Tech – Page 2 – Random Ramblings

Teaching about Computers

Did I say, in this blog that F1 is the greatest teacher ? Well I said that to my class as well. It took some days for me to realise that neither F1 nor google was the idea of help for ‘normal’ people, I mean IT-scared people who call themselves ‘just being normal’. help meant … Continue reading “Teaching about Computers”

help meant pressing a button and … they hear a celestial voice or the terrestrial voice of a friendly guru (don’t ask me to read anything , please)

help- What can I do for you?
user – Oh , my internet is not working..
help- what exactly is not working sir, (or madam, as the case may be)
user- I pressed the E (intenet explorer icon, friends) and i am not seeing the web page I want to see.
help- can you see the network icon on the system tray sir?
user – what network? what system tray ?
help- I mean the twin TVs at the bottom of your screen
user – yeah , why couldn’t you speak clearly, now I see the TVs, but there is a red cross over it.
help- then you are not connected. did you switch on the modem sir ?
user – modem ?? oh the box near the phone. ? where is the switch ?
help- behind that box sir..
user – no one told me there was a switch behind that box………..
help- sir, I’ll switch it on for you… wait for 10-15 seconds sir, your page will be displayed..
user- yeah, now it’s ok, I knew I could fix it…..

That’s the kind of help people want… not some silly process … read- understand-try it out -read again- retry……..google and .. if it works, ok else, repeat from step 1.

Technology to the rescue

Much has been said and written in the past two weeks about safety of women in our cities. Once the dust settles down and the emotions subside, we need to take some real measures to prevent crime against women. Indian movies are full of depictions of horrendous villains getting after the heroine , but in the nick of time, … Continue reading “Technology to the rescue”

Can it happen in the reality, that help arrives in time to bring the culprits to book, before a crime takes place, rather than after ?

In my school forum (an all boys school) I came across a post which I cut and paste , complete with credits.

		Date : Dec 31, 2012 From : Prabhu Andrews Lazar (2009), 1990 Batch To : All Subject: Prevent crime against women Message:
		Tech Mahindra had developed an application called “FightBack” – which was being used only by the staff members of Mahindra Group. After the gang-rape of a woman in New Delhi; it has now thrown open this smart phone application for public use, beyond Mahindra employees. The FightBack application tracks a user’s location and sends SOS messages to selected contacts in case of an emergency. This application is now available for download on the company website for free & IS ONLY FOR INDIAN MOBILE NUMBERS. The FightBack app allows the user to press on a panic button whenever he/she feels unsafe. It tracks the location using GPS and alerts chosen contacts about the location map and is available on Android and Blackberry. http://www.fightbackmobile.com/ Steps – How to download the application 1 – Register yourself or login through Faceback with Post click. 2 – After the successful Login in the portal, Click to Download. 3 – Enter the mobile number on which you want to deploy for the Fight Back application. 4 – Select your handset on which you would like to download the application from the device list. 5 – Click on Download button, and you will receive the link to download via SMS. 6 – By clicking on the downloadable link within the received SMS your application will start downloading.

I went through the site and the app looks promising.
a message from the site/
———————————————————————————————————————————-
FightBack, the women’s safety application, sends SOS alerts from your phone. FightBack uses GPS, SMS, location maps, GPRS ,email and your Facebook account to inform your loved ones in case you are in danger. Join us and help make our streets safer for women.
——————————————————————————————————————————–

The second issue is awareness. While most TV channels were focused on India Gate (War Memorial), I switched to Doordarshan for other news. The channel was educating the viewers on Women’s legal rights, in a kind of Presentation format in English and Hindi. Much of this information was new to me and I am sure it would be for many of our citizens.

After some googling I found similar contents here

1. Free Legal Aid

Always be accompanied with lawyer when you go to file a complaint or FIR against any mis-happening. Because being in the world of MEN, a woman is never taken seriously and sometimes even the FIR is not lodged. Also, as per the Delhi High Court ruling whenever a rape is reported, the SHO should inform this to the Delhi Legal services Authority. The Legal body then arranges a Lawyer for the rescue.

2. Right to Privacy while recording Statements

In any case if a woman finds inconvenient to record her statement she can always do the same in presence of only one Police officer and a lady constable in a less crowded place so that no fourth party can overheard. Also it is the duty of Police to keep the privacy of a woman intact and closed. Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, a woman who is raped records her statement in front of the Magistrate when the case in under trail and no one else is needs to be present.

3. Time doesn’t Matter

Filing a FiR by rape victim or someone who is molested has no time boundary. As noted rape is a very severe thing that can happen with a woman and if she reports about it later, her appeal cannot be rejected on the duration of time as after the incident many are in shock or in danger of their family’s reputation or else other reasons.

4. Email to the Rescue

As per the recent report by the Delhi police, if any victim cannot comes to the Police Station she can any how email or file a written complaint and post it to the Head Police officer who will then direct the SHO of the area to look into the matter and also register a FIR against the crime. Also, the Police will then go personally to the residence of the victim and take the statement.

5. Cops Can’t Say NO

A victim can report a FIR in any police station under the Zero FIR ruling. As per the Supreme Court, if a police station refuses to lodge the FIR, a woman in that case can register the same in any police station and then the Senior Officer will direct the SHO of the concerned area to take actions.

6. No Arrest after Sunset

A woman cannot be arrested after sunset and before sunrise. All the dealings should be done in the day time in presence of a woman constable. Many complaints about women being mis-treated at police station has been called, so now women should be aware and act, as per Supreme Court ruling. If under special and urgent cases a woman has to be arrested after sunset, the Police needs to get a special in written warrant by the magistrate.

7. Cannot be called to the Police Station

Any woman who has faced harassment cannot be called to the Police Station. Her statement should be recorded at her residence in presence of a woman constable and her family. Under Section 160 of CPC, a woman cannot be called for interrogation in Police Station. A woman should not be physically present in the police station.

8. The Doctor can’t decide

A case of rape cannot be declined on the base of denial by a doctor. A full report has to be given in case of a crime of rape happens. A rape victim should be examined medically as per the Section 164 A of Criminal Procedure Code(CrPC), and only the report acts as a proof.

9. Protect your Identity

Under no circumstances the name of the victim can be revealed. Neither the Police nor the media can publish or leak out the name. The identity remains intact and if the identity is disclosed it is punishable as per the Section 228-A of the Indian Penal Code.

10. Employers must protect

It is a necessity for every Employer to create a Sexual Harassment Complaint Cell within the organisation for the redressal of such complaints. It is as per the guidelines of Supreme Court issued. It should be headed by a woman and should be 50% as women. Also, a woman of women welfare group should be present.

So at any moment, if you fee that you are harmed or harassed or you face any difficulty in your path, never forget to launch on your rights and get what you should. JUSTICE.

Life in the Cyberworld

Today access to internet is considered a fundamental right and social network is a way of life. Anything that you share undoubtedly, enhances the fun. It is not uncommon to see someone reading Asterix comics in a library with a dead pan expression. I remember the Asterix fan club we had at … Continue reading “Life in the Cyberworld”

Today access to internet is considered a fundamental right and social network is a way of life.

Anything that you share undoubtedly, enhances the fun.

It is not uncommon to see someone reading Asterix comics in a library with a dead pan expression. I remember the Asterix fan club we had at the academy, where anything funny or even not so funny was enjoyed with uninhibited and raucous laughter. hey, look at that Roman … kya naam chhant ke rakha hai ya .. comments and likes keep flowing on every page, every frame, in the book.

Earlier families were large and when a new issue of a magazine arrived , we were at least two of us reading at one time (rapid reading was a necessity) and another waiting in the line. When TV entered the living room, it was a scheduled community activity, what with a solitary channel and the few extremely popular programs. Sharing, liking and commenting were so spontaneous and in real time, that it was hardly perceived.

Today, we watch TV programs , play games , read poetry, or listen to music, mostly alone and on the computer screen. To share anything with like minded people, we instinctively look for the like or share button. The advantage is that ‘Atlas has shrunk’ and we can reach across to any netizen, and the disadvantage is that we have forgotten the warmth of real sharing. The present generation won’t even know the feeling.

Life in the cyber world is not just sharing ideas and feelings. There is vanity, sycophancy , office politics and even mischievous and dangerous exercises as it happened recently in Pune and Mumbai, resulting in attack on people from the North East.

Whatever be, we have reached the stage of living in a cyber community, switching on and off, as it suits us. Let a thousand sites grow and a million blogs blossom.

An Ongoing Affair with Tux

What is common among Tux, Penguins, Lizards, Fawns, Gibbons, Herons and Lynx ? They all represent some version /distro of Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular. The affair started sometime in circa 2000, when I first read about linux , probably in PCQuest. It was all very romantic for a computer buff; a student finds a commercial … Continue reading “An Ongoing Affair with Tux”

What is common among Tux, Penguins, Lizards, Fawns, Gibbons, Herons and Lynx ? They all represent some version /distro of Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular.

The affair started sometime in circa 2000, when I first read about linux , probably in PCQuest. It was all very romantic for a computer buff; a student finds a commercial software too costly for him and he decides to write his own. He shoots of a mail into cyberspace asking for assistance and is overwhelmed by the number of netizens taken in by the idea. The day when another mail was sent around the world announcing the birth of a workable kernel is observed as Linux’s B’day. Geeks of the world unite, and you have nothing to lose but the chain imposed by propriety software. Till today, software developers, graphics designers and technical writers from all over the world are finding some self- fulfilment in working for the Open Source Software . Software should be free as in ‘Mukt’ if not free as in ‘Muft’.

I was then posted at Mhow. The idea so caught my fancy that, I had to try it out, at the earliest. As a first step, I visted the kajuri bazaar, the popular market for new and second hand books at Indore. It was not easy to find a book on Linux. After an hour or so of rummaging through some old stock, I found a book on installing and configuring Linux. The book came with two free CDs of Slackware Linux !

The book started with a Disclaimer in bold letters. The developers of the software promised full refund of any amount paid for purchase of the product but would not be responsible for any harm done to your hardware by following their instructions! Mind you those were the times a computer costed my four month’s pay, and a hard disk costed at least a month’s pay.So, the first two days were spent in reading through 200 odd pages of technical writing. Then more time was spent in understanding the hardware, since if you don’t know what was the model and make of the components in your system, you can’t expect a dumb CD to figure it out.

The most scary thing was partitioning the hard disk. But armed with a Jonathan Saches book on Dos 2.0, (Idiot series and Dummy series books wouldn’t touch such issues with a barge pole) I soon became an expert on manual partitioning of a hard disk. I could say, “just do a fdisk, specify the starting cylinder and sector and ending cylinder and sector , make it bootable and save it !”

Since then every comp at my home or ofice has had atleast one dedicated partition for linux and most often a PC had three partitions for the tux, for different flavours of Linux, you see.

It was a great day when I had written the root image on one floppy and the kernel image on another floppy and loaded a linux OS on my Pentium machine. Linux booting is always pretty, a series of informative, sometime funny messages scrolling up the screen before a nice little hash prompt is displayed for your next command. The better part was selecting and and installing apps using a primitive package tool.

JOE (Joe’s Own Editor) was my favourite word processor. For someone who has seen vi editor Joe was 22nd century

app. Then there was the text based spread sheet called SC (Spreadsheet calculator), its GUI version was xspread and xv was a great image viewer. All these were ‘Wow’ apps for me. In the linux world , either the app was named after its developer like Joe or it splashed the developers name like John Brodly’s xv.

Linux has X – Windows System to cater for GUI apps. It was fairly easy to set up. All you had to do was a short research on monitors and display cards and it was done! , But what a range of Window managers

2-3 days later, the internet was through. Oh, you just had to study how Point to Point Protocol (PPP) worked and had to write out a few configuration files using., ya you guessed it right, Joe (joe’s own editor). It was followed by email client called elm and a great improvement on elm ie Pine (Pine Is Not Elm)

It was pure bliss when I had configured the network interfaces and the aliases. Typing ‘d’ (for dial) would connect me to the net in precisely 22 seconds (a dial up handshake sounded so sweet ) and typing ‘dak’ would fire up the fetchmail program to display the incoming mails. (My firends using ms windows and yahoomail spent half an hour on retrieving mails, on a dial up connection.)

The next six months passed in trying out various flavours of linux. Bought a book on caldera Linux as well, It had a GUI installation and actually you could play tetris while installation was going on in the background. A great find was linux on floppy or Mu-Linux. We used it in our lab to teach unix commands. The developer of Mu-Linux, M Andreoli calls it a cardware; you are expected to send a post-card to him after installation. The entire functional OS fits in a floppy.

Then from Mhow we moved to the Kumaon hills; There was a two year period of lull or should I say “Null”, leave alone internet , even a telephone connection was erratic at Pithoragarh.

Then in 2003 we moved to Coimbatore and my affair with tux resumed. This time it was Red Hat -6 followed by 7.1. By then X- windows system had come of age and even the text consoles in Linux started looking colourful. (True Linux lovers cannot live without a text console and the # prompt which lets you do anything from command line). For the first time , Linux ie Red Hat posed a serious competition to MS windows. It was around this time Red Hat itself started behaving windowish, whatwith enterprise edition and all. The hat later became a ‘Fedora‘ . By “windowish” I mean, getting too snotty, taking decisions on user’s behalf on how you should use your comp, laying down too many Do’s and Don’ts, just as Microsoft Windows does.

It looked as if the growth of Linux had plateaued out and competition with windows on Microsoft’s own terms meant losing the personality of free thinking geeks.

A good Open Source Software lets the user, explore, discover, learn and enjoy the process of living with a system, being with a system. The system is user friendly for one to explore freely, customize the environment, and enjoy the whole process of learning even while working. It also lets free sharing of code among developers to modify, customize and improve. In short, it was collaboration rather than competition, just caring and sharing and helping.

Quoting the Free Software Foundation’s, ‘What is Free Software,’ the freedoms at the core of free software are defined as:

- The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs.

- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
- The freedom to improve the program and release your improvements to the public, so that everyone benefits.
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

Then came Ubuntu in 2004 and it was indeed a game changer, in every way. Ubuntu is different from the commercial Linux offerings that preceded it because it doesn’t divide its efforts between a high-quality commercial version and a free, ‘community’ version. The commercial and community teams collaborate to produce a single, high-quality release, which receives ongoing maintenance for a defined period. Both the release and ongoing updates are freely available to all users.

It was also the time I moved to Murshidabad (North Bengal) leaving my family behind at Coimbatore. My son , Sid ,was still a MS Windows user, as direct X and action games were available only in the MS World.

Linux was still not good enough for serious work as support for hardware, formatting and printing was not good enough for desktop users . It was only an exercise cycle and not a machine to take you places, but then an exercise cycle is what built your muscles.

I came across a nice article in PCQuest on MIgration from MS windows to linux. The article was aptly called seven steps to Software Samadhi. It is still a viable howto , with some changes here and there, for attaining Software Nirwana.

Sometime in 2006, I got hold of some Ubuntu CDs from Canonical , first ubuntu 5.10 and then 6.06 (those days you could ask for 5 or 10 copies of the software and it was shipped free of cost. One big difference between Ubuntu and other distros is that It is single CD installation and once you connect to the internet you have a whole universe of software appliactions, in well organized repositories. In fact the repositories are called ‘universe’ and ‘multiverse’

You just have to type “apt-get intall ‘this’ or apt-get install ‘that’ and there you are. Within a month of installing ubuntu I realized my own software nirvana. I could say bye-bye to Microsoft and the blue screen of death.

What is nirvana if you can’t share your joy with everybody ? I started distributing the CDs I had got from canonical and also burnt additional copies for friends. I sent a CD of PCLOS by snail mail to Sid. Within an hour of receiving it his PC was up and running on Linux complete with all bells and whistles. he was thrilled, “Appa , Amarok rocks !, the best music player I have seen !” he was hooked and there was no going back. It was only the question of which distro to use. He is partial to KDE (K desktop Environment) , he says, because it has oodles of apps, which is true .

But I suspect it was more so as he shares his birthday with Matthias Ettrich, the founder of KDE. Today, he is a Linux Guru in the Indian Navy.

The kind of customization linux permits is phenominal and we used to exchange screenshots of our PCs through email.

Now I am content with Ubuntu, upgrading just once in two years to the LTS (Long term Support) version, while Sid keeps experimenting with different flavours.

Of Course, still there are some important apps, for which there are no linux version available. Till lately, We had dinosaur like organizations like BSNL which insisted that only IE be used for checking broadband data usage. Then you have apps like Nokia PC suite which does not have a linux version. And there is just one great application MS Access which does not have an equivelent LInux counterpart as yet.

For all these, we still have one small partition for MS Windows , the ‘ just in case ‘ option. Wine (Window Emulator) takes care of many apps developed for windows platform, it has some limitations Recently I tried Virtual Box. This is one great option for running any number or any type of virtual machine all under a host OS , in my case Ubuntu Linux. I sign off with one screen shot of nokia running in a VM, under ubunt 10.04. Lucid Lynx.

It all sounds like a lot of tech-talk, but to me it is all , to use one of the untranslatable urdu words just ‘jazbaat‘ (may be loosely translated as ‘feeling towards anything or any person).

I convey my heartfelt thanks to Linus Torwalds, the founder of Linux, Richard Stallman, The founder of Free Software Foundation, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Project, and millions of programmers, designers, technical writers and Translators from all over the world, for whom Open Source Software is a religion, in the true spirit of Ubuntu.

Why do people put up with Microsoft Windows ? and internet explorer ?

Every time I see a user struggle with Windows and IE, I am deeply hurt to see so much avoidable pain in the computer world. Most of the time it is for some troubleshooting that I am forced to see the ‘blue screen” (Microsoft windows). Windows badly needs an antivirus software and between the antivirus … Continue reading “Why do people put up with Microsoft Windows ? and internet explorer ?”

Every time I see a user struggle with Windows and IE, I am deeply hurt to see so much avoidable pain in the computer world. Most of the time it is for some troubleshooting that I am forced to see the ‘blue screen” (Microsoft windows). Windows badly needs an antivirus software and between the antivirus and the virus( Microsoft windows) the users are taken for a ride. There are series of messages telling the users why they cannot do something or why they cannot access a site or open a particular file.

What really irks me is that the users actually seem to be thankful that the ‘ virus’ and antivirus are working overtime to save the user; then they wax eloquent on the virtues of antivirus software and a propriety operating system. They don’t believe me when I say that I have been using an Open source software for operating system and I have never had to use an antivirus for the past six years and that I have never had to reformat the disk or need any ‘janitor software’ to take care of registry and junk files.

Microsoft is a past master in making virtue out of a weakness. A case in point is its inefficient way of storing files, which causes fragmentation of files. So you have a defragmentation utility doing a weekly or monthly maintenance. It displays a nice colourful screen showing microsoft working hard to organize your disk; but then who messed it up in the first place? Linux doesn’t clutter up the disk so you do not need a defragmentation utility and it is as simple as that.

Open source movement is not just a movement, but a philosophy

Written in 2001 for a newsletter Infantry School, Mhow. since then Linux has taken huge strides The winds of open source movement are sweeping across the globe. Even as I am writing, the India-chapter of the Free Software Movement (FSF) is being inaugurated at Thiruvananthapuram, by Mr Richard Stallman. Mr Richard Stallman is the father … Continue reading “Open source movement is not just a movement, but a philosophy”

Written in 2001 for a newsletter Infantry School, Mhow. since then Linux has taken huge strides

The winds of open source movement are sweeping across the globe. Even as I am writing, the India-chapter of the Free Software Movement (FSF) is being inaugurated at Thiruvananthapuram, by Mr Richard Stallman. Mr Richard Stallman is the father of FSF and his grand aim is to develop an Operating system and a complete set of utilities under an open licence, so that one would not have to pay for software again.

What is open source software? It was born to counter the propriety software. Propriety software is developed by a monolith company like Microsoft, hiring the best available brains, to produce a high class, high cost software. Mind you the best brains come with a huge price tags. The source code is kept a heavily guarded secret and so are the bugs. Should the user face any problem, he just has to wait for the developer to come out with the next version with less bugs and more features. However, Microsoft is a past master in convincing the users that the bugs were actually features.

As against this, under open source concept, a programmer allows free access to his source code so that anyone is free to edit or add to improve the software. The only condition is that he too must keep his amendments open to everyone else. Of course, he retains the copyright to his contribution in the project. Who maintains the program to ensure it functions correctly? The creator of the software does it, not for money, but for maintaining his reputation among peers. For eg. JOE (Stands for Joe’s Own editor) is a text processor which works on Linux(pronounced as Lee-nucks). Joseph H Allen requires no further motivation to maintain this software than the fact that the program is named after him.

With the advent of Internet, the concept need not be limited to development of software alone but can even be used for developing a soft drink. Will Coca Cola or Pepsi ever open their formulae to the world for analysis and improvement?! Open Source Movement aims at tapping the hidden talent from all over the world. It fosters a spirit of working for self-pride rather than for material benefits. It is not just a movement; it is a philosophy, a religion, a way of life.

The message of this religion is clear; “Whatever you have to give to the world (Everybody has plenty to give), give it freely and ungrudgingly. Do not work only for money or position. As for accepting contributions from others, do so graciously and pay back with recognition, not just money or position.”