The Honourable Chief Minister of Kerala Shri V S Achuthanandan will be the chief guest for the event.

Participants and Volunteers are required to register online at the foss meet website.

Looking forward to your support and participation.
More details of the event at:
* website
* wiki
* Mailing List

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???????? ????? ??? ????????????????????? (??? ??????????? ??????? ?????????? ?????????? ?????????????? ????? ??? ????????????????????) ?????????????? http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/debian/malayalam/installer ???? ????????????? ???????????? ????????.

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The beautiful Vythiri

It was really a great chance to attend the National Service Scheme Camp organised at Vuthri by the juniors. Making the arena for another get together with the juniors who were always the embodiment of grt friendship.

The team

Rakesh, Kiren, Thomson, Sajeev and Dhanraj sir

We reached the camp site early morning on Saturday. This was my third NSS camp. I still remember the beautiful memories of my frist NSS camp which Pattambi’s team conducted. ( I would love to see someone writing about all days of the camp like this for this camp too)

Haridas entertaining the camp members — from Anakkampoyil camp

‘Special Group’

They showed us the results of many days hard work with enthusiasm and satisfaction. It gives you a lot of satiafaction when you know that you have made a difference to somebody’s life. Even to go to a hospital they had no transport available as the road was not motorable. Now they can avail transport.

/me having a look at the progress, Jayakumar sir is seen explaining

The people there prepared tapioca snacks for us.

Having a break

The finishing touch- Geo

After the work we had bath in the river near by. Then we had delicious lunch. After the hardowork the luch always is very tasty. We missed Kunchiramettan – he used to cook for all the camps, he could not come this time because he was not feeling well. He used to tell us the experiences of the previous camps. He was there at the time of Rajan [He was a student of REC Calicut and was (believed to be ) murdered by Police during the days of Emergency ]. Even now people know REC (now NIT) as Rajan’s college. We have our cultural festival Ragam named after him. Last time he told us about his experience with Rajan. Rajan was good actor and he was coming back from a perfomance with Kunchiramettan when poilice caught him. To juniors you missed Kunchiramettan this time.

Kunchiramettan at Anakkampoyil camp

We were preparing for the Camp Fire after lunch. The campfire is for my third time and it was wonderful each time. It was filled with Folk songs (original – by the camp members and other popular numbers) and film songs.

The camp fire — Prashob is seen in full swing

Camp fire

Folk song moment.

The Fire

After the campfire there was camp evaluation. Hey folks you did a wonderful job. Congratulations. There has to be suggestions for better camp next time. It is very necessary, otherwise you would feel complacent. Every time you should think how to make the next one better. We also gone through this phase. Take the suggestions to make the next camp even a better one.

Me at the worksite

We were in a confusion whether we should stay for the trekking too. But we decided to go for trekking. We climbed the Chembara peak, the second highest peak after Anamudi. It was a wonderful experience [Still the wound I got from a leech bite not cured ]. We left the campsite by 9 and reached the top by 11.30.

For more photos see the nss website
I’ll update the trekking photos after I’m back from X mass holidays.

Merry Christmass and Happy New Year to all.

The Orchestra and Ona Sadhya was superb. The day was filled with those beautiful songs by G Venugopal like Thamasamenthe varuvan… Onnam Ragam paadi… Unarumee gaanam…. The Orchestra was compered by Jayaraj Varrier. He also kept us laughing with his comedy show.

The Sadhya had 14 dishes and two Payasam. The Ada payasam was superb and it was unlimited The crowd turn up was more than 500 and we got first prize for Pookalam (Rangoli).

Our seniors Barathan (BG) and Narayanan was also there. After the meet we walked till Brigade roadand I brought a new mobile Nokia 6030. It has got a FM radio with it and now I need not be bored in Hosur Road traffic everyday.

So folks don’t miss next chance.

I’ve been able to engage myself in ‘something or other’ for the last 3 weeks since I left NITC, like
Changathikkoottam,
IT@School training,
Movies (Akkareyakkare Akkare, Ninathen vanthai),
Sleeping
Reading [K.L. Mohanavarma's 'Settlement', News papers -- almost complete!! ]
or ‘Bakar’ (Kathi) with sabeel (he left for exams on 14th).
Update: He is placed in HCL Infosystems through Campus Recruitment
I went to rauf’s home to demeonstrate GNU/Lnux as Sabeel got really exited as I kept on telling him about my hacks. Well, it seems his interest has gone as he saw it as a simple thing !!! [It was Suse 9.3 Professional and I could not go into much of the commands and configuration files and options ]. To some it is interesting when it is not common or not challenging.

We both share many interests and one thng we got in common is ‘the standard book/foreign author syndrome’. Those who suffers from it can be found with standard/foreign authored text book on the eve of any exams. Suresh Kumar told us that he also used to have this syndrome when he was in IITM. He used to study the subject after the exams if it is interesting [You know it is interesting when you read a good book] !! But clearly we lack this second characteristic of this particular syndrome!!!

I’ve been telling him colourfully how I hacked the boot.ini file when Windows XP in Manjunath’s computer stopped working when we partitioned it for Suse [Suse is trying to be more like Windows and so it choses the partions on its own and messes it up wholly at times like windows!!] and got XP back for him. It was a simple increment in the partition index as one partition was splitted for installing Suse and the absolute partition index [number of the partition with XP in it from the starting] was increased by 2 [one for the root partition and one for swap from the existing C drive], the problem wouldn’t have arised had XP been installed on the C drive. I could diagnose the root cause of the problem that it is boot.ini that is to be edited when it is saying HAL.DLL is missing error!!! because we solved exactly the same problem at Dilpu’s home at Harippad in Alleppey when I was there with Shankar for our IT (Industrial Training) at PGCL (Power Grid Corporation of India Limited).
….I had 3 IT during the 4 year period at NITC, during first year in Lower Periyar power House in Idukkki, during second year in TELK [Transformer & Electricals Kerala] in Ankamali and in the third year at PGCL Kayamkulam…

There we searched the net for solution to HAL.DLL missing problem through the newly installed Redhat GNU/Linux system.

At Rauf’s home Sabeel had to satisfie with a “Rauf’s XP” in place of “Microsoft XP Professional” [anyone can do it yaar -- as simple as it open the text file C:\boot.ini in notepad and change the quotes sya from "Microsoft XP Professional" to "Microsoft XP Pirated Edition"]
Update: We had longer and intense sessions after that

As GNU Partition editor (Qtparted -qt gui front end for GNU parted) couldnot resize the partitions. It was XP corrupting the partition table.
Update: It was proved correct when Partition manger “successfully” [It gave an output 'Successfully completed all operations!] messed up the partitions and lost both 98 and XP [If you believe this GNU/Linux could mount those partitions and Windows Installed failed to recognise the partitions]

We got a similar problem when we tried to install EduMorphix on KSTA computer at Palakkad. Arun of FSF India told us thet it was XP corrupting the partition table. I guess newer editions of partition editor might tackle it.

He had 4 partitions of 10GB each and almost complete and freeing a partition by copying was not an option. Another option we had was formatting C drive and divide it into two partitions – anyway 98 does not need 10GB and reinstall XP and install GNU/Linux into the newly freed space of C. As we didn’t have an XP CD we couldn’t go forward. [I didn't take a copy from college as I was sure that I wouldn't need it as I'm not going to use it nor I'm not going to give it to anyone. Now I guess Sabeel has a "copy" and we are gonna experiment at manjeri when he come back after exams. If Rauf is willing we can have it there too
Update: Infact we did go forward (both places too)!

I successfully installed Xandros for Chandramohan sir Freeing one partition for GNU/Linux after copying contents of it to another partition and deleting it. I also installed smoothly Photoshop 6 and 7 with Cross Over Office4.1 that comes with Xandros (30 day evaluation version).

Cross Over Office Really rocks!!!
It smoothly run Photoshop 6,7 (probably latest edition too, which I didn't try), Microsoft Office, Windows Media Player, Dreamweaver MX, iTunes, Quicken ... and the list is ever increasing. Previously I saw Cedega successfully playing Half Life 2 and Quake like graphics intensive games smoothly in Shyam's computer and he asserts it is only better in the Free OS [No hangs, crash...]. And it plays in native speed too. Now yet another argument is made invalid — “I have spents lots of money of software already and if I switch to GNU/linux how am I gonna use these softwares ?” Also some say “I am so familiar with Photoshop and Microsoft Office and it is tough to move to Gimp and Open Office”. Well now you can use your favorite apps in GNU/Linux as you would in Windows thanks to the wine [Wine Is Not and Emulator] hackers.

Ofcourse this is not a permanent solution to the problem but only an interim solution to the age old chicken and egg problem. “I’ll use Free Software when there is enough softwares and we will develop Free Software when there are a lot of people using it”. Well I don’t support non-free software bundled with the Free Distros. All the above was just to show how powerful and superb is wine.

Adobe has released two of its softwares under open source licenses recently and Macromedia (now owned by Adobe) had plans to release GNU/Linux versions of its popular offerings like DreamWeaver that run with wine.

My lab was over by 21 [I was first day first bacth and first student. They started the lab from roll number 39!!!]. I relaxed till 25 which I spent on movies [Eurotrip], bakar… I started the long run on 25 morning [That's noon:-)]. First thing I did was to get NLC [No liabilities certificate] from our Main Computer Center. I have an imotional attachment to it, since it have become an integral part of my life in the last 4 years I spent here. Hardly a spent without coming to CC and the last year I enjoyed my privilege as the administrator. I enjoyed every bit of it thoroughly. I got a chance to download lot of distros and install and try it. I could learn lotta new things and got familiarised with networking and unix stuff.

The next target was Campus networking centre (CNC), which manages the entire campus network and provides everyone with an email id @nitc.ac.in [I used to use it a lot but now I open it just to delete spam -- I am so relieved that finally I got rid of deleting 1000s of mails every week]. Dilip and Arun MS was also there. Then we went to our next point LAN centre, next to CNC. Me and Dilip went to hostel office to get the no dues certifiacte [We were told that we require it to attend the course viva]. Also we got the NLC for the entire hostels. We had to go to each and every Btech hostels and get sign to proceed. We took the form and went to our next stop, NITC Gymkhana. I have never been to gym in the last 4 years. There we got NLC for Gym, Sports and swimming pool [I have never been to there also, coming from a village background and familiar with ponds and rivers I have a confidence that I can manage if not perfectly well -- I've enjoyed swimming in both the NSS camps I attended, the first one being the best , it was deeper and deadlier with lots of rocks ... and the local people told some died last year there].

Then I had to go to all hostels and get no dues. Since I didn’t stayed in D and E hostels I got sign easily from D hostel steward. Then C hostel steward was not there and I got from B and A. I have to show this form while I vacate the hostel [Taht's tomorrow -- more correctly today morning].

Then we went to Dr. Paul Joseph. He is our staff advicer for student affairs and this was in connection with Ragam. For Ragam T-shirt we used to sign a form authenticating him to pay from our hostel bill. Dr. Nagarajan of ME signed for Tathva and finally we had to get approval from Dr. KN Datta, who is Dean students. I had to wait there half an hour since he was taking class for PG students. He is specilaised in Industrail Engineering. We missed him last sem as he used to take IM for our seniors but apparantly he didn’t take our paper. That was the end of one form. I spent in the D common room till morning 5. Not that I am not sleeping enough but the time is shifted, I go to bed by 2-3 and will be up by 12noon.

The next day I went to the bank and closed my account. I had to wait there a long time to get the balance [which was the minimum]. Then I came back to AB [administrative block] and got my health card [Every student is insured by Oriental Mediclaim policy and it was started last year and our policies validity is till September]. I had lunch and marched to the next block — Library. I gave back the books I have taken and I had to register online to submit our mini project, seminar and project reports in our digital library. Our project mates had already submitted the report and I had to bother only about the seminar. I got the no dues from Library and they took back the library card also.

The next step is to submit this form to AB and apply for the refund of caution deposit. After this I signed a ‘ received ‘ for SSLC and PreDegree certificates.
Today I appeared for viva and got my marklist from AB. Then I gave the biodata form to the department and request for conduct certificate.

Then Felix Nelson come to our college to collect my ubuntu CDs and he gave Suse 9.3 prof CDs to me. After that our project group that is me, Arun MS, Dilip, Shanker and Tojin met Suresh Kumar sir and we talked a variety of things raging from caste, religion, history, education … It was really a wonderful and interesting discussion. I cound get to know a lot of things which I wouldn’t have got from any where else. He shared his views on this and many other issues and we discussed books and authors and about other persons.

And this will be my last night posting from NITC.
Bye

Our Project group

I cannot believe 4 years passed just like that. I’ll be missing lotta things — my friends, my dear CC, the freedom …… Well you cannot be like this always, responsibilities comes and you got to grow.

It seems like yesterday we came here and the memories of A hostel (we called it jail and we were ‘inmates’). A mess (G mess really brings back those meories!!) and our 202/B and 127/C …. I’ll be missing the Tricalzone, nss…. and lots.

I’m back to blogsphere after a long break. There has been lotta things going on here in NITC. There was a class trip to Kodaikanal (it is in my draft and hope’ll be able to see it once I get the photos), NSS farewell, treat, Trical treats, lotta new distros ……..

A much awaited new and improved Open Office is soon to be released. I tried the beta version and it has much to offer than the previous editions. [I heard that Redhat was successful to compile OOo with gnu tools for java -- so hopefully we could see an uncrippled version of OOo with Fedora core 4]

Read Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community

Several new features of the recently released OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta require a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Since Java’s license is neither free nor open source, a small but vocal minority has responded both strongly and negatively. For instance, when NewsForge recently published a review of the beta, no other feature attracted as much comment. Some groups, including members of the major GNU/Linux distributions, most of whom repackage OpenOffice.org (OOo), have responded by looking for alternatives, often while cursing the project for the extra work it has dumped on them. How did OpenOffice.org come to rely on Java? What problems is it likely to cause? How are GNU/Linux distributions reacting to this change in a key piece of software?

Some questions which the author Bruce Byfield tried to ansewr are

Bruce Byfield is a freelance course designer and instructor and a technical journalist.
Read Java fallout: OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the FOSS community

The debate continues… and Suse 9.3 scheduled to be out by Mid-April will include OOo 2.0 preview with java.

Update:
Making the leap: Microsoft Word to OpenOffice.org Writer
Wednesday April 20, 2005 (09:00 AM GMT)
By: Jem Matzan

I have tried the new version of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distro and also the kubuntu version of it. It clearly shows why GNOME rocks!! [Ugly fonts with no anti-aliasing by default and occatiopnal crashes of konqueror, no cdrdao for k3b -- so you cannot burn cds!! -- the KDE woes continues. But I agree with the KDE fans that there are lots of KDE applications out there but the look and feel is not comparable to Gnome]

The interesting new additions to the Ubuntu are Gnome 2.10 and KDE 3.4. Gnome comes with default bit torrent client now and the menus are more comprehensive [for example the modem dialer menu]. KDE features an RSS reader.

Then the exam season to be over soon. Night outs have become a necessity since whole semester had to be mugged-up in a day. I just want to clear all the papers. The next exam is ANN (Artificail Neural Networks)
bye

See Dilpu’s Blog entry for the Kodai Trip