e-nertia

The Bazar experience

2012-01-26T10:08:00.000-08:00

Makar Sankrant passes..and my mom starts receiving invitations for "haldi kunku" pressing her to return the favor by conducting one herself. The item to be given away becomes a hot topic of discussion within the family. Cost is indeed a factor since it is to be given to atleast 30-40 ladies. When she asked me, I was reminded of the ad I saw in newspapers and at BEST bus stands (Bravo publicity team !!). See the image in the post. So I suggested to her to have a go at Big Bazar as we remember the day India became a republic...a suggestion I regret giving now.

I have generally heard from other people or seen such a scene only in ads on TV where crowds are involved in shopping in a super market as if life depended on it. I was lucky to experience it myself this time. Me and my mom headed to the Big Bazar at Growels 101, Kandivali...very rarely do we travel outside the Malad -Goregaon belt for basic shopping. Cut to growels..we were welcomed by two queues of 50-60 people. Note here the queue was to enter the shop..coz the shop couldn't handle more. I could already feel the atmosphere around me..as if you are in line to be sent on the battlefield waiting for your turn. People were discussing what they will buy once they are in. In the meantime, I was observing the people who fought and emerged out of the place with more than 6-7 shopping bags. I was trying to observe the trend. I could see that some specific items were selling like hot cakes.

Once we were in, suddenly we both were taken by the storm of people inside. Literally...and I mean it really..no space to walk. People going across you in every possible angle, with their trolleys, baskets with their "Excuse", "Thoda jaga do", some threatening you with just the amount of load they are carrying. It made us forget why we were there. Mom forgot the purpose of the visit and started talking about some bulk packets of cooking oil cans, grains and started checking the offers. I had to pull her out of the temptation and remind her why we were there. So we got aside and started discussing, "What can we buy?" Low cost but something that is very useful..etc etc..First mistake...should have gone there with a plan...Big bazar in this season is surely not the temple to think in. We both wading through the place was becoming difficult, so I suggested her to be at a place with whatever we already bought and I went around the place. This is when I realized I made a bad suggestion about Big Bazar. Of course you do find deals at Big Bazar. Buy a 5 L can of A and get a 1kg pack of B free, buy 1 get 1 free (with the two things bound together in a tight tape with stickers on it) etc. It is a good place for families to get 2-3 months of stuff with some good deals. So you will generally have deals on huge packs and not small ones. Anyway, we did not want to waste all that effort we put in getting inside and we bought the items at that place. Some things I noticed,

You need a bigger place for such a thing. Though Big Bazar is experienced at handling large crowds, it surely does asphyxiate you surrounded by hundreds of people. A bigger place will make the shopping more pleasant.
People have this habit of holding meetings near that very unavoidable nook to decide what they should buy, why they should buy, the prospects, profits..damn it..find a better place and plan in advance. This is not a normal supermarket where you can have a stroll..this is Big Bazar in its sabse saste din!!! Be considerate about other shoppers..
Find a good time to go to this place..an unusual time to be precise..to avoid the crowds coz they are deadly and they care a damn...you can end up coming home with a bruised finger or arm thanks to the trolleys that keep rolling with their owners fixating on the offers.
Do not forget to take your vehicle. Moving around waiting for rickshaws with those heavy bags can be troublesome.
Be sure you avail all the offers especially since they have separate counter where the freebies are handed over.

That's all..phew..tiring....still 3 more days to fight...anyone interested?!

Streaming different audio streams to different audio devices in Ubuntu 11.10

2012-01-14T04:35:00.000-08:00

Started with my sis talking to me over Skype. And I wanted to listen to some Westlife songs on youtube. But the issue was that her voice was routed to the speakers and when I played the song (i had the song buffered), it too started playing on the speaker. So, naturally, I was being swore at for this. Especially since she got to listen to the song through my mic streaming to her at less than 300 kbps. I can understand how it must be sounding to her. So my problem definition: I wanted to get the westlife song to my USB headset and my sis call on the speaker. This way, she does not get to listen to the staccato variant of the song and I get both the call and the song.

Bit of googling and forum reading led me to Pulse Audio Volume control application for linux. The package is named "pavucontrol". Command to install it in ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

Run the application. It provides an interface for you for audio input, audio output and a tab where you can set the type of audio interface for each device. eg. a normal sound card would be Analog stereo duplex. Other options are Analog stereo output, input, digital stereo etc...

The feature which I was looking for was in the first tab. This tab gives you an interface for each application that is using an audio stream. In my case, it was showing me two entries:

1. Skype

2. Alsa plugin for chrome (since I was listening to youtube through chrome. Chrome uses the alsa plugin to access the sound hardware.)

For each of these applications, it provides a slider volume control and also provides a drop down for selection of audio device to be used (most required). So I simply selected the USB headset for alsa plugin and internal sound card for the skype app. There..done! Everyone's at peace...

What I understood..ALSA(Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) works at a lower level and is closer to the hardware, while, Pulse Audio is a sound server at a higher level that provides you a host of features for the available streams like manipulatiing the stream, streaming it to another pulse audio server over the network, routing to different audio hardware etc..

Reco..gnition

2011-12-09T23:43:00.001-08:00

Seen some of my friends get recommendation letters from professors during the last years at degree college and seen them complain. During the last 3 months, I was fortunate to experience the process and unfortunate to have an experience worse than that of my friends. And frankly, I do not know why...

Experience: Out of the three recos I needed, one went extremely smooth, effortlessly. Hats off to the prof! The remaining two made and continue to make me beg and plead and cry. Why? One, the two didn't seem to have the time to submit them, because they were "extremely busy". That, I can never believe. Second, The account does not seem to open or there is some problem with the email account. Well, when did you realise that? Now? Or was I the lucky one to enlighten you about it? Three, "I was busy and now I am on a vacation". Aaargh!! I have met people at my workplace who are genuinely extremely busy, and generally tend to forget your request in the rush of things. But twice, maybe thrice reminding them does the thing. I think the reminder count in my case must have gone upto 12-15 considering missed calls, messages and e-mails. It starts frustrating you especially when it blends positively with the frustration at workplace sometimes. and you start to think...are you so insignificant that people do not care about your plans...so insignificant that the professor forgets for a moment that you have asked and confirmed from him for a reco...and asks you, " How can you assume that I will give a reco?" All this, as it appears to me, stems only from the "i m busy" phenomenon. So how much time does it take to fill up recos? If the prof has a draft ready, probably 10 min. for each. In fact I was a lucky witness to a record breaking feat of 7 recos within half an hour. I mean, are you really that busy then, that it took so many days? The most frustrating thing of all, is that you stay up late at night for completing applications much in advance, balancing work and these guys just keep dallying. So inconsiderate! All your hard work goes in vain.

After the count of 15 reminders, I personally visited the college twice, first in vain and in the second I nailed it for one prof, thanks to the "informer". One still remains, I continue, messaging and calling with no response from the other end with personal visits in the past all in vain. Wish me luck!

Some lessons learnt*:
1. Be good to professors at college. Be in his good lists. Do projects under him proactively when in college. If you take a break from college for work, be in touch with him. I probably did only 30% of this and hence I am to blame. Remember, if you need a reco, you need to have reco-gnition..
2. Be in touch with juniors who can update you on the prof's availability.
3. Be extremely calm with the prof, even if he swears at you. Do not forget, you need him. He does not.
4. The best thing is to take up a job at the college, if you are open to it. Then, you can remind him at your will.

Now I go back to waiting for the last one...

*: Lessons apply more for people who have studied from my college. Though they are general in nature, there may be some changes and modifications here and there....

PDF play

2011-11-12T19:35:00.001-08:00

Last few months, I have been scanning a lot of documents. Also converting word to pdf, merging pdf files, splitting them etc. In this process, I have found few good programs for this task.

I have an HP Deskjet F4288 All-in-One scanner-printer-copier at home. If you scan a document, by default, it starts an HP utility for managing the scan, which is buggy, big-time and tedious to use too. So, began my search for the ultimate tool. Enter Softi Scan to PDF. Though it is a 30-day trial, if you uninstall it and install again, it restarts the 30 day trial..;)..so gr8. This app has a simple scan button. It has settings where you can select the scan document size, the compression ratio that is needed. This helps when you want the scanned pdf file size to be very small and the quality of scan does not bother you..esp. when upload sites limit the file size. If it is a multi-file pdf, just keep pressing "scan" after each document and it keeps appending the pages and when you are done with all pages, click on "Save PDF". Simple.

Some of my documents to be scanned were of the A3 size and could not be scanned at home since my scanner supports A4 only. Got it scanned from a print/xerox shop and the size of the files that he created were enormous. 16MB for 10 pages. I tried opening the file and printing it again using CutePDF. I thought it will compress the file in the process. No change. Then, me and google started another search and we found "Bullzip PDF". Excellent utility. Similar to CutePDF. But with this, when I tried printing the 16MB file to PDF again, it reduced the size to 5MB. That was great compression and without any visible loss of quality. Now it has also replaced CutePDF as my word-to-PDF converter. I fondly call it "Bull#$%@ PDF"..hehe.

I had all my documents separately scanned and converted to pdf. Now came the requirement of merging/splitting different PDF files together/apart as per requirement. Again...google to the rescue with freely available "PDFSAM (PDF split and merge)". Though it calls itself "Split and merge", it does much more. The feature I love the most is "Visual reorder". You can see the thumbnail view of all pages within a document, delete certain pages if you wish, rotate specific pages, change the order of pages according to their importance and after you are done, just save it as another PDF file.

Let me know if you have heard of any good ones.....

Changing Grub Splash screen in Debian 6.0.3

2011-11-06T01:26:00.000-07:00

Recently changed my MTNL plan from the Rs. 748 plan (2 Mbps, 5GB download limit) to the newly introduced Happy Hours plan Unlimited 666 (Rs. 666 service charges, 320 kbps during the day and 1 Mbps after 8 pm, unlimited download). This after receiving a hefty bill of Rs. 4500 last month accompanied by a severe dressing down from mom and dad. We concluded after an experiment that Skype was the culprit. Anyways, this brought good along. I am now free to download any file size and have already downloaded and installed the latest Ubuntu 11.10 and Debian 6.0.3 (Squeeze) in the last few days.

So coming back to the topic, I was always curious about changing the boring splash screen that we get at startup. I knew it was and is easy. But just wanted to tick another point in my "to-do" list.

First of all, where does Debian store all the pre-login wallpapers? The location is

/usr/share/images/desktop-base/ (was actually trying to TAB my way while typing this...:D)

All the grub configuration gets stored in the grub.cfg file. The exact location is

/boot/grub/grub.cfg.

This is an auto generated config file that uses the templates from the /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub. When you want to change the timeout of the splash screen or the default boot selection of the OS list, the /etc/default/grub is the file to use. It has variables defined as GRUB_DEFAULT and GRUB_TIMEOUT for the same. Root privileges are required for these changes and also for the steps that follow. The 05_debian_theme file in /etc/grub.d is the brain behind deciding the grub background that goes into the grub.cfg file. Now after studying the 05_debian_theme file, I have found there are 3 ways of setting the desktop background:

1. Simplest: Just copy the required image into the /boot/grub/ folder and run "update-grub". Done. This method has second priority.

2. Define a variable GRUB_BACKGROUND in the /etc/default/grub file and provide the path of the image as its value.

GRUB_BACKGROUND = /usr/share/images/desktop-base/james_bond.jpg

(Yes, I have Daniel Craig as my splash screen..:D)

Save and exit. Then run "update-grub".

This method is given the highest priority. So if you have defined the one image as a variable and also pasted another image in the /boot/grub/ folder, the variable value will be considered.

3. The next method is using another file grub_background.sh. This method has third priority. In the file /usr/share/desktop-base/grub_background.sh, just define the variable WALLPAPER as the path of the image.

WALLPAPER = /usr/share/images/desktop-base/james_bond.jpg

Save and exit. Then run "update-grub".

If the 05_debian_theme file finds none of the above images or defined variables, it will load the default desktop background "desktop-grub.png". If it does not find the desktop-grub.png file too, it will load the default theme, which is just a black background and a blue foreground for the text.

After any change in the grub configuration, the command "update-grub" is necessary. While this command runs, it shows that it has accepted the background image. This command actually generates the updated grub.cfg file (auto-generated, as I have mentioned before) which is used during the booting process. You can check the updated file for confirmation.

Now just give the "poweroff" command and reboot again (Prior to power off, save any other open files). Noted one more thing, this release behaves differently on the "reboot" command. When you say "reboot", it actually assumes that you will be back into Debian and so you do not even see the OS selection grub menu and boot directly into Debian. Hence, I mentioned using the "poweroff" command.

So, there you go, my PC is now dressed to kill...even before the OS boots..:D

SSH......

2011-05-22T09:58:00.000-07:00

Took up the activity of trying out SSH today. what is it? I am sure you have heard of telnet. We know it as a remote login client. Similarly there is another called rlogin. SSH is a very secure implementation of telnet or rlogin using encryption. Hence, very unsurprisingly, SSH is Secure Shell.

The two guinea pigs involved were my HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop running Ubuntu 11.04 (the latest one!) and an assembled desktop PC running Windows XP.

On the XP machine I downloaded the putty software package. On the website you will find a zip folder that carries all the Putty client variants like Putty, PSCP, Pageant,Puttygen. I downloaded the same. On the Ubuntu machine, i installed the OpenSSH server using the following command:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Command output:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
rssh molly-guard openssh-blacklist openssh-blacklist-extra
The following NEW packages will be installed:
openssh-server
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 43 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/311 kB of archives.
After this operation, 840 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously deselected package openssh-server.
(Reading database ... 130586 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking openssh-server (from .../openssh-server_1%3a5.8p1-1ubuntu3_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Processing triggers for ufw ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up openssh-server (1:5.8p1-1ubuntu3) ...
ssh start/running, process 18521
amit@HP-Pavilion-dv6000:~$ ps -A|grep sshd
18521 ? 00:00:00 sshd

This command not only installs the server application but also executes it. The last line in the command output shows the PID for the sshd server task. You can also confirm the same using:

ps -A|grep sshd
Command output:
18521 ? 00:00:00 sshd (which matches with the earlier mentioned PID)

Next I extracted the Putty archive and executed the Putty.exe application on the XP machine. Putty.exe can serve as an SSH, Telnet and Rlogin client. Entered the IP address of the laptop. Selected SSH as the protocol. Kept the port value to its default of 22. You get a prompt "login as:". So we have to enter the username of the account in ubuntu ("amit" in my case). next you are prompted for the account password. Once you enter that, you are IN. Done. Simplest remote access using SSH complete. To add some level of security, we can change the default port to something other than 22, say 202. The same change has to be done on the Ubuntu side. This helps protect the server from brute force attacks especially if the server is exposed to the Internet.

So, run

sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

The above command opens the sshd_config file in the vi editor. Go into the Insert mode in vi by pressing 'i'. The first uncommented line in this file is "Port 22". Change that to "Port 202". Press "ESC" and type ":wq" to save the changes. Now run Putty session again maintaining the port as 22. You will get an error "Network error: Connection refused". Change the port to 202 (or value as written in the config file) and run the putty session. You will be prompted for the username and password as you were earlier.

You can also specify the username in the Hostname field itself..i.e. instead of just writing the IP address(eg. 192.168.1.3), we can write username@IPaddress(eg. amit@192.168.1.2). With this, you will only be required to enter the password everytime. This is because, you can save the hostname and port information as a session and use this information again later by selecting the session from the list and clicking on "Load".

Another good practice that helps protect the server from brute-force SSH attacks is disabling the SSH login for root account. This is because in case of a root account,for a hacker, it is one less parameter to be guessed. he only has to crack the password. Assigning non-standard usernames helps in a great way, say SSH users. This can be done by giving a "no" for the PermitRootLogin field in the sshd_config file.

Next post would be on using keys for authentication...a special feature of OpenSSH and putty......

Reverse telescopic view

2011-03-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

No no.. not a techie post...see i tagged it "Daily thoughts". So no worries, read on.

A telescope. What a masterpiece. Made possible the discovery of distant marvels in space. Made possible looking far away objects in more detail. Made possible the telescopic view mounted on weapons to have a magnified view of the target so that one can study and attack accordingly. Details, more details, more depth, is that all? i think not.

An observation and an experience. In our bid to get more focus, we try to get to the subsets and in the process, could forget the superset, the "bigger picture". A job could be of multiple phases, multiple levels. As you concentrate on each of the phase, you study, you use the telescopic view. You go into details. You know you are bang on target. You move on to the next phase. Finally, you think you are done with all levels. And then the time comes to evaluate the system on the whole. You are confident that each of the phases are correct. As things start falling in, you start relating to what the aim was in the beginning. Level 1 correct, level 2 wrong. but level 2 was right. all coz of that bloody level 1. How could I forget it? level 3 correct. level 4 wrong again. this time it's coz of that filthy level 5. Why? How could I go wrong with my concepts? Well, me thinks..Concept right, but you got the wrong map or no map at all.

So what's the remedy? THE REVERSE TELESCOPIC VIEW. Whatzztat? Just a new way to look at things. While you are busy "telescoping" things, You must also make it a point to turn the telescope around regularly and look at the work from the other end. Why called so? Basically to evaluate the work, you need something that will take you out of your world and see it from a space station. A telescope does just that, without moving you an inch. Just have to turn it around for a change. So a periodic peep. Is it looking good? Is that what I want to achieve from this block? I think just this small step can help one put a map in place of the way things should be. Use the telescope..both ways!

Maha Shoonya Teen

2010-11-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

It's more than an year at my workplace in Sakinaka. Travelling is mostly by the bus routes 398, 488 etc. Lately, I have been staying late and generally have another colleague for company. He is more than two years here, actually a senior from SP.

So many times recently, it was me and him going home in a rick. Phew! Too costly. But the body does not have the strength and courage to go for a bus at 9:45 pm. Atleast it pretends so. More so when it has experienced the comforts of a swift airy ride.

So it happens that as usual, I get out of the gate and show the rick begging hand accompanied with few forced tired words. After one or two misses, it is a hit. "Borivali?". The rickwallah gives a condescending nod. As soon as we get in, my colleague asked him," Meter thik hai na?". And the rickwallah says a non-chalant , "MH-03 hai. Thoda idhar udhar ho sakta hai." We got down and I asked my office mate what made him ask that question. He said, "MH-03 tha. isliye poocha."

And then came the revelation. Apparently, MH-03 ricks (also nicknamed Ghatkopar ricks) are infamous for having rigged meters. More the distance, more the loot. That is when I started observing that the only ricks that were going empty were the "Maha Shoonya Teen"s with MH-02 scattered sparsely. A Google search after returning home also confirmed the allegation. In fact, the very next day, I tried my hand at the MH-03 for a short distance near office which will generally cost me around Rs.14. The meter screamed a Rs. 20. Thanks to the enlightenment attained under the Bodhirickshaw a day ago, I had already cleared matters with the rickwallah confirming that I will only pay what I generally do for that distance.

Made me wonder how much I have lost already within my tenure here... what about ppl who are not aware of this? Suno bhaai suno..

Black and white

2010-09-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

Black and white...contrasting enough to be conspicuously spotted together. White shining over black, black engraved in white. Maybe that's the reason why we use the idiom "in black and white" to denote something "in writing". Because the very act of writing things down make them clear as does black on white or white on black.

But I doubt if many are fans of writing. They do not prefer it, they prefer verbal conversation; They prefer orange, green, yellow, sky blue, pinkish brownish red, but no...not black and white. Black and white is "mail baaji" for them.

Well, I agree, to the fullest extent, be it art, literature, nothing is as good as verbally expressing it with all the body that you got. Even I was held by my legs and dipped into this pool of communication skills, made to "rrrratofy" the advantages of oral communication over written. That just speaks about my desperation, no pointer pointing towards anyone who taught us communication skills. MG ma'am, to tell you, you were the best!

But as far as what I have experienced, I have always found "mail-baaji" to the advantage. Take down the notes of advantages of writing over blabbering:

Foremost. You are a busy person. You hardly get time to talk, or are in a place where networks are no good, but you have a phone where you can read mails. What is the best way to get in touch with you?? Writing a mail.

2. With reference to the first point again. If you are busy, no problem. You can refer to my mail later. The very essence which led the NOMADIC man to write things down when it's official :). It gets recorded!

3. I said something to you. Now few days later I twist my point. Do you have a proof of that?? NO. Consider the otherwise with writing.

4. Can you cascade oral communication?? hehe...with mails, just reply or forward and the great technology helps you link mails wrt a specific topic.

OK. it was a 5 mark question. With 4 points, you get a mark less or whatever, but believe me, atleast I do, those 4 points are worth more.

Oh....just when the bell was going to ring and the exam to end, I remembered, ...you can attach things to mails..documents, drawings etc. etc.Thats a fivey now..hehe..added this here since I did not want to disturb the end.

And, by the way, for people who like colours, try the font color options, smileys...there's every colour "in black and white".

The Bus Game on the Lunar Land

2010-08-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

I thought of the title " An Hour at the Bus Stop" but that would have made it look like a 2nd Std Essay and would have taken away the exciting part of the 'game' that it is. So basically, this is a very interesting game that one gets to play at the Dindoshi bus depot. It requires a lot of brain, vigilance and physical power. People weak at any of these should not enter the Dindoshi Bus Depot.

RULE 1: This game is played from Mon-Fri.

So it is 8 15 in the morning. You are fully charged to face another day at the office. And you enter the lunar-surfaced Depot - but with two differences.

1. g(Dindoshi lunar surface)= g(Earth) in Dindoshi area.

2. This lunar surface has not traces of water but gallons of them. ISRO could supersede NASA this time in researching water on moon. I am here to help :)

After knowing all these technicalities, you reach a safe area doing the astronaut jumps.

RULE 2: Check if the game is already over.

You look around to see if the daily faces are still there or they have beaten you in the game for that day.

Now you start looking for THE resource: the BUS. There are options and their numbers mean nothing unless it takes you to or near your destination. But intelligent people will analyse to select the right bus.

RULE 3: Late entries are not given the liberty to use their intelligence.

Then comes in the vigilance - the most important quality required to win this game. There are many things to keep an eye on:

a. The BEST honey comb: the place from where the driver bee and the conductor bee come out. You should know the already standing bus (flower) on which they will land. Experience comes handy here.

b. The opponents. In case you are not good at point a, this one helps you. Observe each opponent very carefully. Not directly in the eye(they will shoot with their snipers..beware), but look askance. Try to read their inscrutable faces. Their excitement of seeing the driver come towards the bus will surely betray their will to be stolid.

c. The gate of the depot from where a bus could already come loaded with the driver and conductor.

So you have two threads already running in your OS. Now another one adds in. The one that actuates the process of running. As soon as the observation thread of three cases throws an event, the thread for "running" should chip in without any latency.

RULE 4: Go for the front door if you are a female. The front door is a female dominated place. Do not dare to try it if you are a male. Snipers galore. Males, go for the back door.

Now comes the physical test. You need the strength of a Spartan to push away everyone behind you and get into that door to heaven. Most lose their hope at this stage and the victors go to the next level- THE ENTHRONEMENT.

The Enthronement rules have recently undergone a revision; Rev 3 to be precise, which has made the game all the more difficult for males. But that makes it more challenging and men are always good at taking challenges...hihaha. In a ruling that speaks about growing female dominance, 6 rows on the right side (12 whole seats!!) have been reserved for females now. Damn it! OK..so the victors from the last level have to catch the right throne keeping in mind all kinds of reserved seats for the females, the aged and the handicapped. The reserved seats, if unused, can be used unless the owner comes to claim it. Failure to show respect to reservations can result in disqualification.

This ends the game. The rule for deciding the winners is as follows:

RULE 5: Window seat winners stand at first place. The "pillion" seat achievers stand at second. The "standing" stand nowhere and get their punishment during the journey. If the top two places feel pity about you, you could be promoted to their positions when they are already satisfied with the comforts the seat offers...though it hardly offers anything..something better than nothing should we say..the vigilance tips can help here to know the possible candidates who are oversatisfied with their positions.

So that's the BUS game..And there is always a chance to take revenge on your opponent...the next day and the next and the next...Interested ppl are welcome.....unwillingly :(

A satisfying weekend.....

2010-01-24T07:48:00.000-08:00

I have always had this inner feeling that I must develop all kinds of practical technical skills and learning, which will help me in dealing with theory better. And finally I had a satisfying weekend with respect to this wish of mine. I made my first home made PCB. The circuit was that of the USBasp-a popular and simple USB based programmer for the AVR family. Refer this link for more info.http://www.fischl.de/usbasp/. And all this..thanks to the friend who I consider as my electronics guru since my juniour college days-Tushar. He is the most down to earth person with the most of the electronics knowledge on this earth, according to me.

It began with a bit of planning on my side(thank you!), wherein I fixed this weekend for this activity, after a lot of procrastination. So Saturday morning, me n Tushar swooshed to Lamington Road- for those who do not know, it is THE place in Mumbai where all kinds of Electronics components reside. Tushar was walking through the lanes there, as if he owns them-after all, he knows most of the shops there, knows where you will find a particular component cheap. He has been going there regularly for the last 5 years. So basically I was lucky. Unfortunately we landed when the shop shutters were still sleeping. These guys are damn lazy. Always remember, if you want to go to Lamington road, be there after 11 am. Sunday closed. First Lesson for the weekend learnt.

You will find that a layout is already available for the circuit on the webpage that i referred to. But I did not want to copy it. So I made my own layout in Eagle along the week and made a list of components to be bought. I bought the components and the PCB fabrication materials required(Ferrous chloride, copper cladded PCB, drill and drill bits). We planned on working on it on Sunday morning, since we had to report to office and also had planned a visit to Elecrama2010. The Elecrama thing did not prove to be very useful, since we reached there when most of the stalls were winding up.

Come Sunday, we start off by printing the layout on a paper and then ironing it out on the PCB. After 4 unsuccessful trials, we learnt that a glossy paper(like most magazines have) is better for taking a print. a laser printer is mandatory. After ironing it out on the PCB, we dipped it in the ferrous chloride solution-all thanks to Tushar who has performed this process numerous times. After minute observation learnt that few tracks had merged, so had to separate them out using a blade. Drilled holes into the PCB(in the process, broke two drill bits), mounted the components and we were ready to go. But it did not work at first go. Again minute observation showed that a track was open. Bridged the track and hurrah....the programmer was born..........I have not grossed over the process details. You will find many Youtube videos on DIY PCB fabrication. All this made us again lose out on the last day of Elecrama2010, since we reached there an hour before the thing started closing. But all in all, it was a satisfying weekend for me....hope to have many such ahead.....Ohh..btw forgot to tell you that the first four unsuccessful printing trials made us think that perhaps my layout was faulty, and we reverted back to the one available on the webpage. So the one working now does not have the artwork done by me. But I am sure my design would also work. I will have that one printed too in the near future....and now heading for the week ahead.....

Speed Breakers

2010-01-24T07:25:00.000-08:00

Somehow I have this thing about weekends. Guess, it is bcoz it is the only time in the week when I get to introspect. And this intospection can be killing, mind you. When the mind falls in a thought trench, it is difficult to climb up and come out of it. And in such cases, to the rescue come THE WEEKDAYS. Think of it as a road with speed breakers. You keep going fast, when suddenly you hit a speed breaker(in this case periodic ones). You go slow over them to speed up again. Is speed good? Dunnno..Would weekdays be good had they been like weekends..a BIG NO. But I miss the introspection on weekdays.....Thank God, they both exist...

weekend ends...

2009-11-15T06:58:00.000-08:00

Another weekend going by... I always end the Friday thinking I will do something exciting this weekend, learn something new, just anything that could help me widen the supposed-to-be "eyes of the mind". However, it always remains a mystery how the weekend goes by. So what did I do this weekend. I do not know..read a few random technical articles which tickled a nerve or two in the brain to be settled again as it was. Hmmm... well yeah, I saw Taare Zameen Par(TZP famously)

for a third time. The magnitude of tears being the same everytime I have seen it. It was shown on the local cable channel courtesy Children's day. The only message I get from the film is "Stop forcing your children to perform. Just encourage them and they will perform on their own."-a very important one. Even today a play was telecast called "Shyamchi Mummy"-a similar topic but showcasing a very opposite view. It must be a 6-7 years old play, when HSC exams were very critical for further admission.In this play, what happens is that the guy who is studying for the HSC is bullied badly by his mom who is bent on wanting to have him in the list of merit rankers. He hates doing all this, following schedules etc.. There's hell lot of jokes in the middle of how he tries to relax but ends up getting caught by his mom. But in the end, everything is happy since he tops the merit list. The messages from both these media quite clash and they only highlight the fact that it is the competition that is killing. I remember how when in school, getting the top rank was important...to me. It was only because of the importance that I attached with that position which made me frantic about getting it. I do not know how it became important for me. Maybe it was because of the praise that I was subjected to in school and at home whenever I scored it, that made me go for it everytime. But just out of school and going for IIT coaching and then juniour and engineering college proved to me how all these marks stand no value, especially in an Indian education system. I found out how I had forgotten sharpening my skills while running in the very local competition of the school. I found out that there were many more students coming from other schools who have scored maybe a below 10th rank but are truly talented and have nurtured their talents instead of running in the race and that is very important. I struggled to find out my interests after SSC, which would not have been the case had I considered many years ago. In fact I would have been much confident in the course that I enrolled, because till then the thought that it is the goal of life would have made a far greater impact in my mindscape. This is what I have learnt from my schooling years and wish to share with everyone. I feel the competition is important, but currently the competition is about something superficial, something tangible. What would be of much more help is if the competition is about bettering oneself internally, strengthening oneself internally, about making principles clear. And that, that would be a competition of oneself with oneself. This is what I have been telling whoever I meet, whoever I know who is yet to experience all this. And even if you have already lost all these crucial years like me, better late than never. Start it today, now. Strive for self betterment, strive for others to be better too...and then let people connect like systems....as the IBM ad goes....when systems connect the world gets smarter.

I M BAK!!

2009-11-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

My thoughts really seem to have gained some inertia....a long time since i wrote something..Anyways, it's been such a strange transition from the college days to the ones in my first job. Having this inertial mind as is, now a days, it's always filled of things about office. Back in college, it used to be about friends, family and studies. Quite literally. Just few weeks back, I realised that this has changed. And the thing to trigger this realisation was the fact that I had forgotten the birthday of my best friend....sad...indeed...But this is not always the case.. weekends is when nostalgia strikes and it strikes badly and yet you can do nothing more than chatting or a mail to dress it superficially.

FAT filesystem

2009-06-15T07:29:00.000-07:00

In this post I have tried not to mention a lot of specifics, giving only an overview of the FAT filesystem. I know it's not very well written, but please bear...promise to get better with time.
The FAT file system actually refers to a family of filesystems consisting of the VFAT, FAT12,FAT16,FAT32, the numbers indicating the number of bits used to indicate the cluster number(FAT32 is an exception). The name comes from the logical structure that the file system uses-the File Allocation Table. This filesystem was used by DOS on the first IBM PCs and became a standard for the PCs that followed. The file allocation table provides information about allocation units. Now where did they come up? Well, generally, we think of files to be referred by the number of sectors of size 512 bytes on the disk. However one can imagine the performance issues that will be encountered when keeping track of big files in terms of the sectors. Hence the idea to group sectors into bigger chunks called clusters. The process by which clusters are assigned to files is called allocation. Hence clusters are called allocation units ranging from sizes of 4 to 64 sectors.
Every file must be allocated an integer number of clusters. This means that if a volume uses clusters that contain 8,192 bytes, an 8,000 byte file uses one cluster (8,192 bytes on the disk) but a 9,000 byte file uses two clusters (16,384 bytes on the disk). This is why cluster size is an important consideration in making sure you maximize the efficient use of the disk--larger cluster sizes result in more wasted space because files are less likely to fill up an integer number of clusters. The cluster size is determined primarily by the size of the disk volume after partition: generally speaking, larger volumes use larger cluster sizes.
The structure of a volume that is formatted using FAT filesystem has the structure as shown:

| Partition Boot Sector | FAT 1 | FAT 2(Copy) | Root folder | Other folders and files |

The Partition Boot sector:
The Partition boot sector is the first sector on a logical volume. A logical volume may be a primary partition, or a logical volume within an extended partition or a composite of two or more partitions. This file system boot sector is different from the master boot record(MBR). MBR is the first sector on the whole hard disk, while the partition boot sector is the first sector on a particular partition within the disk. During the boot process, after the POST is performed, the BIOS first finds a boot device, then loads the boot sector of the device. For a hard disk,this is the MBR. The control is passed on to the MBR code. The MBR code helps to load the boot sector of the active primary partition. Upto this point the boot process remains independent of the file system or the operating system used.
Now in case of FAT volumes that have Windows NT installed, the FAT boot sector is responsible for identifying the location of the file "NTLDR" on the volume, loading it into memory, and transferring control to it. Since execution control is passed on to the boot sector, there is need for an executable to be present at its first location. This is generally a JUMP instruction that serves to jump over the following "non-executable" locations. Then comes the OEM id that identifies the operating system that formatted the volume. Following the OEM id, there is a structure known as the BIOS parameter block that provides enough information to the executable part to find the NTLDR. It consists of info like sectors per cluster, sector size, number of FATs(including the multiple copies), root entries etc. On a bootable or non-bootable volume, the BIOS parameter block is followed by execuable code. The last 2 bytes in any boot sector are always 0x55, 0xAA.

The File Allocation Table:
The file allocation table contains the following types of information about each cluster on the volume :

* Unused (0x0000)
* Cluster in use by a file
* Bad cluster (0xFFF7)
* Last cluster in a file (0xFFF8-0xFFFF)

To protect the volume, two copies of the table are kept, in case one becomes damaged. In addition, the file allocation tables must be stored in a fixed location so that the files needed to start the system can be correctly located.
There is no organization to the FAT folder structure, and files are given the first available location on the volume. The starting cluster number is the address of the first cluster used by the file. Each cluster contains a pointer to the next cluster in the file, or an indication (0xFFFF) that this cluster is the end of the file.

The Root Folder:
The root folder contains entries for each file and folder on the root. In the conventional FAT system, the root directory is fixed in place after the 2 FATs. The file system hierarchy is thus anchored at the root directory. Even the size of the root directory has a limit. It can a hold a maximum of 512 entries in case of an hard disk. This is in contrast to the regular directory that can be placed anywhere and can have a variable size. One of the improvements introduced in the FAT32 version of the FAT file system was to remove these restrictions on the root directory. Under FAT32, the root directory is treated much more like a regular directory, and can be relocated and expanded in size like any other. An entry in the root directory contains information like name, attribute, time and date when created, last accessed date, last modified date and time, starting cluster number in the FAT and the file size. A FAT file has four attributes that can be turned on or off by the user-system file, archive file, read-only and hidden.

The root folder is followed by the storage of the other files and folders.

FAT32:
FAT32 is a derivative of the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system that supports drives with over 2GB of storage. Because FAT32 drives can contain more than 65,526 clusters, smaller clusters are used than on large FAT16 drives. This method results in more efficient space allocation on the FAT32 drive. The FAT32 file system includes four bytes per cluster within the file allocation table. However, the high 4 bits of the 32-bit values in the FAT32 file allocation table are reserved and are not part of the cluster number.

Ref: http://www.ntfs.com/fat-systems.htm

Adding Categories to Blogs

2009-06-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

In case you are wondering how I have got categories on my blog plage, just read this one. I was dying to write on different topics but the thought of putting technical things juxtaposed to travel ones or others made me think of starting another blog for a different topic. But I thought of googling...and bang...some guru has done it already..http://makemoneywithkassper.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-add-categories-to-blogger.html

To explain the process in brief, I will tell you how I did it. First make this html script ready in any text editor. For me the script is:

<h2 class="sidebar-title">Categories</h2>
<u1>
<li><a href="http://e-nertia.blogspot.com/search/label/Introduction">Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="http://e-nertia.blogspot.com/search/label/Technical">Technical</a></li>
<li><a href="http://e-nertia.blogspot.com/search/label/Travel">Travel</a></li>
</u1>

Replace the "http://........blogspot.com" with your blog homepage link and change the names of the topics as you wish(for me they are Introduction, Technical..). Make sure that the term in the link and the actual label are the same.
Now go to the Layout Page. It must be showing a skeleton of your blog page. The part of it that shows your blog archive and profile must also be having a link "Add a Gadget". Click on the link . In the new window that opens, click on the HTML/Java script option. Paste the HTML script that you have written in the text editor into the content box. No title is required. Save the changes. Done.
Now whenever you are writing a post that belongs to a particular topic, write in the box for the label the exact category that you have made for it. So for this post i wrote the label as Technical.
Happy Organisation!!
The challenge I faced during writing of this blog was printing the HTML script as text to show you the script. I hardly have any idea of HTML scripts. I saw the page sources of sites that have showed examples of HTML scripts. So, as a piece of information, i have replaced all the > with > and < with <

Alibaug Chi Sahal

2008-07-17T13:28:00.000-07:00

Alibaug was a unanimous decision for a 2 day vacation since the more our three brains thought, the more we were confused. We booked the ST tickets a day earlier. The bus left Borivali at 5:15 am and two of us boarded at Goregaon(W) and one friend boarded at Andheri(W). The stop is opposite to the Filmistan studio in Goregaon and it’s near the Andheri Post in Andheri. Finally the trip started for the three of us. We did start babbling about movies(comparing the Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter one). But that ended as soon as the mountains and enchanting scenes began to appear. We reached Alibaug stand at around 9:30 am. Then we went to Alibaug beach, scanned it a bit, and found it not worth of staying. So we left and came back to Alibag stand. We took an ST to Kihim beach, since I had heard of a resort near Kihim from an acquaintance. It’s called Sannidhya resort and it’s approved by M.T.D.C. Luckily, the last stop of the ST bus coincided with the resort. It’s a nice place to stay, a quite rustic one. We freshened up and sauntered around the place to find something that qualifies as a breakfast item since we had nothing since morning. Finally we found a shop that agreed to make “kanda pohe” for us at 12 noon. An hour later, we had lunch. It was good, both veg and non-veg. While feasting on the food, we had a chat with the guy who was serving us, and came to know that there’s a museum by the name of Karmarkar Museum at Sasavne which houses human sculptures. So after lunch we headed to Sasavne for the museum. This museum indeed has some exquisite sculptures, but for us muggles, they all were quite the same. It was closed when we reached there and was opened only for us. After returning back to the resort, we had tea and immediately left to enjoy the Kihim beach, after all Alibaug is equivalent to its beaches. We were a bit surprised to find the beach deserted. It was just the three of us on the whole beach and two or three fishermen very far away from us. The waves were awesome, but one has to be careful about the rocks that line the beach, since they can elude one’s sight at high tide and can prove perilous. After being content enjoying the force of the sea, we made our way back to the resort. That night, when we were having dinner, the guy who served us asked us not to go to the Kihim beach since there was news that few tourists got stung by jellyfishes. We were shocked since we had seen hundreds of them lying on the beach and yet didn’t give it much importance. Lucky us!Next day, we left the resort and headed to the Birla Mandir. This temple is situated near Revdanda. It was a long journey from the resort but the sight of the temple was quite rewarding. It must be among the few well maintained temples in Maharashtra. A temple in marble, the structure is quite fascinating. The temple is actually at its best when the lighting and the fountains come on. It must be a great sight to watch but we found ourselves there at the wrong time. We did not even find the poojari since the temple was closed at 11 am and was to open again around 4:30 pm. After leaving the temple, we found out from the locals that there were two more places that could be visited- Korlai fort and Kashid beach- and we had to select only one from them. We came to know that the fort wouldn’t be accessible at this time of the year. So Kashid beach it was. Another two Vikrams to take us to Kashid beach. The Vikram is the 8-seater rickshaw that is very common in Alibaug, and is also seen in Pune. But as you know, we Indians are very efficient in the usage of space. So this 8-seater is sometimes used as an uncomfortable 10 one and one that we got into broke all records with a mighty 12.Before going for the beach, we had lunch in one of the ‘khanavals’ ,around 2 km from the beach, where we got to taste local sea food and after getting an idea about the bus timings, headed for the beach .We found the Kashid beach better than the Kihim beach. There are hammocks attached on the beach where you can rest. The overall scenery in and around the Kashid beach was indeed enchanting, with the white sands and the surrounding hills. Here too, we could see the jellyfish lying on the beach. Yet, we risked it to get into the water and it was quite fun. Finally, we headed back to the stop but found that a bus had just passed and the next one to Mumbai would be after an hour or so. So, instead we got into a Vikram and went to the Alibaug stand and boarded an ST bound for Mumbai Central. It was a bumpy ride back home with a backseat in the ST, but with lots to talk about, it hardly matters where you are.........

Routes that we took:

Karmarkar Museum: From the resort->walking upto Chondi naka->Vikram to Sasavne

Kihim beach: 2 mins walking from the resort

Birla Mandir: From the resort->walking upto Chondi Naka->Vikram to Revdanda->Vikram to Birla Mandir

Kashid Beach: From Birla Mandir->Vikram to Revdanda->Vikram to Kashid beach

Some tips:

We felt that we should have come to Kashid beach first. So it would be better to consider going to Kashid first and then to Kihim.

Be very careful of the rocks at Kihim. They get submerged under the water at high tide and some can be sharp.

Be sure to get a report of the marine life in the water before getting into the water. In our case, we were very lucky to have enjoyed unhurt, but no one can guarantee it everytime.

Happy Holidaying!!!!!!

e-nertia

2008-07-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

WHERE THOUGHTS GAIN e-NERTIA