Oota-Thindi: A Thindi Potha's Photo blog

My newest venture: A photo blog! No, I'm not a DSLR owning, self proclaimed  Photographer who would post AMAZING photographs! This is just a log of a Thindi Potha's cooking (adda)ventures. If you wish to look at some FOOD please visit -->
oota-thindi.tumblr.com 

My New Website

From the past 10 years or so I have been coming up with new sites,(two of those here and here) but this time I have come up with a fairly decent personal website. Please visit my website here and suggest any changes / additions.

AaTike-A Gaming console

AaTike-A Gaming console , was designed as part of CMPE242 course in SJSU.

Tech Specs:
Processor: LPC2148
LCD: Nokia 6100 GLCD

How to convert *.rm to mp3 on Ubuntu

This is yet another HOW to on converting Real Media files in *.rm format to mp3 format.

Step 1: copy and paste this text in a file and save it as 'rm2mp3' w/o the quotes 

---------------------

#!/bin/sh
inputfile=$1
inputfilename=`basename $1 rm`
ext='mp3'
outputfilename=$inputfilename$ext

echo 'CONVERTING TO WAV FORMAT'
mplayer $inputfile -ao pcm

echo 'CONVERTING WAV FORMAT TO MP3'
lame -h -b 256 audiodump.wav $outputfilename

rm -f audiodump.wav

echo 'DONE...!'

----------------------------------------------

Step 2: Change permissions to execute the file. Do the command :

$chmod 777 rm2mp3

Step 3: Then execute the script with the command:

$./rm2mp3 filename.rm

Where filename.rm is the input file.

Step 4: The folder that had the *.rm file has the converted mp3 file.

Step 5: Enjoy listening!

Happy Hacking!

PS: This Tutorial was found here. Thanks a lot! That helped me a lot!

How to convert wma files to mp3 on Ubuntu

Do you sync your iPod/iPhone with Rhythmbox/Amarok on Ubuntu and grouse about the lack of auto conversion capability of Windows media audio(*.wma) files to mp3 in Rhythmbox?
Then here is a simple hack, but not completely automatic like in iTunes.

Step 1: Install LAME {Lame is ain't a mp3 encoder}

from the Synaptic package manager by doing so:

System->Administration->Synaptic Package manager

Type lame in the search box. Then install the package(Fig 1).

Fig 1: Install LAME

Step 2: Install Nautilus Audio converter script

After installing LAME, install 'nautilus audio converter script'.

Type 'nautilus audio' in the search box. Then install the package(Fig 2)

Fig 2: Install 'nautilus audio converter script'

Step 3: Choose file to convert to mp3

After you're done with the installing, choose the file you wish to convert, by right clicking on the desired file. Then hoover over 'scripts' which has the audio converter script installed. Choose 'Audio files converter'(Fig 3).

Fig 3: Choose files to convert

Step 4: Choose extension

As in this case its mp3(Fig 4)

Fig 4: Choose Extension

Step 5: Select quality

By Default it would be 'extreme' and its recommended.

Fig 5: Choose quality

Step 6: Enter meta-tags

If you wish to do so, work around with this, else just click OK.

Fig 6: Enter meta-tags

Step 7: Voila! your files are converted!

Make sure you have the files in /home/XXX/music folder, so that Rhythmbox populates your play-list automatically.

Hope this worked for you, leave a comment any ways!

Happy Hacking!

How to insert Single Landscape Sheets in OpenOffice.org

Although you can this info all around, I thought of blogging this Since I was doing my project report and thought it might help our VTU Studs or someone who needs it....
So here it is:

OpenOffice.org uses page styles to specify the orientation of the pages in a document. For example, to change the page orientation of one or more pages in a document from portrait to landscape in a document, you need to create a page style that uses the landscape orientation, and then apply the page style to the pages.
To Change the Page Orientation of a single sheet to Landscape or Portrait

1.Choose Format - Styles and Formatting.
2.Click the Page Styles icon.
3.Right-click, and choose New.
4.On the Organizer tab page, type a name for the page style in the Name box.
5.In the Next Style box, select the page style that you want to apply to the next page.
To only apply the new page style to a single page, select "Default".
To apply the new page style to all subsequent pages, select the name of the new page style.
6.Click the Page tab.
7.Under Paper format, select Portrait or Landscape.
8.Click OK.

To Use Landscape and Portrait Page Orientation in the Same Document
Before you begin, ensure that you have created a page style that uses landscape page orientation. See To Change the Page Orientation to Landscape or Portrait for details.
1.Click in front of the first character of the paragraph where you want to change the page orientation.
2.Choose Insert - Manual Break.
3.Select Page break.
4.In the Style box, select a page style that uses the landscape or portrait page orientation.


P.S: I found this help here , thanks a lot OO.o!

Grub error 15 on a 2 HDD box[solved]

Do you get Error 15(file not found) while loading Grub on your 2 HDD box?
Then here is the solution.

Grub Error 15 is commonly found when Grub is unable to find vmlinuz(the kernel image). In such a case just boot from a live cd and do the following

$sudo grub

this command enters grub,once that is done,enter

find /boot/grub/stage1

This will return the location of the root ex: (hd0,4)

Now you need to edit the Grub's menu.lst
if running through a Ubuntu Live cd then the command:

$sudo gedit /media/disk/boot/grub/menu.lst

menu.lst may look like this:

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=/dev/sda5 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic

if this is the case then ,just replace the (hdx,y) with device UUID.

to get the UUID:

$blkid

will give you the uuid of all the partitions on the disk.

search for the partition with ext3/4 and copy it(in my case (hd0,4) /dev/sda5 uuid=.....)

now replace the line in menu.lst where (hdx,y) appears

ex: root (hd0,4)

the entry in menu.lst should look like this after the edit

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
uuid ee9fd0b7-29c5-42a4-a606-9342fae9523a
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=ee9fd0b7-29c5-42a4-a606-9342fae9523a ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic

observe that even the line with 'kernel' has been replaced with the respective uuid.

now save it and reboot.

and voila! tell me what happens!

Manjarabad Fort Panorama

One more Panorama, this time its the Manjarabad Fort in Hassan. The specialty of this fort is that its layout design resembles a STAR. And it has a secret tunnel which leads you all the to one of Mangalore 's beach!(spooky!)

How to install Seesmic desktop/Tweet deck on Ubuntu

Ubuntu users who want either Seesmic desktop or Tweet deck on their Ubuntu box here is a small procedure:

1. Open the Terminal
2. Use wget to download http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/1.5/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
3. Set the file to be executable: chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
4. Run it: sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
5. Accept any AIR updates
6. Use wget to download Seesmic Desktop from http://d.seesmic.com/seesmic/SeesmicDesktop-0.2.1.air
7. On the Ubuntu desktop, not terminal, look under Applications->Accessories or Applications->Other for Adobe AIR Application Installer and run it
8. Select SeesmicDesktop-0.2.1.air and the normal Seesmic Desktop installer will run

Almost the same procedure for Tweet deck ,once Adobe AIR is installed.

I found this very helpful article here. Thanks!

Half bird on Half moon Bay

This may have happened because of the location it was taken!? Since I took this on Half moon Bay beach I was able to fit only Half the bird in the frame in a quick shoot. LOL!

fine print:The actual photo was cropped to make it look like this ;)