Richard Stallman Live in Bengaluru, I was there!

Richard M Stallman the father of the Free software revolution was Live in Bengaluru on 13th Dec and I am proud to say that I was there!

After much scepticism about visiting the event, and my eagerness to see RMS hooked on to his laptop ,I was able to finally go to the event, all thanks to my luck that my labs got over on 12th dec.I was also able to meet some of my Foss enthusiast friends there.

It was an inspirational, motivating talk just for anybody and everybody.Apart from speaking about the free software revolution and the GNU project, Mr RMS who is considered rude some times but logical all the times told why Linux is not just Linux and why it should be called GNU/Linux and why Linus Torovalds and his team alone didn't deserve all the credit. This part was amazing. As a Linux user myself for many years now, even I was not aware of the fact that I should be calling it GNU/Linux.

Then he spoke about how DRM is like digital handcuffs and a threat to our "Freedom",while also trying to make the talk very humorous with his stereotypes, jokes etc.

Then came the real reason why he was here, to release the his book " Free software , free society : selected essays of Richard M Stallman" which has been translated to kannada as
ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ಸಮಾಜಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ :ಆರ್ ಎಮ್ ಎಸ್ ರವರ ಆಯ್ದ ಪ್ರಬಂಧಗಳು.
I request anybody who is interested in FSF to please help translate this document to Kannada.

And then came the much awaited moment, the photo session! Although the disastrous moment was that when I discovered that I hadn't took my camera :( but then managed to fall in the eyes of the shutter bugs. Though I dont have any of the photos with me now, I would soon be updating it here. And oh, I almost forgot- Happy Hacking!

Pick and place remote controlled robot

Hello ARM COREs!

This is my first venture on ARM cores. After trying a bit, I succeded programming the CORE on an LM3s811 evaluation kit.
This wasn't that hard compared to programming the Atmega core(see this to know how I struggled/struggling to program the MCU).
The text you see is on a 96x16 OLED screen. The chip you see on the left is the LM3s811 MCU. And its fun to program the core on Keil!

PS: eval kit courtesy Devadutta

Ubuntu 8.10 reviewed

The new Desktop effect on Compiz and a KDE 4.1 Desktop sporting new look.

This weekend (1st Nov) I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10, which took a staggering 10 hours to update my box which hosts both KDE and Gnome. So I thought to review Ubuntu as a simple end user. Here it is

Firstly the things I liked:

• Amazingly fast boot/shutdown time
  
• KDE 4.1
• Good looking art work for both KDE/Gnome
  
• Slightly new Compiz effects

Then comes the things which make Ubuntu 'Rocking' always:

• Superb driver support
• Easy up-gradation/installation feature
• Quick fresh install feature
• Vast repositories
• Amazing media rendering/acceleration with Amarok

In the end some things which makes any Ubuntu user 'Irksome'/'Pissed off'!

• Kaffeine is gone for now.I dont know why KDE ditched Kaffeine and replaced it with some 'Dragon player'.
• Hell long updating time! It took around 10 hours for me to update. I've seen even Vista taking such humongous time to update but I like Ubuntu and I want to it to make me feel 'GOOD' ;)
• Initial glitches with sound I face every time I upgrade to new release.
• Dirty looking GTK apps on KDE.
• A difficult to remember keyboard layout for Kannada( in general Unicode).

This is Sparta!

Since I hadn't posted anything off late, I thought I will post this.

I found this incomplete on a web site, so modified it a bit to get the real feel!

We'll Dine in Hell tonight!?

Back on Field work!

After a long break I'm back on Field taking photographs.So here's one.

Water level indicator

This summer, the much needed water level indicator for our home was succesfully designed,tested and implemented.

• It is designed to indicate 3 levels in the overhead water tank.

• It beeps using a buzzer when the tank is either full or empty.

All thanks to www.circuitstoday.com and my "All time" project guide Devadutta.

How to:Retrieve unsaved Youtube videos

The last time if you had just quit your browser without saving the videos you just watched using Unplug,youtube-dl,clive etc on Mozilla firefox, this post tells you how to retrieve it.

Step1:Point your browser's URL to "about:cache"(w/o quotes).Here you see two entries Memory cache device,Disk cache device. Click on List Cache Entries
under Disk cache devices.

Step2: Here you find many entries. Do a search for "Youtube"(by using ctrl+f).

if you find something like this:

           Key: http://lax-v172.lax.youtube.com/get_video?

then click on it.("get video" indicates a video stored on the disk cache)

Step3: The entry shows where the file is stored. Go to the address(in windows) or do a

$ cp source destination

on Linux systems.

Step4: Rename the file as "filename.flv". and watch it with your favorite player.

This should even work for Mozilla Firefox 3b which doesn't support many add-ons at least for now.

And also this technique works for all most all "User submitted" video sites like www.tvliveshows.com  etc.


I learned this trick from here
Thank you Sreepathi Pai

And also Happy hacking!

Sound lost on uprgrading ubuntu 8.04-solved

After I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04, I lost sound on my comp.
When I checked with kernel options like

$lspci
$lshw -c sound

every thing seemed to be fine, but still I wasn't able to hear any sound.
Then just tried this command

$alsamixer

and increased all the values to maximum. Then

Bingo! here comes the music

Ps: caution with those values as making those high gives an ugly squeak in your speakers.

All thanks to ubuntu forums for the support.

Naming Cermony of my room as ಜ್ಞಾನ Villa.

Today I'm happy to share with you that my room was named ಜ್ಞಾನ Villa which means "Villa of knowledge". This was inspired by our noted,famous Kannada play writer TP Kailasam.
But any way this has another funny meaning when read in Kannada. Can you tell me what it is?

Rover Bot

Well here's my First Robot. Its a Rover bot. Couldn't do serious/ real time testing cuz of technical constraints.

Specs:
Driven by a Single motor-1.5V DC
Two gears driving the crank
and one worn gear driving all those gears.

Must admit that has appreciable torque which makes it real fast.

Micro controllers here I come!

Finally after trying it out for more than 6 months and seriously trying it out for 15+ days I was finally able to program My ATMega8 micro controller. All thanks to Avrdude and My brother for the ISP mkII.

So micro controllers here I come to join your elite club!

How To hack Philips DVP 3166

Recently I got a Philips DVP 3166. When I tried playing a my favorite movie "Me, Myself and Irene" 's original disc on it , the player denied showing me "wrong region" error. I thought It was something to do with the NTSC/PAL system( how dumb ain't it?) then when it didn't work I promptly did a search which gave me this hack.
just follow these steps for a successful hack.

1) Open the Setup menu then go to the Preference page.
if the player is skipping it then press stop twice and try again.
2) Press 1 3 8 9 3 1 on the keypad of the Remote Control.
3) Options will be available to be selected.
4) Press UP / DOWN key to select the desire Region Code.
5) Press OK.
Note:Region 0 = "playable in all regions" - aka "region free" (Also known informally as "All regions")


then I inserted the disc once again...... Bingo! the Disc started playing.....

All thanks to this web site called videohelp.com.

Happy hacking and happy DVD viewing

Vade Eaters anonymous!

Since I am a Vade addict I thought of opening a community for people like me.
So if YOU are also a Vade eater/addict then do join this community here.

Panoramas Updated

More Panoramas of full size here

Roses are'nt red in our garden!

For more full size photos check the link

Bloom time

Full size

My contribution to Opensource community.

The image shows that I've figured in the top 20 contributors for Kannada in Launchpad. Now this is my first contribution to the Open source community.

ಮಲ್ಲಿಗೆ

2008 calendar

A preview of the Calendar

Here's a table(20X20 sqcm) calendar designed by me. It's theme is 'Flowers'. Please download the Calendar HERE.
If interested mail me back so that I'll send you the full resolution images to your mail id.
Do give me back your feedback.

Upon a Hill station

A foggy morning in Bharathnagara...
Guess which hill station this is?
This is where I live. Yes this is Bharathnagara 2nd stage hill :P.

Pimp my ride- post 2

As posted earlier, I'd requested MTV to Pimp My Ride. But couldn't wait for them to come all the way from California so we got our car Pimped up in our local style and got it fixed in our locality.
Magadi motors Thank u for Pimping my riiiiide .......
(except that we paid him 2K for fixing...... :x)