Many of my friends have started asking me in recent days… “ Why do I need a new social network when I already have one? “
If you are one of them, thinking the same way, watch this…
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Fedora 15 – The Good, Bad and Ugly
At the outset, I'll have to tell all the readers out there, that this article is a not-so-techie stuff ! I might drop in a few details here and there but I'm making sure not to get too technical (Coz, I myself don't know much ! Lol. 
)
Fedora 15 has come in for a lot of praises world over for its improvement in desktop interface changes. It has incorporated into it the newly introduced Gnome3 Desktop that has lot many features to offer. It also has many a faults (that can however be overcome). On the whole, I felt that Fedora 15 is great and its worth migrating to.
The Good
Some of the features that impressed me was the Desktop graphics and usage interface. Gnome 3 has all the ingredients to make the people say 'Wow, blimey.' I read in an article that Gnome programmers wanted to try out new interface paradigms. This Gnome3 has been really great to work with.
Some features you'll find appealing is the, yet-to-come Apple OS X Lion like App-center. The workspaces which could be shifted in sideways in the earlier versions of the gnome as default, have been made to a top-to-bottom shifting type in this version.
The notification area that earlier used to be in the top-right corner of the gnome desktop has shifted downwards where the taskbar used to be there. This has come in for a mixed response. Some like it and some won't. But I personally feel it as a good move. You got the app-center to compensate for the taskbar thingy. Another good news that comes in with the gnome-3 desktop is that, a lot more things can be done just with the notification area. Like in empathy, you can chat directly from the notification area. The same goes with the IRC client's chat notification.
There seems to be a minimal hardware-acceleration support given to this version of Fedora. Another good thing about the app-center is the desktop search feature. Just as you type file names in the search bar of the search applet in the app-center, you see the recently accessed file lists popping up. Also, you have an option to search Wikipedia and Google in the app-center.
Fedora Desktop's Customization has never been so very easy with the UAC settings put up just on the menubar of the gnome3 desktop. It comes with Firefox 4, empathy 3.0 and transmission etc.
All the more great is the graphics, as i said earlier. Its fun to work with.
The Bad and overcoming the Ugly
Apart from the good, there are a lot many bad things about fedora I find . Especially for a person moving from Windows to a Linux like me, using Fedora can be a lot more annoying.
No-Auto mount feature for the NTFS Drives
As in Windows, where the drives auto mount in the Windows startup, drives doesn't get mounted automatically. You gotta click them, and the Os prompts for a admin password and only then you get to enter the drive. This makes you even more angry when directly after log on you try to access you files or playlists.
One way to overcome this issue is to edit the /etc/fstab file that tells the Fedora Boot to initialize the drives just after logon.
One way to overcome is to use the gui ' ntfs-config ' utility
install it in command line using :
su -c 'yum -y install ntfs-config'
you cannot just run it from the application menu. You run it only from command line as root. If you ever encounter a problem in fedora 15 installing it, like
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/etc/hal/fdi/policy'
just create the directories hal and fdi inside etc and a blank file policy and it will work.
No Compiz !
Starting this version, Fedora has stopped its default window manager Compiz and shifted to the Mutter. That means, no more wobbly effects and bubbly graphics henceforth. But, there seems to be a way out of that, I guess though to replace mutter with compiz.
No Shutdown or Hibernate Menu !
OMG ! This is really frustrating. I was not able to shutdown and hibernate my PC directly from the menu given in the Menu. All I gotta do is to logout and then use the Shutdown option provided there. But, there is a workaround.
Try to install the
gnome-shell-extensions-alternative-status-menu
package from terminal that brings back the original back !
No Minimize
No minimize keyboard shortcut, Alt-F9 does nothing. But you can alter the keyboard shortcuts in the keyboard settings to bring it back ! Other way is to use the gconf-editor.
No Desktop Icons !
This is something glaring right straight at us, that we cannot use the Desktop user interface from now on. Especially for Windows users and Gnome 2 users. We can bring that back using the Gnome-tweak tool that can be installed from command line in terminal.
No Weather Applet !
Gnome3 also doesn't ship with itself the weather applet. It was always my favorite thing about the gnome desktop. Now, that it doesn't appear anymore is kinda irritating. One thing you can do is to install the alternative gnome desktop applet like the one I have.
Dowload this pakcage :
https://github.com/simon04/gnome-shell-extension-weather/tarball/master
Extract it in suitable place and type in the following commands in the terminal as root :
./autogen.sh –prefix=/usr
make
make install
If you encounter a problem like,
Making all in src
make[1]: Entering directory /home/dwarak/weather/src'
Makefile:426: *** missing separator. Stop.
make[1]: Leaving directory/home/dwarak/weather/src'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
install gnome-desktop-devel.i686 from the Terminal that is required to include the necessary files to compile the makefile. The reason this doesn't happen is that starting from gnome3.2 the os assumes all the tab spaces to be default spaces in the makefile. This is something like kinda patch.
Use the following command to change your Location using
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.weather woeid your_woeid
Change Temperature Units by
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.weather unit celsius
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.weather unit fahrenheit
Your Woeid is the Where On Earth ID provided by Yahoo ! Geoplanet referenced by a 32-bit identifier.
Find yours @ :
http://isithackday.com/geoplanet-explorer/index.php
If you have anything more to add, please post in your comments.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Fight Email Spam !!? – Here’s the Solution
Email spam’s on the rise. Lot many sites offer fake, and spam newsletters that clutter our inbox. Many of them want us to register and submit our email ids for confirmation and only then allow us to access the information we want. Some go a step further to send us a confirmation mail from which instructions or link should be accessed. This, as obvious as it seems, sucks !
The problem with this system of registration is that, once you register your mail and click on the confirmation link, it doesn’t end just there. People send you fake offers, newsletter that you don’t even remember having subscribed to, and many a times, some vulgar emails.
The best way to fight this is to provide a temporary email service just to register for the site you want to. You cannot just go sign up for an email service and go cancelling the account. It is of course, tedious and hectic.
We Give You The Solution !
There is this email service that you might consider. – mailcu.be or spamgoormet
This is the best way to fight such spam. The mailcu.be service can be used to have your own fake mail address. This address lasts for only 3 days. Guess what’s the best part ? You don’t have to sign up, you don’t have to give any of your details. Anyone can have any address that he wants to with a ‘@mailcu.be’ domain address. It does provide potential dangers as well. If suppose, say you register for a service and you receive a confidential email in it. If someone comes to know your mailcu.be address, he can easily access your email, because, its nothing but a URL manipulation that needs to be performed to access your temporary email.
To have your own email address -
http://www.mailcu.be/m/<your preferred username>
Let’s suppose, you want a temporary address by the name john,
then the link to access your temporary email address shall be,
There is a chrome extension to this service :
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gogmenngefoaabgnpekljldmpchodobp?hl=en-US
You may also want to consider these :
Spam Goormet : https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fcgkhbajjgppgllmednlkajnkdjbgggp?hl=en-US
Easy disposable mail : https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mkpfodpjhekjdhkchalfflggeoamfajh?hl=en-US
If you got anything to add, or some suggestions, as and always, please feel free to comment below…
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
C(G)++ Compilers in Windows NT – The GNU Way!
When it comes to coding and programming, nothing can beat the linux. It has the most sophisticated compilers out there! Despite this fact, most of the people don’t feel comfortable working with Linux. Although there are certain alternatives and 3rd party softwares for Windows platform, nothing can get near the GNU compilers. They are updated, fast and error-free. So, GNU has given a windows version of its new compiler for download.
These are the steps to be done to get your system running with GNU C++ compiler!
- Download the GNU C++ compiler tool (full.exe) here. http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/pages/faculty/alee/g++/full.exe
Check for integrity – SHA1sum - 2266a1cbd63a8a06faf0e44332b678f3f57161aa
- Run the full.exe
- It’s a normal setup just like anything else. When you’re done installing it, you need to add the path environment variable. We’ve already seen as to how to add the path variable in glomosim installation setup. If you still find it difficult, brush through the glomosim installation setup guide, ( http://ubuntuone.com/p/kXU/ ) point 1 where we have given how to add environment variables for Visual Studio. In this case for G++ compilers, you just need to do it for path variables with the path address, C:\cygnus\cygwin-b20\H-i586-cygwin32\bin with a semicolon – ‘;’.
That is you add it like <previous path addresses>; C:\cygnus\cygwin-b20\H-i586-cygwin32\bin;
- For those of you who still find it difficult to add the environment variables, I’ve given a VBScript file that can make things easier for you. Just run it once and your path variables would be added for you. BUT YOU GOTTA RUN THAT ONLY ONCE AND THIS SCRIPT FILE WORKS ONLY FOR THE DEFAULT INSTALLATION DIRECTORY GIVEN BY THE FULL.EXE SETUP. If you install the setup somewhere else, you gotta tweak the script file. It’s easy, open it through the notepad, look for where the original path has been provided and replace it with that path that you’ve used.
Download the VBScript file here: http://ubuntuone.com/p/sRx/
- After setup, go for a system-reboot
- You’re done. Now just type, g++ followed by the cpp file path
- If yours gets compiled successfully, no errors show up. Else error warning comes up. You gotta manually edit the errors using some text editor.
- After compiling, just like how you use . /a.out for the a.out file in linux, you use a.exe to view the output here.This is an other alternate way to produce exe files for your c++ codes.
- Thanks to the Cygwin project !
- Download the instruction manual here : http://ubuntuone.com/p/sS2/
Monday, May 2, 2011
Common Misconceptions–Yum vs. Apt. Getting things right !
Yellowdog Updater, Modified (also known as YUM) is a command line package management utility –meaning that through a command window, it automates the installation, upgrade, configuration, and removal of software packages from a computer. It is an open source utility, making available to all administrators on a network. There are several tools that enhance the command line interface of YUM with graphical user interfaces –making its functionality better.
Aptitude as an Advanced Packaging Tool (or an APT) that displays software packages and gives the user the ability to pick the packages they wish to install or remove from their computer. Aptitude comes complete with a powerful search system which makes use of flexibility search patterns. It is based mostly on the ncurses computer terminal library –a programming library that provides an API and gives the programmer the power to write a text user interface without the use of a terminal.
YUM is a complete overhaul of its predecessor, Yellowdog Updater (also known as YUP). It was conceived as a means of updating and managing Red Hat Linux systems and has since inception been adopted by Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, CentOS, and many other Linux distributions that are all RPM based. The YUM utility synchronises remote metadata to the local client without being prompted to do so. Thusly, YUM is incapable of failing if the user fails to run a command at the interval that particular command requires.
Aptitude comes standard with a command line interface (or CLI), similar to the apt- family of tools (Advanced Packaging Tool, which works with the core libraries in order to execute installation and removal of software). Unlike many other APIs, Aptitude does not require root privileges in order to run. It, instead, shows a prompt to Become Root in the event that those rights are deemed necessary. When Aptitude opens it suggests a threaded list of packages that can be navigated using the arrow keys and the enter key to open and collapse nodes.
YUM also uses a separate tool in order to set up its own repositories. This tool is known as createrepo and generates the necessary XML metadata –as well as the splite metadata if the option -d is selected) necessary to create the YUM repositories. The tool known as œmrepo aids in the creation and maintenance of the YUM repositories.
Summary:
1. YUM is a command line package management utility that manages the installation, upgrade, configuration, and removal of software packages; Aptitude as an APT that displays software packages and gives the user the power to choose which programs she wishes to install or remove.
2. YUM automatically synchronises remote metadata to the local client without needing a prompt; Aptitude has a command line interface that executes installation and removal of software without the need of root privileges.
source: http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-yum-and-aptitude/
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Glomosim installation just got much simpler!!!
The hard part that we faced was the installation! We needed to install JAVA v1.2 and VB6 (installating newer versions of both JAVA and VB meant additional burden on top because newer versions of both the software packages do not have the extra advantage of having the environment variables added automatically to the system).
We were given VB6 that could have environment variables added automatically. But JAVA was newer and we had to manually add environment variables to the PC. As far the glomosim setup, we had no choice. We had to manually add the environment variables for the glomosim to work.
A lot of the participants of the workshop found this extremely tough. A significant time got wasted in instructing students as to how to set up environment variables and helping them. Newbies got very tired of repeated failures in setting the software up.
To overcome this, I have come up with a .exe setup that could make things easier.
INSTALLATION STEPS :
1. Before we proceed to the installation of Glomosim, you need to install two other softwares essential for glomosim to work.
· Visual C++
· Java JDK v1.2 or higher & Java JRE v1.2 or higher
Visual C++ from VB 6.0 package is recommended since, you need not worry about altering environment variables externally. If you prefer to go with a newer version of Visual Studio, then, here are the environment variable lists that you need to manipulate according to your installation package.
PATH : C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\Tools\WinNT;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\MSDev98\Bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\Tools;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\bin;
INCLUDE : C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\atl\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\mfc\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\include;
LIB : C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\mfc\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\lib
MSDEVDIR: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\MSDev98
You can add environment variables here by Right click my computeràpropertiesàadvanced system settingsàadvancedàenvironment variables
All these files are being installed in C:\
NOTE: DO THIS ONLY IF YOU WANT TO HAVE VISUAL STUDIO 7.0 OR ABOVE. IF YOU HAVE VISUAL STUDIO 6.0 (RECOMMENDED) DON’T DO THIS !
For the java part, download the latest 6.0 version at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html (just Java JDK - the first option there.)
Install both Java and Visual Studio before you proceed further.
2. If you are using Windows Vista/Windows 7, you first need to disable the user account settings to ‘Never Notify Me’. That is, you are trying to disable all the Security features of Windows that prevent you from making changes to it. This is essential for the setup to add the environment variables. If you are using Windows XP, you need not bother about this step. You may proceed to step 2.
Now, how do you do this?
§ Either, type UAC in Start Menu or goto Control Panelà User AccountsàClick ‘Change User Account Control Settings’ at the very bottom of the User Accounts Page.
§ You’ll get a screen very similar to this (Mine is Windows 7 Ultimate – SP 1 )
YOU WILL HAVE TO RESTART WINDOWS TO COMPLETE THIS ACTION. ONLY THEN THE UAC SETTINGS GET SAVED.
3. Now, Run the Glomosim Setup as shown below
If you get a popup complaining of some compiling error, then either you have not turned off the UAC account settings or you have still not gone for a system restart from UAC setting change.
4. After this installation step, half your burden has got over.
5. Now, Click Runàtype ‘cmd’. You’ll get command prompt window there.
· There, type
‘cd c:\glomosim\glomosim\main’
· Now, type ‘ makent ‘. i.e., it will be like c:\glomosim\glomosim\main>makent
· A screen goes like this.
· Now, type cd ..\bin and you will end up like c:\glomosim\glomosim\bin>
Now, type, glomosim config.in
* i.e., something like, c:\glomosim\glomosim\bin>glomosim config.in
· You will get a screen like the one above. Congrats! You have successfully installed glomosim on your PC !
6. In order to continue with Optional Java Visualization tool, you need to configure Java tool.
to do that, copy all the files in C:\glomosim\glomosim\bin to C:\glomosim\glomosim\java_gui.
7. Now, go back to command prompt, and type ‘cd c:\glomosim\glomosim\java_gui’ .
Now, type javac *.java.
8. Now, type ‘java GlomoMain’ to visually see the results.
Download Glomosim.exe here : http://1drv.ms/1ofNOnM
Download PDF Instruction Manual here : http://1drv.ms/1ofNXYi
There might be mistakes and errors in installation process. Please let me know.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Rock(melt)ing !!!
Its been a couple of weeks now, since the first beta version of the Open-Source based so called Social Browser – Rockmelt and yes, there has been a tremendous response from the users. 18.3 K tweets and 49K likes in facebook.com is a no mean task.
So, what makes this browser so special ? We can, in a way, call the Rockmelt as a “MORE SOCIABLE CHROME”. This is because the browser has adapted its Interface, Java Engines from the Open Source Chromium browser, and the reason why this is called more sociable is that, it has integrated all your Facebook controls to its side bars. Now, this means a lot. The man behind this project, Rockmelt, that has been in development for over two years now, is none other than Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape communications.
You get to edit your FB statuses, check feeds, chat, post messages all within the browser interface. Also, the interface looks so cool and fast. Another social plugin that comes packaged with the browser is its twitter plugin. You can subscribe to tweets or twitter feeds well inside the browser. You can subscribe to RSS Feeds from any other supported feed source as well. There is also this “Share” button adjacent to the address bar. You can share links and posts from any website to your FB Wall.
Promo video of Rockmelt
May be, its more like a war now. Browser war has begun and each browser claim themselves to be the best. And social-networking seems to be the mantra right now. By providing easy social messaging capabilities, you tend to aggregate more users towards using your browser and this seems like a cool way to promote your product. This fact has indeed inspired another Free web browser – Flock.
Flock, which was till now, using the Firefox based interface had shifted to using the Chrome, just like Rockmelt. It also provides the same facilities like Facebook and Twitter clients built-inside the browser. But, lacks that lustre and interface that Rockmelt boasts of. One thing, that can be noted though, is its facility to provide extensions and toolbars just like any other normal browser. If Rockmelt is able to provide this facility then it will just be great.
Firefox, has applied the same-strategy for its browser, by introducing the Mozilla Messaging Plugin. It can be installed in Firefox browsers ( v3.6 ). It allows you to share links in Twitter and Facebook. Chrome also has its own version of extension for Facebook
Though, such plugins and extensions exist for other browsers, we must accept that Rockmelt has definitely brought a new trend. It’s an evolution that will speak through generations.
Rockmelting !!!!
PS :
Request for your rockmelt browser : http://www.rockmelt.com/
- this browser, is currently available only on request and you need a facebook account to do this.
Flock Web Browser : http://flock.com/
Mozilla’s F1 Plugin : http://f1.mozillamessaging.com/
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