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.

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.

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 !!!

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.

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 !!!

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 .

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.

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.

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!!!

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.