ubuntu in my laptop (acer aspire 5500z)

Yes, I've an antique Acer Aspire 5500z laptop whose BIOS password I don't know. :)
Really disgusting specs but I love it even after broken right arrow key(I broke it). I was facing glitches with my work as earlier my laptop was infected with viruses. I tried installing windows 8 but it didn't work out. I was left with no access to my personal files and programs and most important media content on my laptop @ home.

I had to took a decision. It's been years since I've known ubuntu, from the time it used to get shipped for free. I guess the version was 6 or something. I had shipped and wasted nearly close to 100 CDs and use the logos as I like logo rather than linux at that time. I had all flavors CD, ubuntu, kubuntu, edubuntu everything till they stopped shipping CDs. ;)

I had installed it a few times earlier but there's tons of things you are familiar with windows and all your software and small utilities that you love on windows. I don't hate windows specifically because I never paid anything for it (except for blank CDs). With every version they launched, there was some guy cracking the whole licensing stuff and helping poor guys with installation. Ahh, I'm going off the topic.

I burned ubuntu 11.04 (waiting for 11.10) ISO on a blank CD and started installing. Since, the drive is totally worn out and I can even see some marks on lens of reader, it didn't get played smoothly. I was stuck at installation. Then I remembered, wubi, the cute little utility that lets you run ubuntu alongside windows without partitioning. I installed ubuntu using wubi. And then using ubuntu startup disk manager, I created my sanDisk cruzer micro flash drive as a start-up media. Again, I didn't know that my laptop's BIOS supports USB boot until that day.

I plugged in my sanDisk cruzer and also the CD and rebooted and yippe, it accepted the install. I formatted my whole 60GB HDD as I had taken backup of almost everything. So, i'm now totally on ubuntu. I'm going to install macbuntu to give it an awesome look. I won't say I'm loving it as of now as I had to install many things to get to my normal work routine. And there are certain things which I've noticed in 1 day.

1. torrents runs faster, you get faster download speeds (i'm using default torrent application with ubuntu)
2. even in high loads, i don't see/feel cpu fan running or howling. either it's not controlling it or it's keeping it cool
3. media files play fine and smooth as i've installed the restricted ubuntu pack
4. chromium  browser, seriously amazing speed. Flash also works fine after i installed plugin.

The rest, i'll keep checking/testing and i'll keep updating. So far, smooth ride with ubuntu. Let's hope things stay this way and i keep exploring new things.

windows 8 install: 2, 4, 8, 16!!

A few days ago Microsoft launched developer preview of their latest operating system named as Windows 8!

After so successful and fast selling Windows 7, Microsoft is trying to build more focus on overall user experience with their operating systems. Geeky me, I did download Windows 8 32-bit (my old acer aspire 5500z is 32-bit). And since, my great friend had infected my system with 3 notorious viruses namely W32.Changeup, W32.Stuxnet!lnk, I thought of installing it.

My laptop doesn't read CD/DVD(s) smoothly, so I copied the extracted ISO into my D drive. Since, it's all infected and these stupid viruses don't allow me to run my laptop in normal mode, I copied everything in very slow "safe mode" of windows xp. It took, nearly 1.5 hours to copy 2.75 GB of data from a transcend (stupid) pendrive to my (almost 7 year old) hitachi 60GB hdd.

Anyway, after copying I launched setup.exe and it was checking system for its requirements and it failed!


I was so shocked to see that because my laptop is 1.7Ghz, 2GB RAM which fits the basic minimum but since my hdd is partitioned as 15GB and 40GB, it failed.
Windows 8 basically required 16GB for installation! I don't know what all is going to be there.

So, now I'm left with a unstable windows xp laptop on which I would have to repartition hdd so that it fits Windows 8 requirements.

Keep looking up this space for more. I'll update my experiences with it.
btw, I would probably format my hdd for ubuntu 11.04 install later :P

w1k1f13d

Well, I've submitted an idea in Wikipedia Conference India which is going to be in Mumbai in mid of November 2011. Let's see if I get a call to present my idea there.

Fingers crossed.

My project idea w1k1f13d or wikified

haunted house: the place where I live in

It's been just almost an year in Pune but I've lived at 4 different places which most of the people find quite disturbing (some official was furious after me for this but that's another story). I feel like I can't be tied down to a single thing, it's not in my nature. So, about a month back, me n my friends (who all were staying at different places) decided to get together and move into a new place. Some had other intentions in my mind which I came to know, but you gotta do it when you have said yes to it.

I was chilling away from office but not work. I was working from my home for a week when my lovely friends moved and thanks to them, they moved my luggage too (of course, I did the packing). Well, it was a great day for US (not us), 4th of July this year! 

The house is an independent house, luckily we have no neighbours. The house has empty plots with lots of green wild grass growing on three sides and another empty road in the backside. 

We had no idea, who was living here earlier or why the neighbouring plots are empty. We were just careless enough to not ask. One fine morning, my friend found out that his socks were cut precisely with a sharp thing (probably knife). We argued it being done by some animal or rat. But, the way socks were cut, showed human skills. The socks were chopped off, precisely in the toe section.

And a closeup of socks would show you, rats or any other animal wasn't responsible for this. This would have been done by someone, but for what. We had our heads spinning for the reasons. We searched the whole compound for the torn off piece or even thread, but we weren't able to find any. 

One worried mind sparked the reason as 'black magic'. Inexperienced in black magic and not having any earlier encounter with such things confused us more. One of my friend got so worried that he thought of keeping his shoes and everything inside house. From inside, this house looks peaceful but outside, it has the attributes of being a haunted one. See this cradle for example. 

I don't know if it swings automatically in night, but it's kind of freaky thing outside. Also, on the side of the house, there's this narrow path which is scary as hell in night. 

So far, we've lost two and a half pair of socks to such precise cut at toes section. We weren't able to find an remains of the cut portion. There are other things too, which earlier we didn't think of, but might be related to the house being haunted. 

1. An old lady once had chat with me and enquired about who's living here and what's the rent and said "she was interested in renting the house but owner had already given us the house". I even asked her politely to come for tea someday, maybe she's coming for tea and taking something else.

2. The landlord, pointed out to my friend that there are some could be used as a weapon in the attic. We've taken them out and kept handy in case of need. But, why would someone keep those things. And why tell us about them if those weren't required.

Maybe the ghost or 'whatever it is' is educated and knows marathi. With this thought, my friend has kept a poster just above the shoe rack, so that if whatever it is comes, reads and will leave us with our socks intact.

If any of you readers have experienced black magic or have idea/suggestion about how to deal with this, please comment. I'll keep updating as things happen with us. Stay safe.

Whatsapp!

Hey, I just downloaded WhatsApp Messenger on my Android. It is a Smartphone Messenger which replaces SMS. This app even lets me send pictures, video and other multi-media! WhatsApp Messenger is available for Android, iPhone, Nokia and BlackBerry and there is no PIN or username to remember - it works just like SMS and uses your internet data plan. Get it now from http://www.whatsapp.com/download/ and say good-bye to SMS.

भोर

रात की बेड़ियों में भोर का संग्राम था, 
ठंडी हवा में तूफ़ान का अनुमान था, 
सुरीली तान में लहरें कहीं से आ रहीं थीं, 
विनय में उन पलों के सम्पूर्णता का मान था...

Developers (feat. Steve Ballmer)

Just yesterday, I was feeling like I've lost my charm in coding ;). 

I guess I've moved on to design application architectures instead of actually coding them. But, that's important too. I'm gonna work hard and recall all my charm in that line too. I don't know whether I should be happy about it or not. 

Funny stuff is I found a song today by"Cory Smith". I like the rap music in this song and pretty 'developer attitude' lyrics.

Check it out, here's the link.

qr codes

I don't know how long these qr codes have been in existence. I remember seeing some on made in china electronics packaging. Until recently, they weren't so popular with normal users like me but google just did another good stuff using these in android. Since then, every one seems to like these. Newspaper's ads have these on side sharing website of their product. Blackberry uses these to show power of their smartphone.

I seem to like these. But you wud need a smartphone so the intended audience can't be dumb. Also saves effort of typing big urls.

There are potentially hundreds of ways it cud revolutionise. I like the concept of bringing industrial smart technologies for general users. It's like defence tech being used for public benefit.

if you own a smartphone, scan this. It's for you!

employed or enslaved?

I know the title is little disturbing and might be considered against company policies in many companies however, it's not targeted to any company.

I've been into two companies now and I've a long list of friends who just like me work in different companies. Some are big companies like @#$%^& and some are start-ups like $%&^&(* ( I don't want to name any company here). We all have our jobs which help in paying the bills and probably getting settled and living a non-risky normal life. 

I love working. I seriously do. But, not in a way some companies way. I seriously do not work for 8 hours. And I'm sure majority of us don't. I'm not saying that we can't but again we can't on a daily basis. However, companies don't seem to get that. They enforce 8-9 hour reporting policies, stupid automated systems to send mail to your manager if you worked (actually, were in office) for less hours. Work hours is one of the many stupid ideas Indian IT industry has. Somehow, it got passed on to other industries.

There was a post recently in Al-Jazeera about workers who were kept locked in chains in Bangladesh and made to work for 16+ hours a day. The funny thing is, this you call a torture in Bangladesh or India, but if you do such thing in Indian IT company, it's called "hard work" or "delivery time" but never torture. For some, it gets paid off, but a little extra time in office daily never gets paid off. By the way, in Japan such thing is normal :P

I'm not suggesting that you should not work for 8 hours a day or be disloyal to your company. I'm suggesting that companies should make policies more relaxed so that employees have one less thing to worry about. After all, it's the employees who make companies.

p.s. dedicated to all over-committed employees :P

defying gravity n time: rubber band powered planes!

Came across this amazing video and concept. They say, they have been doing this for more than 50 years but I'm sure no one knew.

Watch video for more.





Here's the link to guy's website

a weekend to remember

Last weekend, I was trying to evade from the regular job. I had no idea, I would do that in mumbai but I did. Called up friends, booked tickets, did a little packing and I was off to mumbai.

For those who are not aware of mumbai, the first surprise/confusion you get is from the names of stations. Even, indian railway is confused about Dadar. It's DDR and sometimes it's DR. Anyway, my weekend started with getting down at Dadar and then confusing my friend over phone about the location I was.

Any stranger would get confused and lost at dadar station. I was shocked to see eunuch winking at me saying "excuse me". No offense there but it was scary.

Finally, my friend arrived and without much hugging we went to Churchgate (I guess). From there to some restaurant-cum-bar near the infamous Taj Palace. The place ( I don't remember the name), was so crowded that I never thought there would be place for us. But, in their low roofs, we got a table to dine/drink. 


After dinner we started roaming around. Went to Gateway of India but it was pretty much off limits. After the 26/11 incident, there's too much police near it. We went to Marine Drive after that and enjoyed the calmness of ocean. The cool breeze was washing away the dust which settles down over us from working. At nariman point, police warned us from going to near to the water. I guess people must have been committing suicide there.   


From there to the newly build, sea link bridge. Oh that's amazing. They should build more like that. Then to a hooka bar in Bandra. Ahh, the strawberry shake was amazing. 


Around 3 AM, we were back in my friend's place somewhere in mumbai. We fell like dead poles and slept. The next day, we planned to go to GoI and Juhu beach. 

Juhu beach is an awesome place. Though the water there is not, but the crowd, the ocean front is amazing. After spending time there and waiting for a friend who actually didn't come. :( we went to GoI.

It was so crowded. On the way, we found this store. And the following statue. 

Building looked like totally ruined but they are worth hundred millions in INR there. At GoI, there was no place to move. People were clicking photographs as to remind themselves in future that they were there. Everything felt like affected after 26/11. Even the toys were commandos crawling. ;) At first, it felt funny, but soon everything flashed in a second in front of my eyes. 

200+ died, thousands traumatized, millions worried, 1 caught still NO justice. I clicked few photographs of Taj Palace and since we didn't had much time, went to CST.

Met another friend there and college days were back. Started making fun of each other, almost two years have passed but we still understand each other's jokes and remember every minute details of any time we were together. 

After college, life has changed a lot. Some are struggling, some are enjoying but I'm sure everyone is missing the friendship, the time we were together. Laughing our way out on everything, we had to say goodbyes.

I guess no one noticed but I felt when we were saying goodbyes.


p.s. : this post is dedicated to you, who missed this great chance of meeting you know who by working on sunday and smsing "abort mission" :P