Open Solaris

Today, Sun came down to our campus for hiring. As a Placement Committee volunteer, I got to talk to the officials who visited the campus.

Mr. Jo [;)] and I had some interesting talk about Sun, Open Solaris, ZFS, etc. I tried out OpenSolaris a long time back, from a live DVD (I was corrected on this, but that is not the point), it didn't boot. Sad.

Today, after this chat, I decided to give it a try again, with a new live CD in hand. This is OpenSolaris 2008.05.



Firstly, I loved the fact it detected all my hardware perfectly. My previous post contained a description of the horrors of having an Nvidia graphics subsystem, and getting a proper driver for it. Well, no problems here. It was detected and the application which corresponds to nvidia-settings package on Linux was shown. Check the screen shot, I love the "Solaris Nvidia" text. And a beautiful green background.


It has Firefox 2.0.0.14 (hmm, remember this is OpenSolaris 2008.05, the website says OpenSolaris 2008.11 has FF 3), sweet.

There is something called the Device Driver Utility (with a shortcut on the Desktop if you noticed).


The page at OpenSolaris.org says "Device Driver Utility provides information about the devices of your native system having OpenSolarisTM Operating System (OS) installed." The first thing you would notice is the "Driver Problems: 0" text on top. You also have a "Submit" button to report configurations to the OpenSolaris community.

A surprise was the inclusion of NmapFE in the applications that show up by default.


As I found out, detection of hardware doesn't imply you get audio/video without the necessary plugins. You still need to install those GStreamer plugins (or other alternatives).

Next up, the Package Manager.


Not very different from Ubuntu/Debian's Synaptic Package Manager, as far as looks go, except for the fact that the packages are more categorized as the left pane suggests. There is no manual page for apt, so probably OpenSolaris has a different way of handling applications.

It also has full-fledged compiz support. CompizConfigSettingsManager is present by default.



Visual Effects aren't turned on by default (Or OpenSolaris must think my computer wasn't good enough :( ). And Appearance Preferences has an extra option "Custom". I set my preference to "Extra" and I did not notice any slowdown.



It didn't auto mount my hard disk, and neither do I plan to right now.

There was no gcc(nor any C compiler) on the live CD. How stupid, I could not compile and run a "Hello World" in C. So I did it in python :P

jack@opensolaris:~$python HelloWorld.py
Hello, World!
jack@opensolaris:~$


So long!

NVIDIA on Linux

:X or :@ I'm angry with the bloody Nvidia drivers for Linux. Anyway, this post is supposed to be helpful, not a rant.

I upgraded from Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubuntu 8.10 when it came out. Then, I installed nvidia-kernel-2.6.26 which was my default nvidia stuff on Hardy and lo, my X crashed. It tried restarting some n times, with no success. So well, what was the problem. I still dunno. But the solution was to install the package nvidia-kernel-173.14.09 The last two numbers will vary, though. Lucky that I found this while random browsing on a friend's computer.

That did it.

A few weeks later, I wanted to use Debian, so, well, I removed Intrepid and installed Etch (Debian 40r5). This time, I upgraded, and installed nvidia-kernel-173. And guess what, it crashed again. I tried removing it and installing nvidia-kernel-2.6.26 which worked on Ubuntu 8.04. Well, it did not work this time. The solution? nvidia-kernel-2.6.26-1-openvz-amd64

I have absolutely no idea what is going on. But this worked. It installed an additional kernel though. I now boot into a kernel which is identified by Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-1-openvz-amd64

Hope this will remain a note for me in the future, for further X crashes.

Update: Well, this was helpful, but a better realization was this

Internet hero!

Straight from the Statcounter blog, this one.

Aodhan Cullen(founder and CEO of StatCounter) has been chosen as this year's Internet Hero at the eircom Golden Spider Awards!. The award, sponsored by Business and Finance, was created to recognize an individual who has made a significant contribution to the development of the internet.


I'm delighted.

<Shameless>
Here is a comment by Aodhan Culler on my blog, a long long time back
</Shameless>

Google's GeoEye-1's First Picture

Google's GeoEye-1(wiki link) has taken it's first picture, and wow, the pic is so clear.

The pic taken is of Kutztown University, Pennsylvania.



Related Slashdot link. Well, first comment is informative, rest are all funny. Worth reading, for laughs.

urllib2 problems in python

Ever received this error while you were using urllib2. And you use proxies to connect to the internet?


urllib2.URLError: <urlopen error (111, 'Connection refused')>


Set the HTTP_PROXY environment variable and the problem is solved.


npower@The-Matrix~:$export HTTP_PROXY="http://144.16.192.245:8080"


In this case, 144.16.192.245 is the proxy I use, and on port 8080.

Wine, red for now.

For the past few days, I've been trying to run Windows applications on Wine. Failure rate has been high, but considering the type of applications that I tried, I'm not worrying much.

This craze started with my craving for Chrome and it's non-availability on Linux.

1) Google Chrome

This was the most unsuccessful of them all. The installation didn't even start.
I followed the procedure given here

And it died with the following error :(

npower@The-Matrix:~$ wine chrome_installer.exe
err:setupapi:detect_compression_type cannot open file L"H:\\-r"
err:setupapi:get_file_size cannot open file L"H:\\-r"
expand.exe: can't open input file H:\-r


2) Safari

Yup, one browser after another. Fail, again. Safari was up and running but I simply couldn't set the proxies. Browsing local sites was possible.



3) Multiproxy

Ah, the most useful of 'em all. Every time I boot, this is fired up, and keeps my browsing smooth.



4) Foobar2000

Yeay to me for trying this out in the first place. I love Amarok, yes, but memory. It uses up quite some memory. And systems like mine better do with something leaner. So, here comes in foobar2000. LastFM scrobbling also works. Rock on!



5) Google Talk

For some reason, this just doesn't work. :|

It gives this error first.


Just press Install, nothing happens, Google Talk starts up. Like this ,with a scrolling screen of warnings on the terminal, and, no text on Google Talk other than the text area. Hell with that, you just can't connect. It's the proxy problem I guess (since I use a university network), but you can't set that 'coz you can't see the "Settings" thingy, nor does blind guess-clicking work.



6) Paint

This is a small program and we always expected it to work. It does, but has its share of problems too. No support for any other file format other than Bitmaps. We can solve this I guess.

Anyway, it's good be back blogging. My exams are just done ;)

Briefly on Windows, and a lil' about Amarok.

Yeah, I needed Adobe Acrobat Professional. So I just rebooted into Windows. I've neglected Windows for too long, and it is all dysfunctional (uh?) now. Need to remove many applications or re-install them, my MS PowerPoint refuses to save any presentations, and neither is Daemon Tools working properly.

Anyway, I took this opportunity to install Chrome and checkout what the buzz is all about. Well, I like it. It is sleek and very very responsive. Something I _demand_ in applications (and people).

I was checking out all the web apps on Chrome, and while on Google Reader, found a post that talks about music players on Linux. I love Amarok, somehow the other players never scanned whole of my collection. However, few of the users complain that Amarok is slow. Well, yes, if you leave the collection to be maintained on a SQLite database. So, simply put, the suggestion is to use MySQL. How? Hers is the link, very simply explained. How to: set up MySQL Database in Amarok

If you are using Fedora or a Redhat based distribution, replace sudo apt-get install by sudo yum install

Incase you are a PostgreSQL fanboy, or a MySQL hater (frankly, I never used PostgreSQL, or have problems with MySQL, but statements like "mysql sucks, postgresql rules :)" with smileys make me consider PostgreSQL ;)), then check this out http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_HowTo

Note: PostgreSQL will be deprecated in Amarok 2.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within OST

Download links for Prince of Persia Warrior Within album. And related information.

Title    : Prince Of Persia Warrior Within (OST)
Artist  : Stuart Chatwood
Genre  : Game
Date     : Mar-12-2006
Songs   : 32 / 62:27 min
Size      : 96,2 MB
Quality : VBRkbps 44,1kHz / Joint-Stereo / CDDA

Download the complete album

Individual track listing and download
===========================

01 Welcome Within
02 Attack At Sea
03 Conflict At The Entrance
04 Tower Encounter
05 Confrontation In The Mechanical Tower
06 Military Aggression
07 Clash In The Catacombs
08 Struggle In The Library
09 Rooftop Engagement
10 An Unsafe Sanctuary
11 The Mystic Caves
12 Mystic Sanctuary
13 Desolation Of The Tower
14 Avoid The Guards
15 Explore The Catacombs
16 Divine Sacrifice
17 Dark Gardens
18 Shadows Of The Tower
19 The Guard Tower Past
20 Worried In The Catacombs
21 The Mask Sanctuary
22 The Chase Of Time
23 The Prophecy
24 Escape In The Temple
25 Despair And Hope
26 The Mask
27 Dahaka's Revenge
28 Back To Babylon
29 Escape The Dahaka
30 At War With Kaileena
31 Battle The Dahaka
32 Conflict Of The Griffins

PS: Please report(comment) if you find that the links are wrong or/and you have any other complaints.

Link: Prince of Persia Sands of Time OST

Converting .mkv to .avi

Damn, getting a software for this job was hell. A free software I meant. Finally the search paid results when I found AlltoAVI at SourceForge.

Get it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/alltoavi/

Credits to genesis_kiith for the software, and spinner's_end for bugging me enough to find this gem.

Other links:
Project Home Page

Tutorial

PS: This software should be described as "Any format to AVI converter" . Bad post title. :)

Google Talk formatting/effects : Bold and Italics

This is yet another one of those short posts for the sake of posting.

Before you cry out that these are very well known, I can promise you that I discovered these in my experiments. Well, proceed.

Are you bored with the plain text in GTalk? Try these, you can add bold and italics effects to your text.

To give a word/phrase a bold effect, just enclose it within asterisks (Example: *me* would produce me ).
To give a word/phrase a italics effect, enclose it within underscores (Example: _me_ would produce me ).

Comix : "Could not find unrar executable. Please install it if you wish to open RAR achives"

Comix is the software used to open *.cbr and *.cbz files on Linux.

In Windows Comic Reader was my favorite but now that I have completely moved on to Linux, installation of Comix was deemed necessary.

Comix by default can open *.cbz files.

To open *.cbr files using Comix, you need to install the unrar executable by the following procedure.

$sudo apt-get install unrar

Done. :)

A Brief History of Gravity

A Brief History of Gravity

It filled Gallileo with mirth
To watch his two stones fall to Earth
"Their rates are the same,"
He gladly proclaimed,
"And quite independent of girth!"

Then Newton declared in due course
His own law of Gravity's force,
"It goes, I declare,
As the inverted square
Of the distance from object to source."

Next Einstein revealed his equation
Which succeeds to describe gravitation
As spacetime that's curved
And it's this that will serve
As the planets' unique motivation.

But the end of the story's not written,
By a new way of thinking we're smitten.
We twist and we turn
Attempting to learn
The Superstring Theory of Witten.

Taken from: http://limerickdb.com/?380

A Google blooper ,yet again

Wow, not even in my dreams did I imagine that my article on MRAM would turn out to be a search result for...

Ladies and Gentlemen, hold your breadth ...only Google can relate MRAM with the search term...

"find out who i will be with in the future"



C'mon Mr.GOOG, that's way too funny.

Long time ago, I thought that this was the problem only with Google Ads alongside the search results.(Refer: here)

Look out for more blooper updates, and comments from friends :)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time OST

The download links for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Original Soundtrack

Album : Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Artist: Stuart Chatwood
Year : 2003

The complete album: Download

Track Listing and download
==========================
01-Welcome to Persia.mp3
02-Introducing the Prince.mp3
03-Call to Arms.mp3
04-Prelude Fight.mp3
05-A Dagger Is Found.mp3
06-A Princess Is Stolen.mp3
07-Behold the Sands of Time.mp3
08-Start Running.mp3
09-Discover the Royal Chambers.mp3
10-Dreamtime.mp3
11-A Question of Trust.mp3
12-Father Is That You.mp3
13-Attack of the Sand Griffins.mp3
14-Don't Enter the Light.mp3
15-Enter the Royal Palace.mp3
16-A Long Way Up.mp3
17-A Vision.mp3
18-The Royal Baths.mp3
19-A Bad Dream.mp3
20-Chaos in the Zoo.mp3
21-Lost in the Crypts.mp3
22-Farah Enlightens the Prince.mp3
23-A Brief Oasis.mp3
24-Awake.mp3
25-Trouble in the Barracks.mp3
26-The Library.mp3
27-The Prince Hesitates....mp3
28-The Tower of Dawn.mp3
29-Farah Perishes.mp3
30-At What Cost.mp3
31-Reverse the Sands of Time.mp3
32-The Battle Begins.mp3
33-The Vizier Must Die.mp3
34-Finish the Vizier.mp3
35-Farewell Princess.mp3
36-Time Only Knows.mp3

Related Link: Prince of Persia Warrior Within OST

WinTransXP going Open Source

"WinTransXP will be going Open Source". Announcement was made about last week, which would be 13th Feb or so.

I think I will continue developing ,guessing that the software is written in Autohotkey.

The licensing has not yet been decided.

Will update when the source code is released.

Download WinTransXP here.

A new form of advertising: Pay Per Play

Well, this was very interesting and such a late post by me is pitiful.

A few days back ,I received a mail from John Wasilewski about a new form of advertising that would ensure 100% on my traffic and for further information I contact him.

We have a new media source that is 66,000 advertisers strong and we are interested in opening up ad space on any websites that you control without taking up any of your web page real estate.

We will do this by serving a "single" 5 second audio advertisement to website visitors on any and every page of your websites where it would be appropriate for a visitor to hear a 5 second audio ad.

These ads are extremely professional. Best of all the ads will be related to the content of each web page of your website.

Our advertisers will buy ad plays on your website for each of your visitors. In essence you will be paid on a CPM basis and the effective CPM that you receive will be determined by our automated bid management system. This bidding system will always work to ensure that you are getting the highest effective CPM possible.

Bids will vary from market to market.

Test this on some of your web properties. The code that calls the 5 second audio ad is a simple javascript code that you paste anywhere between the <body></body> tags of any web page where it is appropriate for visitors to hear an audio ad.

No web page real estate is consumed. The ad is invisible and is only heard.

This form of advertising is known as Pay-Per-Play and can add a substantial amount of revenue to your bottom line without acquiring additional traffic.

To hear some sample ads ,follow this link:

http://www.netaudioadvertising.net/samples.htm

They officially soft launched on 1st of February.

I think this is very promising. Infact the support and the follow ups were simply amazing.

Sign up here

I temporarily removed my Google Adsense too. Look forward for more template changes.

WindowsTransparency XP :The smallest transparency software ever

Welcome to WinTransXP. Less than half an MB, this is the smallest transparency software I've got to use.

Well, this site(or blog, whatever you wanna call it) will be the official support site for this software.

Official Site:
http://wintransxp.googlepages.com/

Download the program from here:
http://wintransxp.googlepages.com/downloads

Written by Bharat Kumar Molleti, this is now in Version 1.5 .Quite some bugs were solved since Version 1.1 but some are yet to be resolved. Bug Reports would be greatly appreciated.

Mail me here.

Google Talk on Pidgin for Dummies ,on Windows

To use the clichéd sentence, it's been a long break.

Well, it is nice to be back and thanks to some good friends who were bent on asking me how to set up Pidgin ,and too lazy to find out themselves, herez a "for Dummies" post.

Straight to work.

And oh, I'm setting this up for Google Talk.

Start Pidgin and this is what appears (assuming this is the first time).



1. Choose "Add" on the "Accounts" window.
2. And in the resulting window ,choose Google Talk as the protocol from the drop-down menu (You might as well choose XMPP) under Login Options.
3. Give your Google Account user name as Screen name and enter the password in the appropriate field.
4. Choose "Remember password" if needed, and choose your User Options.
5. Now goto Advanced tab and check "Require SSL/TLS". This is required
6. Fix the proxy settings (if you use your University/Institute connection ,like I do, proxies exist by default, ubiquitous ? ;) )

At the end of it all, it will look like the pic below.



7. Click "Save".
8. Done . :P

Oh well, this post is dedicated to all those who bugged me and made me write this, phew.

Update: The same on Linux, using Pidgin 2.5.3