Sunday, December 24, 2006

Wow ! Did God or the UPTU VC read my post?

In my very last post I wrote about some things which I didn't like about the univ. Though I never liked the way the question papers were set but I never said because even I pass because of those easy papers, but the PPl question paper not only surprised me but infact rocked. Yes it was just perfect what a engineer should be asked in the exam.
The paper was such that we had to apply our brains to the maximum and moreover to write to something in it we needed to know the concepts, which aren't learnt in one day study which most of us do. Yes, even I did not fare well but I was not at all dejected at my performance. The paper truly said, if you dont study then you have no rights to pass. Maybe this will make me study next time. Huh.
The next thing I'd like to say what happened as a consequence of the question paper was that the BBD faculty was so amazed at the paper that they understood that the students won't be able to do this paper well. They started helping students, answered questions, allowed cheating and in a friend's room they even said to attempt full 100 marks paper and leave the rest to UPTU to pass. Well I think that was the best they could say at that moment, but on the contrary this showed that they knew the condition of the UPTU students and knew what and the way they teach is insufficient was not enough to appear in such type of paper. That is bad from a teachers' perspective. Hey I forgot to mention the most funny moment of the day. Two of them infact. Students who mug up everything, as I said in my last post, had great reactions on taking a first glance at the paper. While one of them said he knew nothing in the paper, a student getting a consistent 70+%, another "rattutota" said the paper is entirely out of course and said it that loud that I heard in the next room sitting. This is what I never expected from my class to be engineers. But it only opened my eyes further that what is the expent of mugging. Khair me not here to discuss them. The conclusion is that if UPTU continues setting its question papers in this way, we might be seeing engineers in a few years from now. Cheers.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Asia's largest technical university, does not produce Engineers actually

The topic might seem strange but it is a hard core fact. Yes, UPTU (Uttar Pradesh Technical University) is Asia'a largest technical university and the irony for me in this piece of information is that I don't find it producing engineers. (This is completely a personal opinion.) Well, the question is why do I say this ??
Lets start from the very basic. Each year around 50,000 engineers graduate from this university through various colleges. If I make a survey I know that not more than 10% will be knowing the meaning of an engineer. To be very true even I didn't know. And to put up some definition here I had to turn upto wikipedia to find out who an engineer is. This is what it said :" Engineers use creativity, technology, and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems." To go into the detail you can see this.
I will use just the basic first line. Engineer uses CREATIVITY, TECHNOLOGY and SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE . Wonder how many of those graduating each year use that.
Infact the format of the university is such that students actually don't need to learn those skills at all to become an engineer. The curriculum says to pass in atleast 6 subjects out of 10 (passing marks being only 30%) in the end semester exams. Those are counted as external marks which comprise of only a meagre 50% of the total marks. I have some interesting data up my sleeve.
Figure this first point out now, a private institution topper scores 499 out of 500 in the internal exams but only 325 out of the external 500. The second topper gets 498 internal and 290 external. Isn't that strange. A student who knows almost 100 % when appearing in the internal exams knows only 65% of the external exam paper, the second one getting not even 60%. I fail to get an answer or I should say I won't say it here. Result : 80% marks allover.
Figure this second point out. A student rarely attends classes in the college. Sometimes passes in the internal exams, gets average internal marks and manages to score 50% in the external exams. Result : 65-70% marks allover.
The third point now. A student never attends classes, never or rarely passes in the internal exams, manages to pass in the external examination and keeps passing for the year and goes through his B.Tech in the same manner. Result : 50 to 60 % marks allover.
What came to me after studying all these cases was that you do need to require any technical knowledge in order to top, pass or scrap through your B.Tech process. At the end of four years all three guyz have almost nill knowledge and have scored varying marks. For the outside world, the topper was the best kid and no prizes for guessing who the worst guy was.
The only thing I understood was that barring 5-10% of the students rest all are either pursuing a course where you need to have no knowledge of your subject. Infact mugging up is sufficent or I should say more than enough for any student to land in any of the three candidates listed above's place. The amount of mugging skills you have, is the amount of external marks you get. For internals there are various criterion which I cannot or rather should not say here.
No, I dont say that its the fault of a single person. The students are responsible for it no doubt but the main culprit is the university and the pattern which it follows. Most students have made it a habit to open their books a week before the exams or maybe even later and then scrap through the exams. And why should they study, if no one cares what they know. Infosys, the dream job for many people here in the UPTU, asks not a single technical question in its written test or even the interview. So why should I waste time in studying?? And once you have a job in your hand, who cares how did you complete your B.Tech or what subjects you studied. So thats another reason for what I have been discussing.
All in all there are many reasons why students have no knowledge or no skills that an engineer should have as compared to students from other reputed institutes (keeping in mind that at other places too I don't count the entire crowd, but still a mojority).
Its time we should raise the matter with the university people to do something about this, change the curriculum and change the way marks are secured in the unversity. Or on the other hand do nothing and just keep on producing labourers from the university who do not know what they have or should be doing other than following the orders of others. And the greatest part is that they have an engineer title placed on their empty heads which only raises their matrimony value.
I dont know if I have gone in some worng direction at some places but the essence of the topic must have been achieved.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

First seminar successful

Finally I find some time to write this. Had planned a bigger article but just couldn't dig out time to do so. The first seminar on localization completed in great fashion. Many renonwed people were there at our college and it was great to see such a gathering in a college which is not known by many people. The seminar was a first of its kind in the entire country. There was much to know and even more to learn. Feel pity for those who despite being there in our college could get nothing from it.
Actually I am too bored to write about it now so going off. Bye

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Its your Life, Make it Large

Last night an old friend of mine came to meet me. He is also doing B.Tech from the UPTU University. For a change, we were discussing our future plans and he, just as any other guy said, "I will go for an MBA". When my turn came, I said "I do not know ", much to his and may be your surprise.

I joined RKGIT in 2004 in the Computer Science department. At that moment even I had the same plans, start my preparations from the second year itself, crack the CAT in the final year. Then obviously join an IIM and come out with flying colors with a big, fat package which, would help me make rest of my life luxurious. As time has progressed so have my thoughts. Now, my heart or my mind, for that matter, does not allow me go for the MBA or M. Tech or an MS. It says only to "Be Different".

India's population is increasing each second and in equal proportion are increasing the number of engineers that are passing out. The IT field has boomed like anything and this boom is going to last for many more years. Everyone is getting jobs and once that is done they think they are through and settled. I know most of you might be thinking "YES" that's what I have come here for! But in the real sense, ask yourself, "Is that what you came on earth for? Is the job you are getting, or going to get in near future, your aim in life? Or Getting through CAT or GATE and securing a 10 or 20 lac package your sole aim in life? Maybe some of you might be thinking to the US or the UK and then minting money there?" Well, some or maybe most of you might be answering in "yes". But is that the goal of your life? My answer is a definite NO. That’s not what you are destined for.

If you have answers for the previous questions then let me put up the next question, “Why would or maybe should God waste time in creating lacs of similar human beings and that too in the single country forget about other countries ? Is He a fool? “I am sure He isn’t.

He sends all of us on earth with some mission to accomplish and mind it, that mission is unique for everyone. He sends us messages, many times in our life, to make us remember that mission. It’s only a matter of time when we read His sms.

This uniqueness of yours which I am talking about can be found by your own self. Yes, everyone of us is different in someway or the other. It’s only a matter of time when we discover our hidden talent and perform to our capabilities and find our true potential. Some one is good at art, other at music, a third one technically and the fourth at administration. Who knows you might be the next Bill Gates or Shiv Khera or Mr. A.P.J.Kalam for that matter. It’s only a question of time. All you have to do is to keep searching for the uniqueness that makes your personality, the personality which will make your identity.

I have read his message and I want all of you, through this piece of text, get His memo. Try to do something unique, something new, something innovative, something that will make you happy from the inside. After all you don’t want to read this message when you are 80 odd years old.

It’s totally up to you, what you want to do in life. Get lost in the crowd or make your mark. “It’s your wish, you can be forgotten or you remembered as one of those noble few who MADE IT”. You decide what you want to be and let not others decide your fate. Try to rule the world and not get ruled by others. My advice to all of you is to start following your dreams an forget about the rest. Just try to be distinguishable and think or more importantly DO something that makes you and your well wishers proud of.

I guess you must have got the essence of my talks. After all “It’s your life, so why not make it large??? “

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Hindi is our national language, or is it?

Ever since I have been using Hindi in the conversations, especially scrapping, people have been putting this question in front of me, "Why are you writing in Hindi or Where from this desire to write in Hindi has come?" I have been answering almost same to all the people that Hindi is our national language and we need to respect it. Am I wrong?
In the race to get a job in an MNC people have using english or atleast trying to do so. It's right from that point of view, but now people have started writing Hindi using the English alphabets. Is this justified or is the language getting its due respect? People, especially students are in this habit. They do not respect the nation or their national language for that matter.
Lately, I understood the importance of Hindi in our country. Figure this out. A majority of the national population does not know English. In fact the most common language of the country is Hindi. Most of the Indian companies want to get an international status, few of them have succeeded also but in that quest they have left their home country behind. They do not care about the upliftment of the society. They want to make India a technological hub of the world. But is that possible without the common man understanding that technology. The common man, who does not understand English. So to make them understand the technology, we need to understand them that in the language which they understand i.e. their native language. Now can anybody have any other solution that makes India a technical hub of the world without using Hindi?
My personal experience says that the present youth understands English better than Hindi. Is that correct? If we do not understand then how can we make others understand? We need to take some serious steps in this field. Let the farmers know what will the weather be like today and in the next few days. Let them understand the power of internet and make them understand the real might of the technology and the muscle of India.
Examples of such countries are Japan(the present technology hub of the world), China, Russia and many others, where people do not speak English and always converse in their native language irrespective of the person's origin they are talking to. Can't we learn from them??
So its a request to all my readers, to something for the nation and do something that makes you proud of. जय हिन्द !!!

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Hey I found something new

The first thing when I switch my system on is that I play some song. And its been some days now since I have been hearing new songs only. Today morning when I started browsing folders for selecting songs for the playlist suddenly I thought to change. I selected a folder which I never browse. Can you guess which ?? No I suppose. It had the title "Ghazals". Haha, a big change. And then without even looking at the songs I selected all and put them to play. After some time you know what I was thinking, " I have so many nice songs in my system and I never knew!!!" . Really those were really nice and its night now and I am still listening those only. And yeah still hunting for more of such songs. Hope I find some more.
Great to explore myself and happy to find more likings.

Golden days remembered

Just half an hour earlier I was at the volleyball court .The recently built court prompted me to play again and this time I did not stop and ended up with pulling a lot of crowd.
Playing has always been fun for me and I have loved to play since I was 5 years old (as I can recall). I just never seem to get tired while playing, be it cricket, basketball or volleyball for that matter. I can't control myself either. Infact today I played both the games, volleyball as well as basketball (also after 5 years). Hah I really enjoyed.
Playing has brought about a change in me. No, its not for my good but for my bad instead. Yes, I know it very well. My patience has again and again been tested and I have become short tempered again. I left the volleyball court without saying anything to anyone. My desire and my will to win has brought about this change in me. Actually I can't see myself losing and specially because of some one else's fault.
My seriousness in whatever I do is like a boon for me, but when those involved with me are not as serious as me then I just start losing my patience. May be I expect too much from others but its all about team work and when people fall after taking responsibility then it just hurts me in the brain straightaway and those silly excuses just take me to my extremes. The class 8 Abhinav Sahai takes over and the days when I just never lost in anything get over me.
Maybe this may help me somewhere. But as of now I just wanna get over this. Let's see if it's for my good. After all "Everything happens for our own good."

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Things ain't easy

The semester end is nearing and we haven't been able to conduct even a single CSI event. Infact all we have succeeded is getting an Inaugaration function to be organized. This is a success or a failure ??? I feel its a faliure. Whatever plans we had remained plans only. No work for the fest has started and this is a very bad sign. Talks, talks and talks are all what we have managed. Everyone else in the college is thinking that we are doing something although only we know that in the real sense nothing is happenning. Apart from that the semester exams are coming and thats a tension too. Oh not to forget that great college people have sent notice at home regarding poor attendance and poor performance in sessionals. Seems everything is getting out of control.
I am going for an abdrupt end because I dont know why I am writing this .........
May God help me. Amen

Monday, November 06, 2006

Who owns the internet ?

It's been some days now that I have put this question in front of many people and to myself too, but as alchemist says " When you plan to achieve something , the entire universe conspires you to attain that" and thats what happened with me. A couple of days earlier I popped this question in front of some friends and then only I saw the newspaper which answered atleast some of them. Like, the person behind the idea or better known as the person who did it is Tim Berners-Lee. The first website is the CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva) website. When the web was started it was started as a mechanism for sharing high energy particle data.
That's history now and presently as in the last week of October the count of the website is 100 million. Now the next question that might arise is, who keeps track of this information ?? This answer I found pretty quickly, thanks to "The Times Of India" (Nov 3 06 edition). Netcraft , is the internet monitoring company. It keeps track of this count through the domain name system. And guess what? Netcraft also keeps information of the location of the websites, what operating system are they based and even what web server software are they running. Cool isn't it ?
As far as Netcraft is concerned, it is based in Bath, England. It says the first website was developed in 1989 . About Tim Berrners (who invented the web's basic software), my information says he's an Oxford educated Englishman and presently a researcher at MIT (which is the premier technical institute of the world), along with being a professor at University of Southampton an the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (an internet standards getting organization). All this info about Mr Lee is courtesy "The Hindu" (Nov 3 again).
The moral of the topic is that the alchemist was right, atleast my experience says so !!!

Thursday, October 19, 2006

हिन्दी मे लिखने की क्रान्ति !!!

बहुत दिन से मै कोशिश कर रहा था। अब सफलता हाथ लगी है। अब मै हिन्दी मे भी लिख सकता हू। बहुत खुशी मिली थी। आज लिनक्स की एक अौर ताकत का पता चला है। यह एक अलग ही मजा है। कुछ अलग करने की मेरी चाह मे यह फिर एक उप्लब्धि है। बस अब देर नही की हर आदमी लिनक्स को अपनाए। आज नही तो कल यह होगा ही, अौर तब मै मानून्गा कि मै कुछ काम कर रहा हू।
वैसे हिन्दी मे कुछ अलग ही बात है। जब हमारा देश ही हमे ना समझ पाए तो एेसी अन्ग्रेजी किस काम की। यह एक महत्वपूर्ण बात है जो अभी कोई समझ नही रहा है। पर मै मानता हू कि देर सवेर यह बात सबको समझ आ जाएगी, अौर जिस दिन ऐसा हो गया उस भारत के विकास की जो गति होगी वह कोई सोच भी नही सकता अभी।
आज जितना काम हो रहा है localisation पर वह ज्यादा लोगो को पता नही है, पर जब पता लगेगा तो सब हैरान रह जाएगे, जैसे मै हुआ था। आौर तब सबको मानना ही पङेगा कि हिन्दी विश्व विख्यात भाीशा (गलती के लिये माफी दे) है।
आईऐ हम सब इस शुभ काम को साथ मिलकर करे।
** कुछ गलति करी है मैने जिसके लिये माफी चाहून्गा अौर कोशिश करूगा की अगली बार यह ना हो। **

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Ever met angels??? I did !!!

Yeah, I know it sounds strange but my experience with Pandey Sir tempts me to write all this. People with thinking like he has are difficult to come across and specially at his age. He is always talking about the welfare of others. He says he doesn't need money,just provide him with sufficient money so as to make his living possible. He says that he wants to do atleast something in life and that should be such that he should be happy with that after all. These days he's greatly involved in the work for the poor people. Localisation is one thing he's looking upon as the next major task. He wants to take open source softwares to the rural world. he wants that all goan walahs even to know and can use the technology. No one should be devoid of knowledge.
I have been deeply impressed by the way he talks and whatever he thinks . I mean you can just hear to his talks. You just cannot ignore him. He is so impressive and clear in his views that any one can be impressed in the first blow itself.
Frankly speaking I haven't met anyone till date who really wants to work for the society and that too by heart. Lets see how much successful he can be. And in fact wish him all the luck for the future. Amen...

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Installation done !! Now move ahead

Last night I was too sleepy to write this part so ...... Anyways, now that you are started with the

machine you must be wanting to play music and your favourite videos. So you need to know the

names of some of the players as well as the plugins needed. Here's the list

Exclusively Audio file players

1. Amarok-- my favourite
2. Xmms
3. Rythmbox Music player

Vidoes+Audios

1. Kaffeine--- my favourite
2. VLC player
3. Mplayer
4. Totem music player
5. Xine

I think these many are sufficient for a good music buff. The plugins that are neccessary are

1. Alsa
2. Gstreamer ( gstreamer0.8-plugins3 , gstreamer0.8-lame, gstreamer0.8-ffmpeg )
3. Lame
4. Sox
5. w32 codecs
6. libdivx4linux
7. ffmpeg
8. mpeg-tools
9. vorbis-tools
10. gst-register-0.8

The packages will be there in the synaptic package manager (System-> administration-> synaptic

package manager). Dont worry if you find them. There are other ways to do them too. W32 as of

now I have seen seems to missing in some of the pc's. For that you can run the following code in

the terminal after making sure that synaptic or any other updates are not taking place. The code is

$wget -c http://packages.freecontrib.org/ubuntu/plf/pool/dapper/non-free/w32codecs_20060611-1plf1_i386.deb"


The dollar sign will be there beforehand so neglect that.

This will copy the w32 codecs for you an save them in .deb form . In my case it was saved in

/home/abhinav . So you can see that directory first to make sure its downloaded (obviously

replacing abhinav with your login name). Go to the downloaded directory and type the following

code

$dpkg -i w32codecs_20060611-1plf1_i386.deb


and voila your codecs should be installed. Mind it the name above w32.... is the name of the

package I got. You may get some other name too.

I think thats all about I need to tell about multimedia etc. One important thing for synaptic to work

is do this

$sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list


You will be prompted for password. Enter that. Then edit the file as follows

remove "#" sign from lines which includes a hyperlink. Also remove "in" from the hyperlinks. For

eg , you may be seeing something like

# deb-src http://in.archive...... .com

This should be changed to

deb-src http://archive..... .com

I think I am quite clear. The above step has to done for all similar lines. Also you might be seeing

some lines ending with "universe". Just add " multiverse" after a space to universe. You should

find 4 such places. Just save the file after doing the above. And them start synaptic pkg manager.

Make the neccessary changes in the network settings (if needed). And then press reload. Some package downloading should start. When thats complete you should find 18880 packages listed or maybe 18872, in some cases. Find this figure on the bottom left corner. When thats done, just search for the packages written above and more of your choice and wow thats all required.
This seems long if you read, but believe me it took 5 minutes actually to a new person who has even a little bit of common sense (quite rare these days though).
If any help is required apart from that written feel free to contact me @ 9891435589.
Thats enough on my part. Now you gotta job on hand dear. Go ahead and enjoy Ubuntu.

The big installation problem

hi all
This post is not because I wish to write but because I am forced to do it by none other than by myself. Its been a lot of time I have been installing ubuntu desktops and so I thought to write it here for all u people who wish to do so. Wasting not much time I would start. the order may vary as I cant recall the exact order but it will give u complete info. Here it goes :
1. Select the language for installation--- for obvious reasons select english
2. Select ur keyboard layout--- American english to b selected
3. Select time zone - calcutta
4. Editing the partition table---- the most important step
[i] Select "manually edit partition table".
[ii] You have to make sure that u know which of your partitions are empty (atleast 5 gb needed)
[iii] Select that partition and select " delete the partition"
[iv] Now you must be having free space (lets suppose its 10 gb)
[v] Select " create new partition " . select the size of new partition (9.5 gb in this case). select partition type to EXT3. Give the mount point as root, denoted by "/". You should format the partition too (as a option is there and no harm in doing that).
[vi] Select the rest space (500 mb in this case) for swap area (partition type). The swap area should not be more than more than twice the ram. The swap area acts like a virtual memory for the computer.
[vii] Finally " finish changes and write changes to disk ".
[ix] By now the installation should start and hopefully continues smoothly.
5. You should be prompted for username and password in the meantime, filling which should not be a problem.

Just follow these steps and the system should be ready
More details would be posted later as now i m feeling sleepy. Get back to u guys later
gudnight

Thursday, September 21, 2006

A simple THANKS works


When Raj sir mailed about the call for volunteers he made some funny statements. He told them the volunteers will be getting a Tshirt, a group foto and a satisfaction for job well done. Initially that looked quite hilarious. But seriously telling when the final speech and vote of thanks was being made by him the volunteers got the thanks at the second position straightaway just behind the event organisers JNU and people there. It was a great feeling. A part of his words as I can recall were, "The second thanks goes straight to these guyz with almost sleepy eyes, people in black t-shirts and torn jeans and ............. " and that gave a strange joy to me atleast, can't say bout others.
I mean it was just awesome and that's what I njoyed the most. Here's the group pic that was promised.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Freedel '06 was awesome...

It was events time at the ILUG-D. It was my first event with the group and the experience was just awesome. A lot to learn and a lot to explore. It seems whenever I get a feeling that I know something and I stand somewhere in the student community, something good takes place and the feeling vanishes and the feeling " I should know more and I am nowhere" just takes over. I guess anyone can get that feeling if he sees equal aged people giving presentations and talking like they are equal to people of double their age. It was embarassing when I met two third year CS students giving presentations like anything, and that too on topics which I had never heard of. It just dissapoints me. And then it gives me inspiration. So thats what keeps me going.
As far as the event is concerned, it was seminars, talks, workshops, fun,T-Shirts, beer, chicken and a hell lot of other things. We, the RKGIT Team, were volunteers and so could not attend many seminars but it was always whenever we could scratch out time we just scraped to attend anything interesting. There are a couple of things to be shared. First is that the ILUG-D is filled of people who are bachelors though not by age but by the way they work. Everything is left for the last minute. and then too they are late. Its almost like we work. It gives us a friendly atmosphere for working and we never get the feeling like we are working with people who are actually quite older than us. Thats what makes the working even more pleasant. And after all working with professionals is altogether a great feeling.
Some time ago I spoke of working hard and partying harder. And last two days have been an amazing example of that. The entire saturday all of us worked like anything and in the night it was an entirely a dfferent scenario. Beer pouring everywhere, accompanied with all sorts of dishes - veg or non veg. Me a definite non veg lover so didn't even have a look at the veg stuff. We partied till midnight and then had to move to Gora sir's place to have some rest. And I must mention I saw just another example of Gora sir's flexibility. Try to get a feeling of this. Morning he comes at 9. Helps around with everything. Then takes a 3 hour hectic workshop. Followed by the usual works and attending talks with equivalent interest. He never looked tired, I dunno how. And then at night he looked the perfect party animal. I heard that he had 6-8 bottles of beer. Had all sorts of food and then was perfectly fine as he wrote his address for the cab driver. For only one instance we saw that his legs faulted. When Dhiraj offered to hold his laptop, his reply just stunned me. He said " I can do this till I have teeth left in my mouth ". Its all about determination I guess. He made us perfectly comfortable at his home and next morning we all left early. So I think I do not need to say anything about him. I am speechless.Well that does not mean I am taking away credit away from anybody else. Each of them was equally determined for their works.
The other thing I would share is that fo the first time I saw real an actual geeks. They knew just everything and anything. Ranging from computers to geography to science to any other field I should say. It just thrilled me. They even won a bet from Raj sir and that too about networking. Huh!!
I think I will keep on saying till anyone stops me. So rest is left foir next time when I have the fotos. So keep checking.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

First RKG-LUG Meet

After weeks of perseverance , we finally succeeded in conductiong the first RKG-LUG Meet. It was quite well organized and went in after a few unavoidable things. The to be president Gaurav Sir had to leave for nainital and we had to go on with the meeting despite his absence. He was ready with the opening presentation already (though incomplete) but at the very last moment it was decided that I would be taking up his role because of his absence. I had a first look at his presentation at 10 am only. The meeting was to start at 1.30 pm. Ginni took up to speak about Linux , Gurpreet put some light on Freedel and LinuxAsia while Dhiraj displayed some cool things that can be done on linux. He was duly supported by Madhav, who started the meet. We were very well supported by Ashu Sir and Ankur Sir (who took a very nice example of a toothpaste to tackle one question).
Ginni appeared to be a bit reluctant in speaking but others were quite comfortable with the crowd. I am satisfied with my performance, as it was more of a extempore than a lecture. I also very satisfied as I got a couple of compliments, one of them a special for me, given by Ankur sir. He said " You have started speaking exactly like Raj Mathur". I think this is quite an achievement. In only my third seminar (first two were of animation workshops) if I can do that then I feel I can do quite a lot of wonders. And it also made me feel that I am heading in the right direction, that is becoming an entrepreneur. Lets see how far do I get in this college life !!!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Movies , movies and movies......

Its been some 2 weeks now since I have been waiting to write this post. Since I watched Swades (2nd time I think) I have been thinking that yes movies do help sometimes. The first time I watched that movie I decided something (I won't tell here) , and now when I watched it again it has just reminded me of that something. I am getting close to my goal but haven't accomplished it yet. I have made a quite a number of promises and it will take time to fulfill those. The movie is just awesome, never understand how that movie didn't succeed on the box office. If you haven't seen it yet do watch it , contact me if you want.
And now that its been some time since I watched Swades there are a couple of others I would like to talk about. First is Tokyo Drift (Fast and Furious). Its all about cars and galz. I love cars and speed just thrills me. It's music is also rocking. Downloaded the mp3 as well as video the next day itself. If you love cars or speed then its a go-go from my side.
The last one is Lage Raho Munnabhai, watched it today only. Great to see that such movies can still be made. Its all together a different concept and after sometime again had the oppurtunity to watch a movie with a message. Seems there are still people who believe in the Gandhaian philosophy. Frankly telling even I don't believe in it but it was nice to watch the philosophy working, atleast in the movie. But some things can be learnt. You just need to know what.
Its good watching movies and one should watch it atleast if the reviews are good.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Work hard , Party harder !!!

All you people must have heard the saying " Work hard and Party harder" but hopefully not found people who implement the same. This was the case with me also until I had the oppurtunity to have a dinner party with the ILUG-D people at the completion of the workshop, a successful one.
After 6 hectic weeks it came to an end finally and we took a huge sigh of relief. Time moves really fast. That night after returning from Nirula's (the one near priya) I was thinking as if last weekend only we appeared for the test and this weekend the workshop ended...
Ankit , Gurpreet and Dhiraj missed the party due to various reasons and we really missed them. The JNU team was also there and duly supported us. The food I think I should not talk about because if you are a non-vegetarian then then you cant avoid water in your mouth. The bill might have soared like anything I guess but I think we should not care of that if we are with the ILUG-D people.
I never knew people can enjoy as well as work to the same extent. If you wanna learn something then meet Raj Sir , Gora Sir , Triveni sir and Andrew Sir as well. Andrew Sir is even more cooler than a cucumber I must say.
Well , the work or the party's not over yet. We have to be there each sunday and that means that work and enjoyment will continue atleast till the project continues (hopefully we complete it before the specified six months time). Amen !!!

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Beckham screwed up!!!


Can you believe it , Sachin Tendulkar being thrown out of the team for poor performance!!! I guess your first reaction would be "when did this happen?" Well this is what happened in England a couple of days ago. No , not ofcourse was Sachin fired from the English team but even a bigger personality , thats none other than David Beckham , was fired from the team by new manager Steve McClaren and that to on basis of poor performance. This was shocking for any soccer enthusiast. He scored twice in the world cup finals at Germany and was an integral part of the team on the road to the quater finals. Had luck supported they would have reached the big finals , as they were strongest team on paper.
And if thats not enough Beckham has even claimed in public that the new manager had told him that the doors are shut for him for the future also. Though McClaren denies Beckham's claims and that he will called back if he performs. Well . what the truth is we might never come to know but all I can say is that this is simply unjust soccer and you should not devoid people of watching such a great player playing for his country!!!
Complete article.
For more details click here .

Soccer Mania

I have always been following all sorts of outdoor sports, be it soccer, cricket, lawn tennis, rugby, hockey or my favourite F1. The world cup soccer has just winded up and now starts the thrilling EPL (English Premiership League). The premiershipship is the most famous club championship , others famous being Spanish Primera Liga , FA Cup , Italian Serie A. and the mother of all battles UEFA Champions League. But my favourite stays the EPL. Played in the lush green fields of England, it features the best of the players from the world and the best quality of football, as far as I feel. Most of the big players long to play in the championship.
Here my favourite has always been Manchester United. The club has won the title, I think. the maximum no of times. Also the best players have played for this club. Even David Beckam , the great english footballer and the captain of the England team, until he resigned from the post following the early and unexpected exit of England from the world cup finals in Germany, started his career from this club until he moved to Real Madrid a couple of years ago.
The present champions since the past two years have been Chelsea and they are even the strongest team on paper this year too specially after the transfer of German captain Michael Ballack. This proves yet again that Chelsea are really spending the most money out there. Lets see if he can continue the winning streak (losing only 1 match last season) of Chelsea when the championship kicks off This Weekend. As always I will miss the season as college is starting from monday. HUH!! wonder when will I be ale to watch the next match live or an F1 race for that matter. Thanx to the media that I am updated , otherwise I would have been .............. dunno know myself .

Monday, August 07, 2006

Ubuntu Dapper Sucks

I have been using Ubuntu for some time now. I started with 4.04 Hoary Hedgehog, then came 5.10 Breezy Badger and now comes 6.06 Dapper Drake(I always like the names they use). I have had good experiences with the previous two versions but this one sucks. First of all we poor Indians can't afford much of ram and specially at this college level, when we want to get everything ourselves. So 256 MB seems quite insufficient. Then comes the drastic problem of its installation. Actually it is based on ubuquity and that doesn't seem fine at all. The funda of having a live cd as the installer cd doesn't seem good. Originally knoppix came with the concept and now many are following it. But my and infact my friends' experiences with it have not been good with it. In most cases the installation stops at the partitioning the drives. Infact the installation success rate has been so poor that finally I have switched back to Breezy. And it gave me a lot of relief. Ah!!! the sound system and the videos have started working again.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

JNU mein masti

Its been some days (4 weeks to be precise) since we've been at JNU now. Now it looks its become our new workplace and RKGIT has become our home. It gives us great pleasure when we return to our new home!!! And this weekend when we met Andrew Sir, he said "Enjoy your break" , it gave me immense pleasure. Seems like we are working a lot and getting breaks in between to refresh ourselves.
The Workshop has taught us a lot and even taught how to make most of the resources. The other thing workshop we have done at the workshop is ,made new good friends. Saleem impresses me the most. His determination and focus are just awesome. He's one of those guys who "work while they work and play while they play". Rare to find such type of people, especially at RKGIT. The other guy I like is Ankit. He's different from Saleem. He is hard working and more importantly very cool. His simplicity is what attracts me the most. I just wonder how can someone be so simple. I wish I could be so simple and yet so dynamic. And he does play nice guitar too. Apart from them there is Jasdeep. Nice and decent sardar. First sardar I have seen who is a vegetarian!!! And there is Sumathy , with whom I haven't talked much. Not to mention there are JNU people who are supporting us(clients as Raj Mathur calls them). Among them there are Dhwani sir, Soumyadip sir, Ipsita ma'm and not to forget everyone's favourite Barkha ma'am(all r there on orkut but no link to be provided).
Apart from making friends we have learnt a bit of perl, some python. Barring all these we've even got some knowledge on bio-informatics. All in all its some informative and baaki masti.
I never thought though that I would be one day attending the workshop. I didn't have any interest earlier. Appeared for the test just like that. Faired poorly in that. Then they gave another opportunity. And this time we took it with both hands. As a result all of us got selected. It was the masti we made at our first trip when we went for the test that inspired a bit to be at JNU. And now everyday its masti.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Qui suis moi

For those of u wondering what this means I can only say that its the place to introduce myself. Well not to tell about me right now. All I can say that is that I am a Btech student and like most of those techies round here exploring ways to make something for my bloody stomach. I hope you get it.
Apart from that, me still single(any ladies watching?) and looking too. Hmmm lets see if anyone's actually watching!!!
As far as the tech part goes, me an open source guy(though I dont know much of coding, still!). For those of you wondering what open source is all about why dont you go through this or if like orkutting then this might be right place for you. If you what open source is all about and are critical of it then I would suggest you to watch Antitrust(movie).
Barring all that I am fun loving guy, love to orkut and a great madness for cricket()maybe if you are from college you would be surprised). Anyways my other liking is for Bikes (but not babes).
I am also quite ambitious(as ppl say) and have quite big dreams. If they become true I dont what I will become. Lets hope I succeed. Amin!!!

Friday, July 28, 2006

Whats this blog stuff ??

Initially when I came to know about blogs I thought it maybe like maintaining an online diary. Some people write diaries and make it personal. So I thought it must be like some things we like to share. But then when I saw some blogs I understood its power. The power of communication. And the ways in which knowledge can be spread. Yeah basically I have seen now people sharing some great experiences and even greater knowledge.
I feel whatever one knows should be shared with everyone. Afterall "Human Knowledge Belongs To The World". And the blog seems quite an effective way!! Whatsay???

Finally me on Blog !!!

It's been quite a while since I have been thinking of writing my blog, but somehow haven't been successful at that. Infact just now when I sat to register myself, they (blogger.com) said u can't have that name. Before thinking anything else I just tried logging in with one of my few passwords and to my surprise my first password did me in. A great relief as I could have taken ages thinking of a new name. Great that I was denied of that pain. And maybe I wouldnt have been writing this blog today also!!
I just hope or I should say just pray (more importantly ) that I keep updating my blog. Lets see if I can do that. Wish me luck if anyone's reading that.