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 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!

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!)

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 ;)

One more to the Sunset series collection.

Well I just took this when I was feeling bored while studying. But the title claims its a Sunset Series photo...but there is no SUN in the sun setting photo! HA HA Thats the specialty!

Automount Hard disk on Ubuntu 9.04

I found that Ubuntu 9.04 wasn't auto-mounting hard disk drives on boot.In earlier versions I had to edit /etc/fstab to mount itself on boot.This was quiet tricky as messing with fstab wasn't a good idea.But in this release its lot easier.
In a terminal enter

$sudo apt-get install pysdm

[or it can done through synaptic also]

then in the terminal enter
$pysdm

then the gui pops up and select all the drives you wish to mount on boot and you are all set!

Amarok 2 unable to play audio files on Ubuntu 9.04-Solved

Soon after upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04(Review coming soon!) I found that Amarok 2 was unable to play any kind of audio files.

When I opened amarok from a terminal I was getting this error

[snip]
link XMLID_7_ hasn't been detected!
Couldn't resolve property: radialGradient3986
[/snip]

Some threads suggest to install phonon-xine-backend, but Kubuntu is already shipped with phonon backend.

After posting my problem in launchpad I found this solution
just type this in a command line

[code]
sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg
[/code]

then Amarok will be back in full swing!

However I'm not all that satisfied with Amarok 2 as I was with earlier versions.
Any way I hope this helps somebody.

EW-FSUG's successfull BOOT!

Reception of Guest

Introduction by HOD


Keen audience(in full hall)

Some command line demonstrations

Today we successfully inaugurated the EWIT-Free Software Users Group in our campus. The efforts behind it span from as long as 2 years as I know.Long back our seniors did have an un-official LUG, which never met even once!But we some how managed to BOOT the FSUG after 4 semesters of repeated attempts. The weired part about this group is that it was initiated by a set of Electronics students like me.

Our group was inaugurated by Dr.Renuka Prasad and addressed us about the Free Software philosophy and showed us some interesting alternatives to proprietary software.Later Madhusudhan and Santosh(from BMSCE) inspired and motivated us by sharing their experience they had in GSoc and FOSS with us. But the time crunch made the talk shallow.

Totally it turned out to be a good start for our group.In the near future our group plans to promote Free Software in our campus including our hostel.

USB Ubuntu 8.10 install:tutorial

Every time Canonical Inc comes up with a new release candidate of Ubuntu, it keeps getting better. Even with Interpid Ibex 8.10 its no different. This tutorial shows 'How to' install Ubuntu 8.10 on to a flash media and carry it in your pocket. Earlier I had done a 'How to' install Ubuntu 7.10 on a USB which was completely through command line . Now that Ubuntu 8.10 has new feature of doing it through the GUI, I thought it was worth doing a post. The best part about making USB boot disk is that you dont really need to install it to do all this. A simple Live Cd will do the trick. So here it is:

Step1:System->Administration->Create a USB boot disk




Step2:Insert Ubuntu X.XX CD(haven't checked for other distros)





Step3:Insert Flash drive and set space required for persistent feature




Step4:Watch it happening

Step5: After completed reboot from USB or insert USB elsewhere and boot from USB.

I wish you Happy Hacking!

Aero India 2009

Aero India, Asia's premier air show and very much awaited event in Bengaluru concluded on 15th February 2009. I've been going to this event since 2001 and this was my fifth time.
Though the spirit levels and enthusiasm in me was a bit debilitated,this time I did manage to go there , that too on time!
Now that the new airport is ready, the road to the IAF station in Yelahanka (where the event takes place) is excellent.

Aero India 2005
(the Surya Kiran team doing the Heart maneuver)

After seeing the show I noticed that this time the Air show did lack some caliber. Unlike earlier versions the number of Jets flying were less and the sorties they did were also less.
The reasons , I inferred was that mainly the interest of Indian Government towards Defense purchases. In 2007 the Govt expressed their desire to purchase few crafts so almost every Aerospace giant thronged to cash in the situation. But when nothing really happened every body seem to have lost interest. This reflected on the Airshow this year. This time the only majors luring the IAF were the Lockheed Martin with their F-16 and F-18 and the Euro fighter Typhoon. These three Jets were the only interested people in selling the crafts, so were very invigorated with their flights.

Aero India 2007(MiG 35)

The rest like Mikoyan-Gurevich(MiG) and Sukhoi weren't all that impressive unlike the earlier versions.
The absence of SAAB's Gripen, BAE's Hawk/Sea harrier made the show a lacsture performance.
The Surya Kiran team- the show stealers every time didn't manage to do it this time because of the ailing team who were mourning the loss of one of the team member who died in an accident while training in Bidar,Karnataka.

Aero India 2009(Su-30 MKI)

But the trade exhibition didn't let my hopes down as it was very good, with the German airforce-Luftwaffe participating in huge number for the very first time in Aero India impressed me.

Although all these factors did hinder the show's attraction it did impress freaks like me.
I have put up some photos here and some videos here. Please have a look and put in some comments.
Hope to you again in 2011,
Bye bye Aero India!

Audio Switch- A Failure story

Ver 0.1

Ver 0.1.1

As I'm a music freak, I have different music on different machines of mine(a desktop and a laptop), but I have only one 2.1 channel sound system which has to be shared by both machines, for which I need to switch between both by plugging and unplugging to a machine each time. This turned out be a huge problem as I have to reach out to the wires plug in/out. So I thought of making a manual Audio switch which would help me with this problem.
First I came up with the Version 0.1 of the switch.
Its summarized below:

Advantages:

1. Easy to handle.

Disadvantages:

1. It was very unstable because it wasn't mounted on a PCB.
2. The sound output was not stereo mixed because of a design error.
3. Was very noisy.

Then I came up with the second version named 0.1.1(since no change in design), which is summarized below:


Advantages:

1. Was easier to handle than the old one.
2. Noise was reduced to a great extent.
3. Was stable as it was mounted on a PCB.
4. Stereo quality sound output.

Disadvantages:

1. Was prone to loose contacts and internal resistances of the extension chords.
2. Instead of providing two separate channels, the switch was multiplexing both inputs, which turned out to be a Disaster!

In the end both versions didn't satisfy my needs and the Audio switch turned to be a big FAILURE!

If if you have any suggestions to improve this please do leave a comment.

Solar Eclipse 2009

This year's very first eclipse, the solar eclipse was visible in Bengaluru. This time the eclipse wasn't as intense as last time(check this out) which happened in 2007 but it was fun watching the celestial event from my home. I wish I could see a total lunar eclipse from my home at least once in my life time.

Interfaced LCD on an ATMega8!

After slogging out for more than three years I finally managed to boot the LCD panel on an ATMega8!

This winter I was determined to boot the LCD somehow. When I was crawling on the WWW I found this guy's code/tutorial from
extereme electronics which turned out to be very useful. He has explained each step in the interfacing process.
Now since that I haven't done anything great I wont give much details on the interfacing, rather I would like to give the link to the tutorial. The tutorial is here.


In the end I would like to tell that seeing the LCD boot was a big boost to my morale.

Happy New year 2009!

I wish you all a very Happy New year 2009!(I know its late, but my apologies for that)Like last year even this year I have designed a Calendar themed on 'Panoramic view'.Please download it and have a look at it and send in feedback.
The link to the calendar in a PDF Full resolution pics
Here's a sample to the WORK I've done

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

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.