Psi faqs Part 1: "Cannot enable SSL/TLS. Plugin not found"

All you guys using Linux must have heard of Gaim, Kopete ,etc. One among these and one of my favorites is Psi.

Nicely named ,this is simpler and offers more than what Gaim does.

The purpose of this post ,however ,is just to help out guys out there who are(going to) facing(face) problems setting this kid up.

Firstly, a reading of "How do I configure Psi for Google Talk? " on Google Talk Help would definitely help.

That aside, one problem that users generally face is when you check the "Use SSL encryption(to server)" box, an error message pops up saying "Cannot enable SSL/TLS. Plugin not found" .Now, what do you do?

The answer, which I did a lot of Googling and some hunt in the local repository (I use Ubuntu and IIT Kharagpur does have a 'local mirror' for that) is to install libqca-tls, qca-tls, libqca-ssl or qca-ssl package. One of these would do.

And if you are very new to Linux, here is how you go about installing it from your repository.

apt-get install libqca-tls

If not successful, replace libqca-tls with one of the given packages till you get your lucky one

My New Blog and the purpose

After a long thought process ,I've decided to move to Wordpress .However ,right now ,I don't have enough time on my hands to move *this* blog .I've started a new one and decided that it would be more of non-technical ramblings of a geek@IIT KGP.

The blog is named [NpoWEr]ed .

Comment.

Four Browsers and a comeback

It feels nice to be blogging again... long time no see.

So, starting off with the posts subject : trying out four browsers and make recommendations.

The list : Mozilla Firefox ,Internet Explorer ,Flock and Netscape Navigator.

Mozilla Firefox

The ever stable and my all-time favourite is the one I use for everyday browsing.

Infact ,it is a little interesting how I got to make this post.For a long time, I wanted to check out the home page of the browser (Pardon me guyz, yup, I haven't done it until yesterday). And then there was it, the words that are my mantra for using computers - personalize :)

That somehow led me to a page which was covering Six Flavours of Firefox out of which two were of no interest ,one is more of a media player than a browser( do try it out, I did quite a long time back in its Beta stage and was said to be the next big thing after Firefox itself, it looks cool too) ,one was for the Mac and the other two being covered here ,Flock and Netscape Navigator.

I don't think saying more about Firefox would be of any interest to you guys except if i recommend some good add-ons which I use :
1. del.icio.us Bookmarks
2. Elite proxy switcher (only for people who need to keep shifting between proxies)
3. Foxytunes - this is one amazing hing.
4. Google Toolbar - ah,oh, this must've been numbered 1 ,never mind ;)
5. No Squint.
6. PDF Download
7. StumbleUpon.

And as for themes ,if you like minimalistic themes , go in for iFox or PitchDark. I use a variation of the former , iFox Graphite.

Internet Explorer 7

Microsoft has made a great comeback with this one. I used it for about 6 months after release when I finally realised that Google Toolbar has more customization options in FF than in IE7 ( FF fans thank Google and my personalization here ).

Extremely stable and better memory management makes this a very good choice for people who do regular browsing . Infact I see absolutely no reason why a layman(letz use the word junta) who has Vista would leave IE7 . Infact, with its amazing integration into the OS , I recommend you don't.

Well, my current usage of IE7 is restricted to Microsoft's sites which are heavy and I use IE7 exclusively so that it caches these sites as much as possible (you know? I'm smart :-B)

Netscape Navigator 9

Netscape Navigator 9 is based upon FF and takes the crown as far as startup times are concerned.

It has lots of features and claims to be designed with 'socializing' as the area it addresses. Well, it does have great integration of Netscape.com ,a mini-browser , LinkPad akin to live clipboard for FF , news subscription , Sitemail Notifier and Friends' Activity Sidebar and something called Integrated Voting but that is pretty much it. Looks aren't that great and buttons on the installed toolbars don't look good either.

All I could say is Netscape came up with a faster and lighter browser that would make loyalists happy but not something that would capture the market . It sometimes hurts to see one Giant in dire straits. I still remember those old days when IE sucked and Navigator was the way to go.

Flock

Easily the most interesting and 'useful' of the lot but heavy on RAM. That apart I could find only one complaint , the space left after all the 'specials' is a little less than what you generally have in FF.

The interesting stuff - where do i start ? :D
The unique thing of this browser is the Flock Toolbar that can be hid just like a normal toolbar.

And then, the individual descriptions of the buttons, from the left.

1. My World : This takes you to the page you see above.

2. Media Streams : Displays videos or pictures according to the choice of the channel/stream.

3. Show Favorite Sites : This shows you your bookmarks ,both local and online .Supports del.icio.us

4. Display accounts and services : Another very important button. Access all your accounts one-touch.

5. Display Feed Sidebar : self-explanatory

6. Display Web ClipBoard : Drag and drop anything as you see it, pictures or text. Use it later for cut ,copy or paste.

7. Create a blog post :The browser opens up a nice text edit styling and gives us the option as to which blog engine to publish to (I'm publishing this via this feature)

8. Uploader : Again a tool to upload photos to various sites .Flickr and PhotoBucket supported.

Intel's processors and the confusion: 32-bit or 64-bit

Hi.It has been long since a post had been made in this blog. Forgive my negligence, those few loyal readers I have (At least, I have).These days were hectic and I too many jobs on hand to be completed and completed well.

This post, was to just comment on Intel’s, well, negligence (!)?

Hmm, I shall start off then.

As we all know pretty well, AMD had released the first 64-bit processor for desktops and Intel, for a long long time laid its bet on its very-successful 32-bit architecture, well known as IA32. However, Intel, of late (well, at least I have come to know it very late) has realized its fallacy and now all (read ALL) of its processors are 32-bit, including those which were released as 32bit initially which includes Pentium 4,Pentium D, Pentium Extreme Edition, Celeron D ,Xeon and Core Duo line of processors.

AMD has long copied Intel’s designs in that passed 32-bit era of computing (you are allowed to disagree, as usual :D).But, it seems history has its irony and Intel HAD TO adopt AMD’s x86-64 architecture, which was the name AMD gave to its 64-bit processors. Intel renamed this Intel64 and careful note is to be taken to the fact that Intel64 is a completely different architecture from IA-64 and all other implementations of x86-64. IA-64 is the architecture used for the Itanium series of processors from Intel.

Intel has lost the crown of having the fastest processor model since the introduction of AMD Athlon X2 series of processors. However, on July 27, 2006, Intel released its Core 2 Duo series of processors based on the Conroe core(covered on October 27th,click here), and reclaimed its crown and further establishing its lead when it released its Core 2 Quad series(covered on November 2nd,click here).

However, I have stated that I would be talking about Intel’s negligence, although that was a word used rashly above. What I am cribbing about is that Intel, on the Technical Specification sheet does not mention explicitly, the much wanted ’64-bit’ word .All the sheet says is that the Core 2 Duo supports the Intel Extended Memory 64 technology what it calls Intel EM64.

If it takes a person a reading in a online encyclopedia to determine whether a processor is 32-bit or not, and the company’s website says nothing, then should I presume that Intel’s tying to hide something from its customers? Especially that there are not many 64-bit applications around for common use? Any other reasons?

---

And ,as usual ,my fascination with codenames continues.
Here are some for trivia:
Conroe: The core with which the initial Core 2 series of processors came out.

Conroe XE: The core for Core 2 Extreme Edition.

Allendale: The cores which the present Core 2 processors had.

Kentsfield: Codename for Core 2 Quad.

Woodcrest: Codename for the server side version of Core 2, marketed as the well known Xeon.

Merom : The mobile version of Core 2.

Penryn: The successor to Merom (this will have a 45nm core.All others have 65nm cores)

The new quilt and a late post :)

My customization-of-the-template spree continues and a new widget gives its entry - The Quilt.



First,an introduction to the concept of scrobbling, or more precisely as audioscrobbling.Each and every song you listen to is noted down an a database of it is maintained online.This is called 'scrobbling'.And your 'charts' are generated.They might be weekly,monthly or even yearly.This is a way of analyzing your music habits.As time passes, you come to know of your tastes and how they have undergone changes as you discover new artists and songs.Like how Enter Sandman could make Linkin Park go down to Metallica in three days in my case ;) .

And, here is where Last.fm enters the scene.Last.fm© is primarily a Internet radio station and music recommendation system.

Last.fm provides a software that you can install on your computer that would scrobble all the songs that you play on your media player.Ofcourse you also have to install a Audioscrobbler© plugin for that media player.The best part is that it will scrobble even when you are offline.It will write all data to a file and then upload it when you are connected.

Now,the extras:
Last.fm provides nice goodies in the form of code snippets that you can embed on your webpage/blog. This includes live RSS feed of your played songs, and a nice widget called 'quilt' which consists of small thumbnails of all the albums/artists you've hears to.And again ,the choice between albums or artists is yours.

This was just intended to give you a little introduction to the world of audioscrobbling and the world's largest social music platform, Last.fm.

Find out more about Last.fm at Wikipedia and the site itself.

And,in case you join Last.fm ,add me as a friend :).

My profile at Last.fm