encyclopedic value when more people see and edit it.

Among active wikipedias Bengali and Malayalam got maximum edits per article. It is expected, since it has a very active community. (To see the community strength refer the next few tables).

For languages like Kashmiri, Pali the edit per article is high because it has very less number of articles and same articles are getting edited (mostly by bots) every time.

Editor and Reader Statistics

Malayalam and Tamil tops the list with almost 85 active editors. But in Malayalam there is a reduction of 14 active editors from the previous month.

As said before, when it comes to Wikimedia movement, the speaker base is not making much impact.

For example, Sanskrit language with just 50,000 speakers is making huge impact in the Wikimedia world. It has 14 active users, a bigger community than many other big Indic languages. I am impressed by the efforts of Sansskrit wiki projects especially with the sister wiki projects (for example wikisource), their way of interacting and implementing the best practices from other Indic language wikipedias, and so on.

In the past few months I have conducted 3 wiki workshops for Sanskrit. I found each time they are maturing with the vision about the future of Sanskrit wiki projects. In the last Sanskrit wiki workshop the main focus was on defining the category tree for Sanskrit wikipedia.

When I published the report last time, Odia and Assamese wikipedias were inactive. Now the situation is changed. Now we have a community to work on it.

The progress made by Odia wiki project (http://or.wikipedia.org/) is note worthy. Kudos to Odia wiki community for all the online and offline initiatives for building the community and to increase the article count. I was actively involved in the community building for Odia wikipedia. I still remember the day (2011 January 15) when I introducted Odia wikipedia and Odia tying tool (developed by Junaid) to Odia speaker to Ashuthosh Kar during Wiki X celebration at Bangalore. Through him very soon we got a wonderful wikipedian Subhashish who is leading the efforts for Odia now. Initially Subhasish and I used to meet at my home and work on the basic things for Odia wiki. I remember us working on Odia wikipedia logo, FAQ booklet, Translate wiki, and so on. Soon we got more members to the team through the few Odia wiki workshops happened at Bangalore. Along with workshops Odia wikipedians translated the FAQ booklet to Odia and took efforts to integrate the Odia tyoing solution developed by Junaid to Odia wikipedia. Later with the support of Dhanada Mishra (the chairman of Human Development Foundation (http://www.hdf.org.in/)) and a young student Odia wikipedian Srikanth Kedia we had conducted a wiki workshop at Bhubaneshwar. Odia wikipedians from Bangalore are doing an excellent job and now many of them are participating in Wikimedia India chapter activities also.

Odia wiki project picked up not because Odia has got huge speaker base, high literacy, access to computers or any thing else; it become active only because it has receieved the volunteers who has passion and vision of developing a wikipedia in their mother language. We need similar volunteers for each Indic langauge.

The case is similar for Assamese also. I was trying to get a good volunteer for Assamese wikipedia for the past 3 years. Initially I tried to get the volunteers from Bangalore since Bangalore has good representation of Assamese community and it is easy for me to reach people. But that didn’t worked out. Then I tried for online outreach, initially through emails. Finally I got connected with Parabhakar who is a professor at NIT in Silchar, Assam. Together we try to do online outreach first through a google group (it didn’t worked out), then through facebook. A facebook page is created for Assamese wikipedia projects aimed at bringing together all Assamese people who are in Facebook and who are interested in Assamese wiki projects. It has more than 460 members now. Prabhakar used that group and his personal contacts effectively to build a community for Assamese wikipedia. That worked. Assamese wikipedia started becoming slowly active. Later Prabhakar started another Facebook group dedicated to NIT Silchar for promoting Indic language wikipedias among students (and aluminis) of NIT Silchar. Due to all these in the next few months we are going to see more wiki activity from the Assam state of India and in the Assamese wikipedia. Recently Narayam (the typing solution extension) is integrated to Assamese wikipedia. Thanks to the Assamese wikipedians Chaipu, Prabahakar and other volunteers who actively worked to make it a reality. A major roadblock for bringing Assamese people to Assamese wikipedia is removed now.

Assamese wiki community is currrently concentrated on online outreach, but soon they are planning to start offline outreach activties also.

It is intersting to note that the community size of smaller languages is either equal to or even larger than that of much bigger languages. I don’t fully understand this and like to hear your opinion on this. One hypothesis could be that, larger ratio of people in smaller languages are more passionate about their language and there fore are willing to put additional effort to showcase their mother language. Each Indic language wiki project is waiting for the few users who has vision and passion about the future of the respective wiki project.

The technical issues and the other road blocks for smaller languages are more.

Number of highly active wikipedians (more than 100 edits per month)

Highly active wikipedians are the editors who do at least 100 edits per month. In fact we must say that they are people who are running the respective language wiki.

Here also Malayalam and Tamil tops the list. In fact if we have more high active editors you will be able to see more activities (not just article creation) coming out of that wiki community. Due to this you can see that offline project, photo events, article writing contest, community quiz, collaborating with respective state government, photo contest, wiki workshops, and many other innovative wiki projects are coming out from these two wiki communities. So ideally we should be able to convert more active editors to highly-active editors to make the wiki activism in each language wikipedia more vibrant.

Registered users who edited at least 10 times since they arrived

This parameter shows how many of the registered users did actually turned into actual wiki editors and done at least few edits in wiki.

Even though many big languages has more number of registered users, still Malayalam continues to be on the top. Hindi and Tamil comes second and third. I wish all wiki communities be able to convert more registered users into active wiki editors.

Newly registered users who edited atleast 10 times

This parameter is a subset of the preceding table. It shows how many of the newly registered users turned into wiki editors. Tamil wiki community is leading here. Among smaller communities, Assamese is also doing well (due to the reasons I told else where).

Page Views – Non Mobile (In Lakhs)

This parameter shows how many readers are waiting for us. Are we caring for them? The following table give the data for Non-mobile (mainly PC).
Even though Hindi lags behind in some of the wikipedia editing/editor matrices, the speakers of Hindi are not lagging behind in using Hindi wikipedia. Hindi with 77 lakh page views tops the list. No other Indic langage is near Hindi. And this is expected considering the huge speaker base of Hindi.

Even for the inactive wikipedias like Sindhi, Kashmiri, Pali, and so on, we have thousands of people accessing it every month. But do we have enough content to offer for these readers? We need to build community for all these languages to serve our readers. In fact we should be converting some these readers into wikipedians of the respective language wikipedias.

Page Views – Mobile

This parameter shows how many are accessing each language wikipedia using mobile. Unlike the non-mobile data, this data is showing an upward trend for all the Indic languages. Eventhough rendering of indic scripts is not good in most of the mobile devices, many users are accessing it. This also shows from where our future readers are going to come.

Here again Hindi comes first. Most of the other Indic languages are increasing its mobile reader base. For some lamguages the growth is more than 100% than the previous month. I assume this is going to increase in future and it is our duty to welcome all these new readers and convert some of them into editors.

Conclusion

In short, in terms of readers most of the Indian languages are doing good. But when it comes to editors that is not the case. One hypothesis could be that we are more knowledge consumers than knowledge creators. Another – and a probably more valid one – is that there are large gaps in basic awareness of the existence of Indic language wikipedias, relatively lower use of Indic language on the Internet, (expected) lack of familiarity with wiki editing, technical issues with regards to Indic languages, tiny community sizes, and many other things.

As wikipedians can we change this scenario?

For wikimedia India we have lot of things to do. In terms of building the community, overcoming the technical challeges, creating awareness about wikipedia (more inportant is creating awareness about Indic language wikipedia), and so on. The challenges are many – but the opportunities are massive. I look forward to working closely with the various language communities on realizing the enormous potential of their respective languages.

Once again, I welcome your views and comments and opinions on the above. Please express your views as comment here. You can also reach me at shiju@wikimedia.org in case you want to send a personal mail. Thanks for reading.

aashiks'in: Software architecture

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:45:04 +0000

“Software Architecture: The art of decomposing solutions into components so that they communicate efficiently.”

From a conversation with Praseed Pai

jainbasil's blog: Removing an element in xml using sed

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 08:21:00 +0000

I wanted to remove an element named 'textForm' from all xmls in a directory. There were around 3000 xml files. I was planning to do it using Groovy, but later, I decided to tryout unix shell scripts to perform this operation.

Here's the script I used :

#!/bin/bash FILES=$HOME/xmls/* for f in $FILES do echo "Processing $f" DATA=$(cat $f | sed '/textForm/d') rm -f $f echo $DATA > $f done

This is a very simple tip on how to make your life easier using unix. But one issue I encountered was that whenever I gave same file as input and output to sed, data loss occurred. That's the main reason for me to split the process into three steps: Give the input to sed &store its output into a variable, delete the original file, and use echo the contents of output variable into file with same name.

If you know anyother methods to perform this easily, please share with me.

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Praveen Arimbrathodiyil blogs here: Mini Debian Conference at Nitte, near Mangalore – Overview

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 04:49:19 +0000

NMAMIT, Nitte

Just back in Pune after 4 days in Nitte in between Mangalore and Udupi in Karnataka state. The best part was the awesome food we had every single day! I never liked Sambar in my 3+ years in Bangalore, but it was so awesome here! (I don’t know how many times I can use the word ‘awesome’ in a blog!) I still think the “Mangalorean Pomfret Masala” was bliss!

Of course meeting awesome people is given, for any Free Software conference, so I don’t have to highlight that Chandan had interviewed Jonas Smedegaard and it was excellent – both questions and answers! The best question was “what is your message to Canonical/Ubuntu?” We had to cut the interview and let him think about an answer. He said “When a kid leaves their home, we just say best of luck with whatever you do. Ubuntu is like a kid leaving home to debian – so best of luck!” It was so thoughtful and graceful, at debian ubuntu has always been a strain – how do we deal with it? It looks like most people have swallowed the bitter pill and adjusted to Ubuntu being more popular. Jonas kept telling Ubuntu is also a debian user and we have made an oath “Our priorities are our users and free software“.

There is much more to write, hopefully I will find some time to write more later.

JEFFREY's Log: My new Buffalo NAS

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 08:45:04 +0000

Below shown is my new LS-CH1.0TL LinkStation Live 1TB Buffalo-NAS purchased from MediaMarkt (Germany).

It supports one of my favourite feature – Its a hackable device! Flashing a new GNU/Linux firmware. Buffalo-NAS is based on GNU/Linux and also they provide its sourcecode in the downloads section webpage.

Also there is an dedicated hack portal for the Buffalo-NAS. Below is the link
Buffalo NAS-Central – http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/Main_Page

I will post some hacks in my web log as I proceed.

Praveen Arimbrathodiyil Blogs here: വിപ്ലത്തിന്റെ മുഹൂര്‍ത്തം ആര്‍ക്കും പ്രവചിയ്ക്കാനാവില്ല

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:46:54 +0000

വീഡിയോ

ഞാന്‍ കാണുന്നതു് കോര്‍പ്പറേറ്റിസവും ഫാസിസവും ശിങ്കിടി മുതലാളിത്തവുമാണു്

ഒരു സ്വതന്ത്ര കമ്പോളം എനിയ്ക്കു് കാണുന്നില്ല

ഞാന്‍ കാണുന്നതു് ഒരു പോലീസ് ഭരണവും അമേരിക്കന്‍ സാമ്രാജ്യവുമാണു്

ഞാന്‍ കാണുന്നതു് 135 രാജ്യങ്ങളിലായി 700 പട്ടാള താവളങ്ങളാണു്

ഞാന്‍ കാണുന്നതു് ഇറാഖിലെ 5000 ശവശരീരങ്ങളാണു്

ഏകാധിപതികള്‍ക്കു് വലിയ സൈന്യങ്ങള്‍ ഉണ്ടാക്കാന്‍

ലക്ഷം കോടിക്കണക്കിനു് വിദേശ സഹായം നല്‍കുന്ന

ഒരു വെല്‍ഫെയര്‍ വാര്‍ഫെയര്‍ (യുദ്ധക്കൊതിയുള്ള) രാജ്യം

വഴി നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ട ഒരു അമേരിക്കയാണു് ഞാന്‍ കാണുന്നതു്

റിപ്പബ്ലിക്രാറ്റുകള്‍ - റിപ്പബ്ലിക്കന്‍സും ഡെമോക്രാറ്റ്സും

രണ്ടു് കൂട്ടരും ഒരേ കാര്യത്തിനു് തന്നെയാണു് നിലകൊള്ളുന്നതു്

ഒരു യഥാര്‍ത്ഥ ജനാധിപത്യം എനിയ്ക്കു് കാണാനില്ല

ജനങ്ങളുടെ ശബ്ദം എനിയ്ക്കു് കേള്‍ക്കാനില്ല

അവസാനം ഞങ്ങള്‍ ഉണര്‍ത്തെഴുന്നേറ്റിരിയ്ക്കുന്നു

മൈക്ക് ചെക്ക് മൈക്ക് ചെക്ക്

സ്പെയിന്‍, ഈജിപ്ത്, പോലെ, ഇതിന്റെ ഡൈനാമിക്സും സമയവും ശരിയാണോ?

ഇതു് ശരിയായ മുഹൂര്‍ത്തമാണോ?

ആ മാനസികാവസ്ഥ ഉണ്ടോ?

ഇതൊന്നും നമുക്കു് പ്രവചിയ്ക്കാനാവില്ല

ജനങ്ങള്‍ പ്രതിഷേധിയ്ക്കുമ്പോള്‍, ഒരു ദിവസം പുറത്തിറങ്ങി മാര്‍ച്ച് ചെയ്യുമ്പോള്‍

എന്തു് സംഭവിയ്ക്കുമെന്നു് നമ്മള്‍ കണ്ടിട്ടുണ്ടു്

അധികാരമാറ്റത്തിനും ജനങ്ങള്‍ തമ്മില്‍ തമ്മില്‍

എങ്ങനെ കാണുന്നു എന്നതിനും

പുതിയൊരു രീതിയ്ക്കുള്ള ഒരുവസരമായിരിയ്ക്കാം ഒരു പക്ഷേ ഇതു്.

ഞാന്‍ പറയാറുള്ളതു് പോലെ

രണ്ടായാലും നമുക്കു് തന്നെ നഷ്ടം

എന്നാല്‍ ഇതു് നോക്കാവുന്നതാണു്

ഇതു് സംഭവിയ്ക്കാന്‍ ഞാന്‍ കാത്തിരിയ്ക്കുകയായിരുന്നു

ഇതു് സംഭവിയ്ക്കുമെന്നു് എനിയ്ക്കറിയാമായിരുന്നു

കാരണം യൂറോപ്പില്‍ ഇതു് സംഭവിച്ചു

ഇതു് പടരും എന്നു് എനിയ്ക്കറിയാമായിരുന്നു

ഇതു് എന്റെ ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ

വലിയ പങ്കും ഞാന്‍

അനുഭവിച്ചു കൊണ്ടിരുന്നതാണു്

ഇതു് ബാഹ്യലോകത്തു് പ്രതിഫലിച്ചു് കാണുന്നതു്

ഒരു അനുഗ്രഹമാണു്, ഇതിന്റെ ഭാഗമാകുന്നതു്

ഞാന്‍ ശരിയ്ക്കും ആസ്വദിയ്ക്കുന്നു

ഞാന്‍ പണ്ടു് മുതലേ ഇതിലൊക്കെ ഉള്ളൊരാളാണു്

ഞാന്‍ കഴിഞ്ഞ നാലു് പതിറ്റാണ്ടുകളായി പല തരം ആക്റ്റിവിസത്തിലുണ്ടു്

നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കറിയുമോ ഇതു് എല്ലായ്പോഴും എന്റെ സ്വപ്നമായിരുന്നു

വാള്‍സ്ട്രീറ്റിനു് പിന്നാലെ പോകാനും ജയിലില്‍ കയറാതെയോ

അടി വാങ്ങാതെയോ ഇതിനെ ആക്രമിയ്ക്കാനോ

നമ്മള്‍ എങ്ങനെ ജയിയ്ക്കും?

നമ്മള്‍ എവിടെയും പോകുന്നില്ല

ഇതു് ആളുകളെ പഠിപ്പിയ്ക്കാനുള്ള പ്രവര്‍ത്തനമാണു്

ശരിയ്ക്കും പറഞ്ഞാല്‍ ലോകത്തെ തന്നെ

അതാതയതു് നമ്മള്‍ ആദ്യമായും പ്രധാനമായും കരുണയുള്ളവരും

നമ്മളെ നോക്കുന്നതിനു് മുമ്പു് കൂട്ടായ്മയെ നോക്കുന്നവരായിരിയ്ക്കണം

ഇതിനുള്ള മാതൃക വട്ടമേശ സമ്മേളനങ്ങളുടെ വളരുന്ന

ഒരു പ്രസ്ഥാനമായിരിയ്ക്കണം

രണ്ടു് ദിവസം മുമ്പു് ഞാന്‍ അറസ്റ്റ് ചെയ്യപ്പെട്ടു

പോലീസ് ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥരും ഇന്റലിജന്‍സും

എന്നെ ചോദ്യം ചെയ്തു. അറസ്റ്റ് ചെയ്യപ്പെടുന്നവര്‍

ഇവരോടു് സംസാരിയ്ക്കരുതെന്നു് ഞാന്‍ ആഹ്വാനം ചെയ്യുന്നു.

സംസാരിച്ചില്ലെങ്കില്‍ എന്നെ ചുമരില്‍ ചേര്‍ത്തു് ചങ്ങലയ്ക്കിടുമെന്നു് അവര്‍ എന്നെ ഭീഷണിപ്പെടുത്തി

ഞാന്‍ സംസാരിച്ചില്ല, നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കിതിഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടോ?

ന്യൂ യോര്‍ക്കിലെ മേയര്‍ക്കിവിടെ വിചിത്രമായൊരു സ്ഥാനമാണുള്ളതു്

അദ്ദേഹത്തിനു് ഒരു് മുബാറക്കിനെ പോലെയോ

അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ മിഡില്‍ ഈസ്റ്റിലെ മറ്റൊരു ഏകാധിപതിയെപ്പോലെയോ

പ്രക്ഷോഭകാരികളെ നേരിടാനാവില്ല

കൂടാതെ അദ്ദേഹം തന്നെ നേരത്തെ പറഞ്ഞതു്

ഈ കുട്ടികള്‍ക്കു് ജോലിയൊന്നും നല്‍കാന്‍ അവര്‍ക്ക് സാധിച്ചില്ലെങ്കില്‍

ടുണീഷ്യയിലും ഈജിപ്തിലും മറ്റ് മിഡില്‍ ഈസ്റ്റേണ്‍ രാജ്യങ്ങളിലും കണ്ടതു് പോലുള്ള പ്രശ്നങ്ങള്‍ നേരിടേണ്ടി വരുമെന്നു്

അധികാരവും പണവുമില്ലാത്ത ഞങ്ങളെ പോലുള്ള ആളുകള്‍ക്കു് ചില മാറ്റങ്ങളെല്ലാം

കൊണ്ടു് വരാനുള്ള ശ്രമമെങ്കിലും നടത്തണമെങ്കില്‍ സാമൂഹിക സമ്മര്‍ദ്ദത്തിലൂടെ മാത്രമേ കഴിയൂ

എല്ലാ ദിവസവും എല്ലാ ആഴ്ചയും

വാള്‍സ്ട്രീറ്റ് കീഴടക്കുക

ഒന്നിച്ചു് സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം നേടുകയെങ്ങനെയെന്നെനിയ്ക്കറിയില്ല

അതാണു് നമ്മളെല്ലാവരും നേടാന്‍ ശ്രമിയ്ക്കുന്നതെങ്കിലും. ഇതെല്ലാം ഒരുമിച്ചു് നടക്കണമെന്നു് എനിയ്ക്കു് തോന്നുന്നു.

ഞങ്ങളിവിടെ ഒരു പ്രസ്ഥാവനയ്ക്കായാണു് ഇവിടെയുള്ളതു്, ഞങ്ങളിവിടെ സ്ഥലം പിടിയ്ക്കുന്നതു്

ജനങ്ങളെ ബോധവാന്മാരാക്കാനാണു്, കാരണം ജനങ്ങള്‍ ഭക്ഷണവും വീടും മാത്രം ഉള്ളെങ്കിലും

സുഖമായി അവരുടെ വീട്ടില്‍ തന്നെയിരുപ്പാണു്

സ്വന്തം അവകാശങ്ങള്‍ ചോദിച്ചു് വാങ്ങാന്‍ അവര്‍ ശ്രമിയ്ക്കുന്നില്ല

ജനങ്ങള്‍ യഥാര്‍ത്ഥ ജനാധിപത്യത്തിനായി എണീറ്റു് നില്‍ക്കാനുള്ള സമയമാണിതു്

എന്നാല്‍ നമുക്കു് കോര്‍പ്പറേറ്റ് അത്യാഗ്രഹം ഒഴിവാക്കാം

ആവശ്യങ്ങള്‍ പ്രശ്നമുണ്ടാക്കുന്നതും അധികാരം കളയുന്നതുമാണു്

കാരണം ഇതു് ജനങ്ങള്‍ മറ്റാരെയും കാക്കാതെ

സ്വയം കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ ചെയ്യുന്നതായതിനാലാണു്

കൂടാതെ നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കിതിനെ ഒരു കുഞ്ഞു് സമൂഹമായി കാണാം

ഇതു് പുതിയൊരു സമൂഹത്തിനുള്ള മാതൃകയാണു് എന്തിനെങ്കിലും എതിരാണെന്നുള്ള അര്‍ത്ഥത്തിലുള്ളൊരു

പ്രതിഷേധമല്ല, പുതിയൊരെണ്ണം ഉണ്ടാക്കാനുള്ളൊരു വഴിയാണു്

നമ്മുടെ ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ ഭാഗമായ നീതിയുടെ തിരസ്കരണത്തിന്റെ

ജനങ്ങളുടെ മനസ്സിലാക്കലും ജനങ്ങളുടെ തിരിച്ചറിവും

ജനങ്ങളുടെ ഉയിര്‍ത്തെഴുന്നേല്‍പ്പുമാണിതു്

ഞങ്ങളിവിടെ വളരെ അടുത്താണെങ്കിലും, പ്രത്യേകിച്ചും ഇതു് പോലുള്ളൊരു നഗരത്തില്‍

നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കറിയുമോ, ആദ്യ പടി വയ്ക്കാന്‍ എല്ലാവര്‍ക്കും പേടിയാണു്

ജനങ്ങള്‍ കെട്ടിപ്പടുത്ത മതിലുകള്‍ തകര്‍ക്കാന്‍

പ്രശ്നങ്ങളെക്കുറിച്ചു് സംസാരിയ്ക്കുന്ന, ഇതു് പോലെയൊ അല്ലെങ്കില്‍

മറ്റൊരു തരത്തിലുള്ളതൊ ആയ കൂട്ടായ്മ കെട്ടിപ്പെടുക്കാന്‍

നമ്മള്‍ക്കെല്ലാവര്‍ക്കും പൊതുവായ പ്രശ്നങ്ങളുണ്ടു് നമ്മുടെയെല്ലാവരുടേയും

ജീവിതങ്ങള്‍ നന്നാക്കാന്‍ മാറ്റാവുന്ന പൊതുവായ കാര്യങ്ങള്‍

ഞാന്‍ വിയറ്റ്നാം കാലത്തെ 60 വയസ്സായ ഒരു വിമുക്ത ഭടനാണു്

ഞാന്‍ ഒരു വക്കീലിന്റെ കൂടെ മുഴുവന്‍ സമയമല്ലാതെ ജോലിയെടുത്തിരുന്നു

ഇപ്പോള്‍ ആ വക്കീലിനു് തന്നെ സാമ്പത്തിക പ്രശ്നങ്ങളായതു് കാരണം എന്നെ എടുക്കാന്‍ തയ്യാറല്ല

ഞാന്‍ കുടുങ്ങിയിരിയ്ക്കുകയാണു്

എന്താണു് ചെയ്യുകയെന്നെനിയ്ക്കൊരു പിടിയും ഇല്ല

നിങ്ങള്‍ എന്നെ പോലെ അസ്വസ്ഥനും

ടീ പാര്‍ട്ടിക്കാരെ വാര്‍ത്തയിലും ടിവിയിലും എല്ലാ സമയത്തും കാണുമ്പോള്‍

എന്താണിവിടെ ടീ പാര്‍ട്ടിയ്ക്കു് ബദലായി ഒരു തീവ്ര ഇടതുപക്ഷമില്ലാത്തതെന്നു്

ആലോചിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടെങ്കില്‍ നിങ്ങളിവിടെ വരണം

നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കും എന്നെ പോലെ കൊട്ടക്കണക്കിനു് വിദ്യാര്‍ത്ഥി കടമുണ്ടെങ്കില്‍

നിങ്ങളിവിടെ വരണം

നിങ്ങള്‍ എന്തെങ്കലും കരമടച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടെങ്കില്‍ ജനറല്‍ ഇലക്ട്രിക് കോര്‍പ്പറേഷനേക്കാളും കൂടുതല്‍ കരമടച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടെന്നതിന്റെ

കലിയടങ്ങുന്നില്ലെങ്കില്‍

നിങ്ങളിവിടെ വരണം

അത്ഭുതകരമായതെന്തെങ്കിലും കാണണമെങ്കില്‍ നിങ്ങളിവിടെ വരണം

[നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കായി അവതരിപ്പിച്ചതു് മാര്‍ട്ടിന സ്റ്ററോസ്റ്റയും ഇവ റാഡിവോജേവിക് - ക്രിയേറ്റീവ് കോമണ്‍സ് മുദ്ര]

എല്ലാ ദിവസവും എല്ലാ ആഴ്ചയും

ഈ പരിഭാഷ മെച്ചപ്പെടുത്താന്‍ ഇവിടെയും വാള്‍സ്ട്രീറ്റ് പിടിച്ചടക്കലിന്റെ മറ്റു് വീഡിയോകളുടെ പരിഭാഷയില്‍ പങ്ങാളികളാവാന്‍ ഇവിടെയും വരിക.

Syntax: Tathva memories @ NITC

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:24:58 +0000

“.. I’m leaving this campus today. I will miss the late-night hangouts with Kartik and Pankaj.. I will miss the stay in Kartik’s room with Arjun and Rohit (If you are reading this, All the best for your IAS, brother). I will miss Ramnath, Arnab and all my friends here and this great institution.. I’m sure I will be back here for the next event.. With a million beautiful memories in 4 days.. Adieu NITC..”

Jaggu's world: Seven years of 'humanity to others' through a Free Operating System

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:34:02 +0000

On 20th Oct. 2004 Canonical Ltd announced the first release of worlds most popular and sexy operating system Ubuntu. The first release was code named as "Warty Warthog". From their onwards Ubuntu was a grant success with more than 20 million users across the glob. A totally free and open source operating system attains much popularity than any other similar proprietary operating systems with in seven years. This is a remarkable achievement by the humanity behind Ubuntu operating system. People who dedicated their free times to write code, test and use the operating system and Cannonical Ltd. made it possible. And they continues the journey to serve the humanity with better Operating System that satisfies the computing needs of "Common Man". Kudos to the entire team behind Ubuntu !!!