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

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

So I was late by 10 minutes to the class. I asked Dhanya mam permission to enter tthe class and she said no. So I stood outside the class. KSK also was there with me and he also tried to enter the class she said no but he did enter, so does Tijo who came after me. It made me very angry so I thought I’d do something about it. I started walking to-and-from outside the class with economics notebook. Everyone in the class was looking me and laughing but I kept walking till the hour ended.

Economics is the only suject that is interesting this sem [I bunked a lot of classes of ANN and I cannot say about it now]. The reason is that you can relate it to your daily life and you never feel alien in the class even if you bunk a lot [I never bunked any Thursady or Friday untill recently, now no descrination for any subject or teacher or day of week for bunking the main reason was Dhanya mams class. Even thought I used to bunk 4 hours continuosly and I can count the attended first hours on my fingers I rarely bunked friday first hour]. Also Dhanya mams class was interesting because we had nice discussions [economics and non-economics topics] and you never feel bored.

[Some people who don't like discussions and like the convensional way of teaching may disagree with me. ATM sir's and Unnikrishnan sir's classes were also intersting because they discuss general things in the class. Only one class of Suresh Kumar sir I still remember as the interesting class. That class he discussed about books, Someset Maugham.... And I still remeber dilpu asking Suresh Kumar sir to discuss general things evry other day]

After my seminar and discussions with Tojin and after listening to the talk by Dr. KP Aravindan I was keen to have a discussion on patents too. All this made me protest to the injustice or whatever be it. After the hour was over [Even I have contempt with mysself and I stood there in the morning sun] when mam came out [KSK called me in between but I didn't mind], I smiled and said good morning mam and entered the class and everybody welcomed me with a clap and ofcourse with different responses.

Shanker told I was scratching mam, Tojin told I am craving for attention, Ugen congratulated me Frank admired my act and Shrini told me ‘Isn’t that for blog ?’. Well, all coments are welcome. Gandhi once said ‘Everything you do may be insignificant but it is important that you do it’. Also I feel perplexed after started writing blog ‘Is I am doing thing to write in blog ?’ Anyway I look at things now with a diffrent perspective, from a repotrer’s perspective.

In the night I had discussions with Pramod KC on a variety of topics which included this act and patents and democracy, NSS [of course ] and what not ?

Feel free to comment on it.

Well lets come back to the seminar. Anyway there is a lot of active and vibrant and heated debates going on in Tricalzone in different topics like Free Software, Economics, Music, Films, history, religion…..

I woke up by 8.30 [First hour was free today] and was there before the teacher came to the class [I'd have missed attendence if I was late -- many didn't get attendence because they were late -- she noticed evryone and even sent people back who came late after 10 minutes].

I went to the platform and cleared the blackboard and took a choke from the table. I started reading from the paper. It was a hypthetical petition filed by Candle maker to the chamber of deputies to pass a law to keep all the windows and openings closed to keep their business profitable. The topic I got is very interesting and after the starting trouble I had a nice time discussing the arguments in favour of protection. There was no questions at all [Well I didn't think of it too]. I felt relieved after it was over. Then Dhanya mam briefed the points of Free Trade and Protection and we had a live discussion there. There has been some arguments from Frank about the definition of dumping too.

Then me Habeeb and Tojin prepared a petition and went to meet Pdma Kumari mam. It was concerning the project evaluation and class treat … Next week we have sessional exams and after that we are going for a class trip to Munnar and Kodaikanal. It is going to be a really memorable class trip [last time we went to Ooty and only mallies were present that time, this time we ahve whole of tricalzone out there See the photos of the Ooty Trip].

Today seems very interesting day for me in the whole 4 years [A lot can 'also' in a day]. I went to the lab to do some project work [infact first time willingly and doing so
me stuff -- at leat I read through the manual and found out the connections for opamp as a amplifier [we are used AD817 for our experiment -- MS told it is a high fund thing and we don't need that much, even in US people don't use these . It could operate upto 3 Mhz ]

Then I attended NSS meeting on 5 O’clock. This time second years also came for the meeting. We discussed about the future activities of NSS and the role to be played by the Juniors. They are getting increased responsibilty as it has become an independant cell after delinking from the state cell. It has become 9th university cell in Kerla. Now we are directly under the MHRD. It is very heartening to see that lots of Juniors are interested in NSS now and I hope even after we leave here NSS will be here actively [The worry is attributed to it being an NIT, when we joined it was REC -- and we can say we are the last REC batch, since we follwed the old system even after we became NIT, of course there is change the way old things are done now, but the real NIT batch started from our junior batch.] I appealed to them to consider the spirit of NSS as their first motive and not to just give 75 hours to the 2nd years. [Another change NIT brought to NSS is that it is now a compulsory credit course for one year during their second year course. Without NSS credit they won’t get a Btech certificate. (It may seem ironical to look at it as ‘compulsory volunteers’. In fact it is the old CSS (Compulsory social service) to be taken up by NSS. We had lots of debates at the inial period and now we see some advatages to the new system. It gives them a chance now.)

Then I went to the talk by Dr. K.P. Aravindan of Calicut Mediacl college and a KSSP (Kerala Sastra Sahtya Parishad ) activist conducted by Sanskriti on New Patent law and its impact on the society. Well I’m gonna write a separate entry for it. Also I’ll publish those notices put up by Sanskriti in our campus.
Series 1

It was a wonderful day altogether a lot of things in one day. Not yet the feeling that I ‘m leaving this campus which was my home the last 4 years is not sinked in my mind. The nostalgic feelings are coming. The good old CC with dumb monochrome terminals, the A mess, Ragam and the Ganja incident,NSS camps …..
Stoping now.

After the class me and KSK[Kiren SK] went to meet Jaikumar sir to discuss NSS programmes. He went to meet project guide and I went with Shankar, Tojin and MS to meet Suresh Kumar Sir [He is the best teacher our department has got and arguably one of the best in our college or even absolutely, and I have manged to write his two subjects two times ], our project guide. Diplu could not come because of a cycle accedent. He fell down from a cycle and it’s not serious but manged with some three or four wounds. We started with discussion of our project and we moved to various other topics. We discussed about books and softwares. He told he was convinced about the need of Free software and its importance. He was in doubt about the violation of law made every day. He pointed out the software piracy and its implications. We are trying hard to bring him to the Free Software community. He pledged his support for our efforts to spread the message of Software Freedom.
He discussed about the book reviews and his plan to write a book.

Then I mailed some Firefox tips to some of the free software groups. We are moving ahead with our palns for FOSS conference on Jan 29. Today we’ve Birthady treats of Karthik and Titto.

Bye then
Signing off

Then I went to arrange furnitures to our new NSS room. It was Pattabmi’s (Our ex sec and our motivation) dream to have a room and a site. First thing over, second we are working (already have an old site http://web.nitc.ac.in/nss, but it is not updated for long. We hope to have it by this week (at least a main part of it), we use plone for it. We plan to give a login for each so that second years (who has NSS as a course) can check their attendences, also we can have discussions. Then we discussed our Tsunami relief plan with Jayakumar Sir (who is our programme Officer). The idea is something like adopting a family and give educational support for say till 10th.

Today I tried OpenOffice 2.0 preview, its really good (It has got a wizard to convet all M$ documents in a directory to OpenOfiice templates). It has many options which the M$ counter part lacks like built in export wizards to swf (flash) and pdf. We played with Dilpu’s comp. Now he is reinstalling XP. Now we’re gonna have Debian and Fedora in that. Now this late I came to cc for Muneer to write cds. His favorite thing is downloading and mobiles (ring tones and sms. In sms.ac you need to have a mobile to get free credits and one mobile can be used only once so what he do is go to some chat site get their mobile numbers give it and then ask the confirmation number and sign up ! He has now many logins ! Lately he told he signed up with an American number !).

New year eve was party time for compsci’s and tricals in F. When we where going to hostel from CC. Many Gulties wished us New Year. Nothing speacial happened for new year. Everything same as it used to be on a normal day.

When I look back to the last year so many things happened

- NSS sec and the memorable special camp
- Placement in HP
- Collection of Linux cds
- Penfriends
- Preperation for a GNU/Linux conference (still going on) The inspiration came from Linux Bangalore which Dilip attended

and so many other things some happy and some sad moments

Another leaf has fell down from the tree of time
Looking forward to a wonderful year

Happy New year to all. We are all geared up for an active new year full of activities from cultural to technical. As for NSS we plan many activities like campaign against use of plastic and popularisation of alternatives like paper bags. We plan a cultural festival called Garland. All volunteers in our college are in good spirits after a wonderful and memorable special camp of 10 days. We, glugc (GNU/Linux users group Calicut) have planned a FLOSS (Free/Libre nad Open Source Software) technologies conference in our campus. Today we met our teacher
Suresh Kumar and had a live discussion on FLOSS and other related topics. What inspired me to update today was Dilpu’s Blog. I hope to continue updating it in the coming year.
New year wishes for all.
Signing off now
bye
[Updates] :
1. Garland — A meeting point of cultures across the nation
2. Busy with FLOSS meet
3. Wonderful wheather ! FLOSS Meet a grand success
4. Suresh Kumar sir says he is convinced about the need of FOSS and its importance