RAMA MAGANTI'S BLOG

Hugin - Panorama Sticher

2012-01-15T19:36:00.002Z

The great thing about Ubuntu (a Linux derivative, which is an Open Source Operating System) is it has got myriad of applications that are free and work exceptionally well. One of them is Hughin - Panorama Sticher. It is a great application which allows a person to create a panoramic view from a series of pictures taken in a panoramic sequence. Here is how the interface of the application looks like.

The interface is well laid out. It has got the Assistant window where one loads the images and thereafter creates a panaromic image in Tiff. It is easy to convert the Tiff file into Jpeg using another photo viewer application which I like very much, which is Shotwell.

There are other windows (like Images, Camera and Lens, Crop, Mask, Control Points, Optimiser, Exposure, Sticher, which allows a person to do specific changes to the output of the image file.

Here is a panoramic photograph I had taken today. Have a look at the quality of the image. This has been compressed from a Tiff file (70+ MB) to a Jpeg file (roughly 3.6 MB). You still wouldn't notice any loss of quality. The images were all taken using a iPhone 4S.

The link to the complete panoramic view with the original quality is here.

Welcome to the Open Source Community and Welcome to Ubuntu.

BTW, Hugin Panaromic Sticher is also available for Windows and Mac. However, the Windows version keeps crashing, which is not the case with the Ubuntu version. I will report the version on Mac shortly.

Would the RBI's move to deregulate interest rates on NRE/NRO deposits in RRBs really benefit the investors?

2012-01-12T07:26:00.001Z

RBI has issued a notification on 19th December 2011 saying that the RRBs (Regional Rural Banks) can fix the interest rates for NRE/NRO term deposits exceeding one year. Would it really benefit the investors? I don't think so. My reasons are, (1) These interest rates of 7 to 8% which the banks like ICICI, HDFC, etc.. are offering are only for Rupee accounts and not on FCNR (Foreign Currency Non Resident) accounts, which are still at 3 to 4%. This would mean that with a falling Rupee rate, there is no real benefit for term deposits lasting a year. It appears that RBI has tacitly conceded that the Rupee rate will fall further by atleast 4 to 5% in the next 12 months. Thus, for those who want to invest in Rupee accounts for a year and want to repatriate the funds back to their country of origin, they would be no appreciation in the value of investment. (2) If the investors choose to use the funds in Indian markets or spend in India, the high rate of inflation which is hovering around 9% would mean that the money in a year's time would have approximately the same value as the day it was invested. Unless the conditions within the Indian Economy change for the better, which would strengthen the Rupee I don't think investing in the Rupee accounts for higher interest rates makes real sense at all.

eBook readers and why everyone should have one?

2011-12-29T22:56:00.004Z

eBook readers and why everyone should have one is a very topical subject. eBook readers have come into vogue with the arrival of Amazon Kindle a few years back. Kindle is a nifty device which works on e-ink technology and so does other eBook readers like Nook, Sony, Kobo etc, which makes reading a pleasure. But would I subscribe to the overall experience of reading a book on a Kindle, is the big question?

I always like to use technology, which reduces the use of paper. Books and bills are one such means to reduce its use. I subscribe to getting all my bills electronically and I have started to read e-books instead of the conventional paper books. The downside of this method is one needs a computer with internet access to get the bills and access their books. Amazon has created a great framework, whereby one can access these books via a Kindle device (using Wi-Fi or 3G) or any other device like a computer, tablet or a mobile phone. This is smart thinking. The reason being one can read a book at any place provided the books are downloaded onto their device. I started to read books on a mobile device and a tablet since the middle of 2011. The first book I read completely from cover to cover was Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. I read this book on both the mobile phone and on a tablet and I found the experience very very revealing. I didn't have to carry a book with me all the time to read it. I read it wherever I chose to, at car parks whilst waiting for my children, at lunch breaks, at coffee breaks and wherever I found a spare moment. So far I finished reading four eBooks. Coming to the question of Kindle. There is always a feeling that reading eBooks does not give the same experience as one would get reading a conventional Book. I beg to disagree. Coming to the big question, whether Kindle or any other e-book reader gives one the experience that is different from reading on tablets with LCD or Pixel Qi display. I agree partially that the display on eInk readers is superior for reading books, but the interface with keys is very clumsy. I find that quite off putting. For example, the Kindle Keyboard which I had a chance to read is not the one I will choose to read books for the simple reason that I need to press a button to turn pages and the page changes with a flicker of the screen, which is not the same as reading on a touch based device. Kindle Touch might be the answer, but this device is not available in the UK.

So touch based eBooks is certainly the way people need to adopt to read books. It could in form of a eBook reader or a Tablet. This would save cutting of trees for the use of paper. This year alone there were 1 million + new titles published around the world. Translating this into number of trees that must have been brought down to make paper, your guess is as good as mine. The effect this has on the environment is just unmeasurable.

The following photograph depicts the display of text on three devices, Amazon Keyboard Kindle, iPhone and Adam tablet. The app on both the Adam tablet (Android) and iPhone (iOS) can be viewed on black background with white text or white background with black text.

Satellite Navigation

2011-12-28T16:01:00.001Z

Satellite navigation (SATNAV) for surface transport especially for cars has been around for many years now. My earliest use of electronic maps was about 6 years back. Back then, I was using HP IPaq handheld device for navigation. It had TomTom Route planner maps loaded for navigation. I used this device to navigate around UK, Netherlands and Portugal. My first true device for Satellite Navigation was Garmin Nuvi 270. The reason I bought this device was it had both Europe and US maps pre-loaded. The countries I navigated using this device were UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain (with some nervousness as the maps were outdated and many new roads just didn't exit, thanks to the drive by the European union to have roads across EU states to be of similar standard) and US. This device is fairly solid and gave very little aggro. I didn't have any major mis-routes so far.

In this post, I will try and present a test I ran using three devices whilst navigating from Birmingham to Aberdeen. Based on the success I had with Garmin Nuvi 270, I bought the Garmin app, touted as the best navigation app on iPhone. As people might have noticed, iPhone GPS in its current state is unusable with Google maps. Its lock on location is off by atleast a few tens of metres. But with Gamin app, the GPS worked like a treat.

Coming to my test, I used three devices, (1) Garmin Nuvi 270, (2) Garmin App on iPhone and (3) Google maps on ZTE Skate. Garmin Nuvi costed me a few hundred bucks a few years back, while the Garmin app costed me £34. The Google maps on ZTE Skate though was free.

As two of the three devices has a common provider, Garmin, the comparison is more between Garmin and Google Maps.

I was most impressed with the Garmin device. The Garmin display (even the old one) is very good and the battery drain rate is very reasonable. On full charge it would last atleast 4 hours of driving time. There are a few glitches with navigation routing and even the latest update of the maps missed a few fixed speed cameras in Birmingham. I am very certain that the latest devices by Garmin would be far more advanced than the one I am having and would make navigation more easier.

I was impressed with the Garmin app for iPhone. This app is a good middle solution as it would save one carrying a separate navigation device. However, this device stopped warning about speed cameras mid way through my journey. The routing by this app is very accurate. Furthermore, its prediction of the final time of arrival is fairly spot on. The battery drain rate was ok. A full charge would last me a couple of hours of driving. Not ideal but passable. One needs to carry a in-car charger to charge in case the battery runs out. For Garmin app, I need to buy an addon extra to get live traffic updates, which is not ideal.

I was also impressed with the free Google maps navigation software. The plus side of this software is it is free. Furthermore, it warned me about traffic hotspots via the 3G network. Its used more traditional and widely used routes. It failed to route me through less congested routes to avoid traffic. However, the battery drain rate was the highest on this device. It barely lasted more than a hour from full charge. The ZTE Skate was running the latest ICS ROM, which my son ported onto this device after painstaking hours of work. Android OS still needs to get its act together with regards to battery drain on its mobile devices.

My winner in this test is Garmin Nuvi 270 for obvious reasons, good display, accurate routing and long battery life. Here are photographs of the three of them side-by-side.

Chrome Webstore

2011-11-27T14:58:00.063Z

Google have taken another step closer to making their netbook operating system Chrome OS more main stream with Chrome Webstore. Screenshot of this Webstore looks like this.

It has twelve categories and each has its share of apps that are good. For example, I occasionally like to visit the Times of India Website. I really don't like the layout of the website as it seems drab and using the Web store app, I get something like this, which is neat and cool.

The potential I see is immense. It all depends on how Google wish to play this out. Though lot of the apps are currently only weblinks, Google could have apps per se stored on their Servers (in the Cloud) and people can access them by logging into their Google account the way it is done now. These apps need to be synced so that one doesn't need to install across multiple devices. These days tablets seem to have taken the place of netbooks for those who are looking for a portable handheld device that is not a laptop and at the same time has a smaller screen (sub 10"). Netbook market though nascent a few years back, was very buoyant. Every PC manufacture (except Apple) have dipped their hands in the netbook pie. It has however seen a dramatic decline in the last year or two mainly because of their weak processors and poor graphics display. People these days are turning towards tablets like iPad, XOOM, Transformer to take care of their internet browsing needs on the couch. There is still a market for powerful laptops (for more intensive tasks like programming) that are truly portable and it appears that Ultrabooks may be the answer. Having access to Chrome Webstore to these Ultrabooks is quite crucial because it saves crucial hard disk space (SSD) by not installing apps natively on the users machines. It is like having a laptop experience with added impetus from Cloud. We shall see what the future holds for this wonderful webstore.

Future of air travel as we know it today

2011-11-12T19:41:00.008Z

Introduction

Is the future of air travel as we know it today coming to an end? Are we going back to the ages where travelling across continents would take weeks, if not months? If we continue on the same track as we are at the moment (without any thought for the future), then it might as well happen. May not be tomorrow, or next week, or next year or even next decade. But it will eventually happen in 30 to 40 years time. Don't believe it. Read on...

Unpretty picture

Fossils fuels if used at the current rate (which will increase in the next decade or two) will eventually run out. The reserves that are easily accessible are slowly shrinking. It was during the last decade the World's oil production had peaked. Finding new reserves is not getting easier. Other forms like permafrost (Methane hydrates), oil sands, etc are not easy and cheap to lay our hands upon. Furthermore, development of energy renewables is not moving at a pace for people to take notice. It is not cheap either. Government grants and subsidies are still needed for the energy generated from renewables to compete with the energy from fossil fuels.

We have enough energy that comes from our Sun everyday that will support our entire planet's energy needs many times over. However, the current technologies are not mature enough in terms of cost and efficiency to tap the solar energy and store it in an efficient manner. There are companies in the US in the field of R&D and production for tapping and storing Solar power, declaring bankruptcy (about three in month of August 2011 even with help from the US government) which doesn't breed confidence. The reason for the failure of these companies may be manifold, but it is more to do with lack of human will to serve the humanity and make a difference to the lives of billions of humans on this planet. Short term greed taking precedence over long term benefit for the human civilisation.

If this was to continue, one day we would end up with no fossil fuels to fly our airplanes. Remember fossil fuels are not only used to fly airplanes, but also for all known transportation (leaving aside bicycles, carts or sledges pulled by animals, horses in the wild west and camels in the desert), both on land and sea (though there are nuclear submarines) and also for building everything that comes from plastic. Come to think about it. If we look around us, right from Mobile phones, TVs, Washing machines, Conventional Ovens, Microwave ovens, Coolers, Air Conditioners, Computers, Cars, Watches, there is plastic in each of them in some shape or form. The day the fossil fuels run out will probably bring an end to everything that we hold and use today. That includes air travel as we know it today.

Solution

Forms of energy like nuclear hasn't done itself any favours with the Fukushima disaster. Tidal and wind energy aren't doing too well either. These forms of energy are seasonal and not reliable like the solar energy.

The solution is, if one were to build solar farms in the sunniest parts of the planet, there is great reason to believe that one day our planet's entire energy needs could be met. This can be done if the governments around the world come together and invest in the project on a global scale. The huge tracts of waste land and deserts around the world can be used to build these farms. The most likely places would be parts of US, South America, Africa, Middle east, Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan and China, Far east and Australia. Some of the warmer countries in Europe like, Portugal, Spain, Italy, could also chip in. What would this mean? This would simply mean that all the energy needs for surface transportation, homes, offices, factories, industries could be met by Solar energy. For that cars need to become electric and so does other means of transport. There is no way a Solar powered aircraft could be built to fly passengers or for that matter any other form that is safe and reliable, at least in the foreseeable future.

Thus, fossil fuels starting from 2020 needs to rationed to be used exclusively for Air travel and for manufacturing of items needing plastics. This will keep use going atleast to the turn of the century if not more.

Future

Eventually fossil fuels will run out completely, how much ever we wish otherwise. That would mean that alternative forms of fuel needs to be identified to fly our airplanes and alternative materials to build items needing plastic. Certainly we can't go back to wood. We will have to hope that someone, someday will come up with a material that will replace plastic.

Unboxing of iPhone 4S and my first thoughts

2011-11-04T22:12:00.002Z

I pre-ordered iPhone 4S on 13th October online and it was delivered to me on 29th October. Here are a few unboxing photographs......

From the above pictures it is difficult to tell whether you are seeing an iPhone 4S or an iPhone 4. Even on the back of the device you find nothing. Look at the Settings/General/About and you will find the Model number as MD235B, which is indicative of iPhone 4S. To add to that there is Siri, though the hackers have now ported Siri onto iPhone 4 and 3GS.

My first observations are its screen dimension is same as that of an iPhone 3GS. The external chassis and the display (Retinal display) are the most recognisable changes and in addition there are two cameras, one at the front and the other at the rear. The rear also has a LED flash. The perimeter of the phone is surrounded by a brushed aluminium antenna strip. In my opinion it sticks out like a sore thumb especially on a Black iPhone. The rounded edges may have been a feature typical of Apple products, but on the iPhone 4 and 4S it doesn't create the wow feeling. Coming to the software, it comes preloaded with iOS 5 and Siri. iOS 5 is a great improvement from iOS 4. The way the notifications are displayed (a la Android) is a great improvement. Siri is quite good and it certainly provides the novelty factor. However, the same cannot be said with the battery life. Even my 2+ year old iPhone 3GS battery seem to last longer than the one on iPhone 4S. Apple need to come out with an algorithm, which conserves battery life when the resources needed to run an application are not very intensive.

For iPhone 5, IMO Jon Ive and his team needs to work out of their skin to create a design that has the wow effect. For a start the display size has to increase. Getting rid of the bezel and providing a display based home button would be a step in the right direction. The length of the phone is fine, but the breadth has to increase by atleast 5 mm. The thickness may need to reduce a smidgen.

For someone with iPhone 4, it would be a gutsy decision to upgrade to iPhone 4S, especially with Siri being ported onto it unofficially. The only plus features compared to iPhone 4 are its Dual Core Processor and a better Camera. The trade-off would be less battery life.

Oneiric Ocelot

2011-10-30T22:09:00.002Z

It has been a while since I felt writing about Ubuntu. I have been using Ubuntu (a Linux based OS) for more than 6 years now. Off late I was getting impatient with the way Ubuntu was shaping up. Things took a wrong turn in my opinion with the introduction of Unity 2D in Natty Narwhal. Unity hadn't matured sufficiently when Natty was put in place. This meant that Gnome which was the default UI for Ubuntu since its inception was sidelined. I really didn't understand the reason behind the decision. Gnome UI felt really slick and easy to use. With Oneiric, Unity has matured to a great extent and it feels lot more integrated, though I still feel there is room for improvement. For someone so used to the menu structure of Gnome, I felt a bit lost without the menus in the beginning. I am slowly coming to terms with the change.

Few changes that have taken place since Natty are;

(1) First and foremost, the login screen has changed. It has been made sauve, elegant and dated. It now really looks like an operating system login screen. I hope the guys at Canonical only make superfluous changes to the login screen in the future versions of Ubuntu.

(2) Synaptic has been replaced completely with the Ubuntu Software Centre. To install any application one needs to use USC, leaving aside the CLI. This in a way is a good change. The USC looked a bit out of place in the previous versions of Ubuntu. Now it looks very polished.

(3) Dash launcher for Unity has been modified, wherein the menus come up when an application is selected.

Furthermore, a feature similar to Windows Alt-Tab to switch between various applications has been provided.

(4) The Appearance menu has been reworked. It looks sophisticated. The menu of few others like System settings and Advanced settings and their icons have been reworked to give them a quality appeal.

I like the overall look and feel of Unity now. My desktop looks like this with the beautiful Snowdon mountains in the beautiful country of Wales. You might notice in the bottom the AWN launcher, I had for the past three years or so, which I still like even today:

Further thoughts on 26/11/2011:

I used Oneiric for about a month now. I find the Unity task bar on the left very very distracting, especially if I am running an application that requires access on the left side of the screen. It is good that Ubuntu team is thinking of ways to make it look distinctive from the other operating systems in the market. But this certainly is not the way to go. The AWN task bar in the above picture at the bottom of the screen appears like the best place to have a launcher/task bar. It may seem like a copy cat of Mac, but I would like to think that it is not the Mac folk the Ubuntu team would like to compete with, but the Windows folk.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 update

2011-02-26T09:21:00.000Z

Microsoft have come out with their Service Pack 1 update for Windows 7 on 22nd February. Here is a screenshot of what the update is about.

Ubuntu Tweak

2011-02-22T07:40:00.001Z

Ubuntu Tweak is an application to configure Ubuntu the easy way. Here is a screenshot of the welcome screen.

As you can see the screen contains five headings under which the tweaks can be done.

Applications
Startup
Desktop
Personal
System

A few things I like are, (a) under Applications you have the source editor, where you can edit the sources.list directly, (b) under Startup you have Login Settings where you can change the login theme. It is just a breeze using this app.

Overall, I would save Ubuntu Tweak is a very nifty application and I would recommend it to everyone.

NASA unveils first photographs from Comet Tempel 1 Flyby

2011-02-15T20:07:00.003Z

NASA unveiled the first photos from Comet Tempel 1 flyby on 2011 Valentine's day by Stardust-NExT mission. Tempel1 was first visited back in 2005 during Deep impact mission, where a space probe was crashed into Tempel1 to basically study its composition, which as per NASA's stated mission objective was "To study the pristine interior of a comet by excavating a crater more than 25 m deep and 100 m in diameter". The following flyer gives an insight into what the previous mission was about.

Comet Tempel1 orbits the sun once every 5-1/2 years. The objective of this mission is to study the changes in Comet's exterior since the last impact in 2005.

The photo below shows Tempel1 during the recent flyby courtesy NASA.

Notion Ink adam buyers home videos

2011-01-29T14:52:00.032Z

Updated on 9th February 2011.

Why this post? It is pretty simple. I wrote about Notion Ink's adam a few days back. adam has reached some of the buyers who pre-ordered in December 2010. The buyers have put together their initial experience with adam on home videos. A few of the tech bloggers have posted professional videos too. My intention is to rank the videos based on their presentation content and relevance. This is my personal ranking, thus, it is ok if you feel that there is a better video out there and I respect that. I didn't go by the number of views, which YouTube ranks.

Here is my personal ranking (Top Ten):

Adam videos (With Eden UI):

1. Déballage de la tablette Notion Ink Adam (FrAndroid) - Partie 2 by Animatrix30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJp96PV9QDc

2. Games with the Notion Ink Adam by Animatrix30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeaXTY_w4r0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=597On89k4iU

3. Notion Ink Adam Review - Goodereader by goodereader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SXsYmimvkk

4. Notion Ink Adam Tips and Tricks by goodereader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwmnmcOkM_U

5. Notion Ink Adam Apps Review by goodereader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLcb1WXvc9Y

6. Test of the edges of the screen (Notion Ink Adam) by Animatrix30:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1R3IWfu57w

7. Notion Ink Adam Tablet by gowthamjavaregowda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UU-xqrVhzo

8. pdf on Notion Ink Adam (with Screen Protector) by kawajicast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1M43zaSY3Y

9. Angry birds on Notion Ink Adam by ganeshpr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpeZc5rbVXs

10. Dungeon Defenders with Notion Ink Adam by Animatrix30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABCDgKPm9XI

Adam videos (Without Eden UI)

1. Notion Ink Adam with ADWLauncher by Inspiron41

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej9aIXNgBxM

2. Rooted Notion Ink Adam by Freezerbite1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rrP4K2X0V0

3. Notion Ink Adam - Rooted with Android Market by Inspiron41

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4FyhHN4Dlg

4.Notion Ink Adam - Landscape, Kongregate, hdmi and quickoffice by Inspiron41

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_0rzQs1JBw

5. Notion Ink Adam applications in Action (3X speed) by Inspiron41

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6fOvTPVJps

Adam videos (special)

These videos are from the buyer of adam who received it first on the planet, Shane Trafford.

1. Notion Ink Adam by shanetrafford

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbAtgrO01S4

2. Notion Ink Adam Gaming by shanetrafford

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW7PejA8l94

These videos are from the biggest Notion Ink adam supporter, Greg. The quality is as professional as it can get.

1. Notion Ink Adam Review Part 1 of 2 by NotionInkFan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdtbI0LPBeo&feature=player_detailpage

2. Notion Ink Adam Review Part 2 of 2 by NotionInkFan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DCT_r3xa7Xo

Adam videos (comparison with other devices)

1.Notion Ink Adam Viewing angles and e-ink by Inspiron41

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vh-lqKXU_c

2. Notion Ink Vs Galaxy Tab by gowthamjavaregowda

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-upg6ROY8zI

3. Notion Ink in the Sun compared to the Kindle and Pandigital Novel by goodereader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ZYhKAFEXg

Unboxing videos:

1. Greg's Notion Ink Adam Unboxing Part 1 by Notioninkfan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KlJ6Om_z-I&feature=related

There are lot more unboxing videos out there. Greg did a comprehensive unboxing presentation and I didn't feel the need to rank the others. They all pretty much rank the same.

Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Appearance

2011-01-17T18:38:00.001Z

Here is how Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) appears on my desktop PC.

The dock bar at the bottom is achieved using Awn, whilst the theme used is New Wave. I like the dock bar so much that I haven't changed the appearance of Ubuntu for some time now, except for the background.

Solution to iPhone not being recognised in Ubuntu after upgrade to iOS 4.2.1

2011-01-15T20:47:00.002Z

I was unable to connect my iPhone on Ubuntu 10.10 (also known as Maverick Meerkat) following the upgrade to iOS 4.2.1. I tried numerous solutions and none of them worked. I finally succeeded with some help from this post.

Here is how to do it. Run the following commands in Terminal....

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pmcenery/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Notion Ink adam

2011-01-15T20:36:00.005Z

I have followed Notion Ink adam's progress for the past year or so. adam is an electronic tablet or slate, which runs on an User Interface (UI) named Eden overlaid onto the latest Android OS (a mobile operating platform). Three years in the making, adam is ready for official release. The pre-order phase (open for a week) ended in late 2010. Notion Ink created waves during CES 2011 and adam received rave reviews by the tech bloggers. A few selected links of the tech blogger's hands-on videos:

Engadget "Notion Ink adam hands-on preview (Video)" by Joanna Stern
Slashgear "Notion Ink adam hands-on at CES 2011" by Chris Davies
Crunchgear "Our hands-on with Notion Ink adam tablet" by John Biggs
I4U "Notion Ink's Adam is for Real. I even got to play with it" by Robert Evans

There are few web blogs run by the fans of Notion Ink adam. These are;

If you are interested to know more about adam's workings, there are a lot of videos on this official Notion Ink's Youtube Channel. The young CEO (aged just 25) of Notion Ink, Rohan Shravan, runs the company's official blog, which has a wide following amongst the Notion Ink fans. The blog managed 5 million hits so far, since its inception in April 2009, the highest being on 9th December 2010 (the day of the first pre-order), when it reached a peak of 310,000 hits.

The orders are likely to be open shortly and for those who are looking for a new electronic tablet/slate, which is competitively priced and has got all the features one expects on a tablet, look no further.

Here is the promo video of adam....

Adam Promo from Notion Ink on Vimeo.

Frustation with a non-jailbreak iPhone

2010-11-27T17:39:00.000Z

I upgraded my iPhone 3GS to iOS 4.2.1 following the day it was released last week. In my previous post, I mentioned how I jailbroke the iPhone 3GS and what my opinion was about the whole jailbreak process. During the few months of using the jailbroken iPhone, I found the whole experience lot positive than expected, contrary to what I wrote in my last post. Most importantly, Cydia worked seamlessly without a hitch. I also found a few apps that weren't on the native iPhone Appstore that were very good. One of them is TVOut. TVOut is an app that allows anything on the iPhone to be displayed onto a TV screen via a component cable. It just needn't be the videos on Youtube or the photographs/videos on your iPhone.

I personally feel TVOut app needs to make its way onto the Appstore. Period. I don't mind if it is a paid app. I would gladly pay to use it. TVOut gave me the freedom to connect my iPhone to a TV and watch the output from apps like TVU player, Skyfire and MXTube to name a few.

With the upgrade to iOS 4.2.1, I lost the jailbreak apps and with it the option to connect the iPhone to a TV. It is one of those frustations I need to endure with a non-jailbreak iPhone.

To Jailbreak iPhone or not to?

2010-08-21T20:06:00.001+01:00

This thought went through my mind many a times since June this year, when my iPhone 3GS's 1 year warranty expired. My son has a iPod Touch, which he jailbroke (still within its 1 year warranty period), for reasons only a teenager can understand. One thing that caught my eye was he could change the themes on the iPod Touch. He was also excited that flash could be played on iPod. As the internet has a lot of content using flash, I thought maybe the time has come to jailbreak my iPhone.

Using the Jailbreakme website is probably the easiest way to jailbreak an iPhone. The experience of jailbreak process itself is virtually painless. However, be warned that a jailbroken iPhone may not be beneficial for those who use their iPhone for nothing more than checking e-mails, browsing internet, playing games, listening to the iPod or taking occasional pictures or videos.

My experience of using a jailbroken iPhone is not very positive. Though changing themes is a doodle, but getting flash (or frash) to work on iPhone is still a hit or a miss. Most of the apps on Cydia and Rock are paid, thus, I don't see a compelling reason for jailbreaking. My personal feeling is people jailbreak their iPhone/iPods for kicks and probably, it gives them the sense of freedom to try stuff that one might not be able to do with the unjailbroken iPhone.

Ubuntu no longer endearing !!!

2010-06-07T17:19:00.004+01:00

I have been using Ubuntu (Debian based Operating System) for the past five years or so. In the past, I had problems with things like Audio not working, finding drivers for the hardware, etc. and inevitably the solution was just a click away. Ubuntu forums provide workable solutions for most problems and they probably are the reason behind why this particular variant of Linux Operating System is very successful and appealing to a user like me. Based on my experience with Ubuntu in the past, I introduced my two children to Ubuntu. However, off-late things haven’t been smooth sailing at all with Ubuntu.

The first problem cropped with the wi-fi card on my HTPC. When I built my HTPC (mini PC), I wasn’t successful in getting the wi-fi card (model VIA VT6656) to work on Ubuntu. I tried various solutions and had to ultimately give up. I am now using a D-Link wi-fi adapter. My second major problem cropped up following the installation of Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS). The HDMI audio has stopped working following the recent Kernel Upgrade. Like in the past, I tried various solutions from the Ubuntu Forums to no avail. I even did a clean install of the operating system and the audio doesn’t work. Now comes the question, why should a basic feature like an audio (which is quintessential to any operating system), fail after an Operating System upgrade. Though Ubuntu Lucid Lynx works well on my other computers, the problems I am facing on my HTPC are making me give a serious look at whether to continue using Ubuntu or not.

Upgrading from Ubuntu's Karmic Koala to Lucid Lynx on MacBook

2010-05-17T20:10:00.002+01:00

I had Ubuntu's Karmic Koala installed as a triple boot option on my MacBook. Following the release of Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS), I promptly upgraded using the Alternate Install CD. Though the upgrade was fairly smooth there were a few glitches. The things that didn't work out of the box were Awn (Avant Window Navigator), Screenlets and wicd. To make Awn work, I had to enable the Compiz Visual Effects, which was set to None by default. For this you have to go to System>Preferences>Appearance and then to go to Visual Effects and switch to Normal or Extra. For Screenlets to work I had to reinstall them. In case of wicd, it was a simple case of uninstalling the default Gnome Network Manager and installing wicd.

Here is a screenshot of Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx on MacBook in all its glory....

Ultimate Video Converter

2010-03-24T07:29:00.005Z

The proverb "Necessity is the mother of invention", is quite apt for what I intend to write about in this post.

My son has a Sansa E200 MP3 player, which can play only a few restricted video formats. There are multitude of video converters on the internet. The only downside is most of the good ones aren't FREE.

He is learning Visual Basic Programming and he thought why not write a program using Visual Basic to build a Video Converter that best suits his needs. So he diligently wrote a program titled "Ultimate Video Converter", which converts videos from the most common file formats like avi, mp4, wmv, divx to a compatible file format usable by both portable and PC/laptop based multimedia players. The results of this personal project are quite commendable. Here is the link to his Ultimate Video Converter home page (Click Here) on Sourceforge. His effort has been commended by Softpedia and his program now finds a place on their Website.

From a personal perspective, I did a bit of testing, wherein I converted a High Definition wmv file to mp4 file to play on my iPhone and was impressed with the results. There is absolutely no noticeable difference in quality in the two file formats. As Steve Jobs said in his presentation whilst unveiling the iPad, "It just works".

Any suggestions on improving the program are most welcome, which I will pass on to my son.

Here is a video of the program "Ultimate Video Converter" in operation.

How to build a mini PC?

2010-03-14T22:06:00.337Z

For the past month or two, I spent on planning and building my first Mini PC. It wasn’t smooth sailing by any means, though the only hiccup I had was to do with the motherboard, which needed replacement because of graphics artefacts.

At home, we have a desktop PC, an old laptop and a MacBook. Two questions might immediately come to one's mind. Why do I need a Mini PC and what are the reasons behind wanting to build one? Here is why?

I needed a PC in my living room for the simple reason that there is so much multimedia content on the internet (like movies, Youtube, BBC iPlayer, Hulu ...), which are better off watching on a larger screen in the comfort of a sofa, rather than watching on a desktop PC or even a laptop. Spending hours in front of a PC to watch movies doesn’t sound appealing, especially if it involves an entire family wanting to watch the same movie. Furthermore, I needed a device to record digital TV programs which could be edited and used for personal use. Though Sky+ is an alternative in the UK, it is not easy to transfer the recordings onto a PC.

Next comes the question, why build one? I initially was tempted to buy a Acer Revo R3610. It was costing around £250. However, reading buyers views, it became apparent that this machine with its small foot print wouldn't be able to deliver the graphics capability I was looking for. Furthermore, I wanted a device with a DVD-RW to play and record media content. I looked at few other alternatives and the one which caught my eye was Dell Zino HD. Though Dell Zino HD's spec looked great, its processor capability was below par. The buyers views weren't positive either. Even if I were to overlook its shortcomings, the device would cost a cool £530.

As it costs upward of £500 for a half decent mini PC, I thought I may as well build something that was more powerful, but cheaper. I looked around on the internet and found mini-itx.com online store, which was selling various components needed to build a mini PC. It also gave suggestions on aspects like which cases would fit a particular mini-itx motherboard, etc,. Gleaning through the website, I found Zotac GF9300 I-E LGA 775 motherboard, which I felt was the perfect choice for building a mini PC, especially with its capability to deliver high-definition video playback. Here is a picture of the Motherboard, courtesy Zotac Website.

Taking further cues from the mini-itx website, I homed in on the following components for my mini PC:

Component

Component Model

Manufacturer's Website

Seller

Mini-ITX Case

Jou Jye NU-528i-B Mini-ITX Chassis

220W

www.jj-computer.com

mini-itx

Motherboard

Zotac GeForce® 9300-ITX WiFi

pden.zotac.com

CCL Computers

Processor

Intel Q8300 Core2 Quad

ark.intel.com

Amazon UK

Memory

Crucial 2GB DDR2 800 PC6400 SDRAM

for Socket LGA775 Boards

www.crucial.com/uk

BT Shop

Hard Drive

Seagate Momentus

500GB SATA 8mb Cache 2.5 inch Internal Hard Drive

www.seagate.com/www/en-gb

Amazon UK

DVD-RW

Optiarc (Sony/NEC) 8x Slimline Black

Bare DVD-RW

www.sony-optiarc.eu

BT Shop

Keyboard and Mouse

Keysonic ACK-540RF Wireless Mini Keyboard with Built in Touchpad

www.keysonic.de

BT Shop

Cable for DVD-RW

SATA / Serial ATA Combo Power Data

Cable

Amazon UK

It costed me approximately £490 to source the components. Let me remind that the above cost is minus the operating system. If one were to go with a free operating system like Linux, then that is the price one would have to shelve out to build a mini-ITX PC with above build. The above build is as good as one could expect in the small foot print of a mini-ITX with a LGA775 board.

Now let's come to the actual build process itself.

Order the components as suggested above. It is likely that you could source the components from just one seller like Scan Computers, to optimize the price.

Things you need:

A mini Screwdriver set (non magnetic type)
Anti-static wrist strap
Clean rubber gloves

The steps for building the mini PC are:

Step 1:

Find a large enough desk with plenty of room around it to build the mini-ITX PC. Ensure that there is sufficient light over the table. Put on your Anti-static wrist strap.

Step 2:

Prepare the case. Jou-Jye website contains instructions for Standard Assembly which are quite useful on how to prepare the case. Ensure that all the components in the case, except the in-built PSU are removed. This includes the I/O plate at the back and the front panel cover. Put the I/O plate supplied by the motherboard in the case. Place the case aside for the moment.

Step 3:

Take out the Zotac Motherboard and place it on the Anti Static bag it comes with. Now take out the Intel Processor from its box and by following the instructions on the Intel website place it on the motherboard in its designated location. Take care not to touch the gold contacts on the bottom side. Retain the protective covering from the load plate, in case you need to take the processor out in the future. Screw the Wifi card onto the motherboard.

Step 4:

Place the Zotac Motherboard into the case and screw it. Jou Jye case is quite a compact case and could take some dexterity to place the motherboard. Punch holes on the I/O Plate need to be removed to enable the Wifi kit to fit in. Once in place, screw in the Wifi aerial.

Step 5:

Following the instructions on the Intel website mentioned above in Step 3 and place the fan onto the processor. Take care to place the fan in a manner that the plastic tab holding the power cable doesn't face the GPU cooler. The experience from other users is, this may lead to heating of the plastic tab causing abnormal rise in the GPU temperature.

Placing the fan correctly is the second most important step (after placing the processor) in the process of building a mini PC. Improper alignment of the fan could lead to rapid increase in processor temperatures, which could eventually cause failure. Once the fan is slotted in twist and turn to see whether the fan is secured properly. If properly secured, it is possible to remove and place the motherboard with the fan, in case any problem arises in the future.

Step 6:

Slot in the Memory module onto the motherboard, taking care not to force it in. The retainer clips will give a click sound once it is slotted in properly.

Step 7:

Screw the Slimline DVD-RW and Hard Drive onto the support plates, using the Standard Assembly instructions mentioned in Step 2. Do not screw them just yet onto the case.

Step 8:

Now connect the power connectors to the motherboard. This includes the 20+4 ATX power connector to supply power to the motherboard, 4 pin ATX 12V Power connector to supply power to the processor and the CPU fan connector to supply power to the fan. Also connect the Wifi card to the USB connector. Following the instructions in the Zotac manual to make connections to the Front Panel header. This includes, Power switch, Power LED, HDD LED and Speaker header. Also connect the AC97 front audio header.

Step 9:

You are now almost on the home stretch. Connect the SATA/Serial ATA Combo Power Data Cable Molex end to the Molex connector. Connect the SATA end of the cable to the 2nd SATA connector, leaving the first one for the Hard Drive. Using the SATA cable provided with the Motherboard connect one end to the 1st SATA connector. Place the plate for supporting the DVD-RW and Hard Drive. Now slowly place the DVD-RW and Hard Drive Support Plate into the Case. Screw them securely.

Step 10:

Connect the other end of SATA connector of the 1st SATA into the Hard Drive. Next connect the power supply to the Hard Disk. Also connect the Combo Power Data Cable into the DVD-RW. It is advisable to remove the front panel of the Slimline DVD-RW while putting in the case. Once the whole thing is in place, put the top cover of the case and screw it. Put the front panel for the Slimline DVD-RW. Finally, place the front panel for the case. You are now ready to power the mini PC.

If things are followed as per the instructions above, you will once powered and connected to the LCD TV via a HDMI cable, you will see the ZOTAC POST. Enter the BIOS settings and change the Boot order to let the DVD-RW to be the primary Boot device. Save and exit.

You PC is now ready for OS installation.

I am really happy with this build of the mini PC. At the end of it all it gives immense satisfaction to see the thing work like a treat.

Here are a few pictures of the completely Assembled system.

The Windows Experience Index of the system in Windows 7 is 4.6, which is quite creditable for a mini PC.

The temperatures of the CPU and the GPU are as follows:

The chart shows that the temperatures are quite ok, indicating that the air flow through the case is good.

Lessons Learnt:
How much ever planning you do, there will still be something unexpected that could happen. The motherboard I got was faulty. When I tried to install the operating system (Windows 7 and Ubuntu Karmic), the graphics froze on more than a few occasions. I spent atleast a week troubleshooting. My two children, who were keenly following the progress of the build process were on the verge of giving up the whole thing. The various forums I went onto were of little help. Ultimately, Zotac support informed that the problem could be due to graphics artefacts. I sent back the Motherboard to CCL computers, who promptly replaced it with a new motherboard, which, touchwood is still working.

One thing that came up on the forums was 220W PSU may not be sufficient. Though Intel Q8300 Core2 Quad processor power consumption is a touch on the higher side, I can now say for sure that 220W is more than adequate for a similar build mini PC.

While reinstalling the processor and the fan, it is likely that the thermal interface material (TIM) on the bottom of the fan would be inadequate for a second use. I called up Intel support to get the thermal interface material for free. I followed the instructions on the Intel website on how to clean the existing TIM and reapply it.

Do we need Surge Protection for Computers?

2010-01-01T18:54:00.002Z

Couple of weeks back the unthinkable happened. Whilst my son was working on the Desktop PC, there was a power surge and the hard disk electronics got fried, essentially rendering the hard disk unusable (unless you have the money and time to recover the data). Luckily, I backed up the two resident Windows operating systems (XP and 7) on the disk a day before, which made the task of reinstating them a bit easier. But I lost the music files stored on another partition, which I didn't backup.

Now comes the question, do we need Surge Protection for Computers? I didn't think about this question until I lost the hard disk. I also discovered that it is not cheap to recover data from a failed hard disk, especially if it is to do with its electronics. The cost would run into hundreds of pounds (in excess of £400).

A typical Belkin Surge Protector costs upward of £20. I recommend anyone with a desktop computer to invest in a Surge Protector, as it would save the agony of replacing a hard disk (which costs about £60 for 1 TB and £85 for 1.5 TB) if one doesn't have the habit of backing up their hard disk regularly and there is power surge (a rare occurence, in countries like UK).

As fate had it that day, I only lost a hard disk. It could have been lot worse.

Now comes the next question, do we need to backup our hard disks regularly? I would say atleast a monthly backup (if not weekly backup) is an absolute must, if one does not want to loose their life time work stored on their computers.

Chrome OS: A Glorified Chrome Web browser!

2009-11-21T19:43:00.006Z

The Developer Build of Chrome OS (0.4.22.8) is out. I downloaded it from the gdgt website and installed within my Ubuntu Operating System. The downside is you need to register to download the OS. Another downside is one can only use it as a virtual OS, using a virtualization software like VirtualBox or VMware. The first one is free while the second one isn't.

Coming to the installation itself, TechCrunch website one of the first to write about the operating system installation, gives a detailed walkthrough on how to install Chrome OS using VirtualBox. Having used VirtualBox extensively to run Windows Operating Systems on Linux (Ubuntu) in the past, I felt the installation process was a bit easier.

Initially, I downloaded the VirtualBox version (zipped vdi file) and wasn't successful in running it. Taking a cue from other users experience (on the internet), I downloaded the VMware version (zipped vmdk file) and mounted it in VirtualBox.

I also didn't get the network to work on my desktop PC, which prevented me from logging on. So I logged in using the following - Login: chronos and Password : blank (not a word).

To get internet connection, I did as per the following screenshot in the VirtualBox Settings for Chrome OS.

First impressions are, it looks like a Glorified Chrome Web Browser. The UI (User Interface) we are so used to seeing is virtually not existent. The screenshot below will tell you exactly what I mean. This is the only screen you get. You may use the other tabs for browsing.

Looking ahead into the future, going by Google's track record, it might take a year or even more before the Public Beta version is released. Remember! it took Google Mail approximately three years to transition from Public Beta to an End User Version and it is more than a year since the Windows version of Chrome Web Browser is released and there is no sign of Mac or Linux version yet (though developer versions for Mac and Linux exist in the background).

Final thoughts are, Chrome OS will remain as it is now, by which I mean the UI (user interface) will be minimalist. It will be totally web-based and Google might rely on the advances in Cloud Computing to propel the OS to the forefront (OS of choice). It is likely that traditional software based computers we see and use today might eventually become redundant.

Network Manager or wicd?

2009-11-19T07:44:00.001Z

Of late I have had problems with my wireless network connection on Ubuntu (mainly on my desktop installation). This problem first cropped up probably after upgrading to Jaunty from Intrepid. In those days I had Philips SNU-5600 adapter, which needed to be unplugged and replugged after start-up for the Network Manager to detect it. I was expecting that things would improve in Karmic, but the problem remained unresolved. Furthermore, my trusted adapter due to frequent unplugging/replugging finally broke down.

I bought a Netgear WN111, with the Wireless N technology, which put me back by about 50 quid. When I bought WN111, I wasn't sure whether Ubuntu Karmic had the necessary drivers to detect it. I was pleasantly surprised when Network Manager detected it. However, a new problem started to crop up. Though the wireless network connectivity gets established after start-up, the connection drops out after a few minutes. This went on for a week or so. I tried installing wicd with little success. It seemed like wicd wasn't detecting WN111 at all. I wondered whether some settings in the Network Manager were causing it to drop connection . I also looked for help around on the internet but to no avail.

Last night, I uninstalled Network Manager and used my live CD to download the wicd debian package from Ubuntu Package Download area. Incidentally, the connection dropped out on Live CD as well.

I logged back into my Ubuntu Karmic installation on the desktop and installed wicd. Bingo! it worked.

Now comes the question, Network Manager or wicd? My vote would go to wicd. The interface of wicd is much better than the default Network Manager. It has the ability to connect to both wired (No PPPoE/DSL support) and wireless networks. If I need to connect using an ADSL modem for whatever reason, tough luck!

Triple Boot MacBook (Mac OSX 10.6, Windows 7 & and Ubuntu 9.10)

2009-11-12T22:56:00.090Z

When I bought my MacBook last year, my intention was to use it to Triple boot either Mac OSX, Windows or Linux. As you might know, this is only possible on a Mac system, because, no other hardware can run Mac OSX except a Mac.

This is how I managed to get the three operating systems onto one machine.The three operating systems I wanted were; Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard), Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala).

The things you need are;

(1) Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Installation DVD

(2) Windows 7 Installation DVD

(3) Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) iso image burnt onto a CD-ROM. I will tell you later on how to download and burn the iso image onto a CD-ROM.

First things first. You need Bootcamp to install Windows. The guide on Apple's website gives an exhaustive account on how to use Bootcamp to install Windows Vista. You could use the same guide to install Windows 7. The website Simple Help also gives a decent walkthrough on how to install Windows 7 using Bootcamp. So I will skip this part. A thing to note is the installation will go through a couple of restarts. Do not press any key during restarts. Once the installation is completed, eject the Windows 7 installation DVD. On some occasions, you may not be able to eject the Windows 7 installation DVD. Do not panic, just restart and press Alt key (Option key) and enter into Mac OSX to eject the DVD. Alternatively, press the eject key during start-up to eject the DVD.

Now comes the part of installing the necessary drivers for Windows 7. The Mac OSX installation DVD contains the drivers for Windows Vista, which work perfectly well for Windows 7. Installing the drivers will enable you to get the following Mac components working;

Graphics
Networking
Audio
AirPort wireless connectivity
Bluetooth
Built-in iSight camera
Brightness control for built-in displays

You now have a Mac with a Dual boot option.

Coming to the next question, how to install Ubuntu 9.10. Bootcamp will only permit you to install only one operating system (mainly Windows). It took me a while to figure this one out. There are no easy posts on the internet on how to do it. This is how...

For this you need to login to Mac OSX and follow these Steps.

Step 1: Go to Disk Utility under Utilities. You will get a screen like this...

You might have noticed that the size of my Windows 7 partition is only 40 GB. I don't use Windows 7 that often on my MacBook, hence I chose to limit it to 40 GB.

Step 2: Press on the Mac volume and Go to the Partition tab and adjust its size. I chose to reduce it by approximately 40 GB.

Step 3: Press Apply and you will find the new Partition named Mac 2.

Step 4: Rename the partition as Ubuntu and set the format type to FAT32 and press Apply.

You will now have a new partition Ubuntu formatted to FAT32 file system.

Step 5: Whilst still on Mac OSX, it is now time to download rEFIt as Mac OSX only detects Windows during startup. rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI based systems like Intel Macs. It has a graphical boot menu, which detects all operating systems (including Linux and Windows) loaded on an internal hard disk. Once downloaded leave it on the system. We will come back to it later.

Step 6: Now is the time to download Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) iso image file (32 bit). After downloading it burn it onto a CD-R. This is how to do it.

Open Disk Utility. It's in the Utilities folder (/Applications/Utilities).
Go to File menu and click Open Disk Image and then choose the downloaded iso image file.
Insert a blank CD-R and click Burn. Follow the prompts thereafter.
Once the burning is complete, leave the CD as it is.
Restart Mac.

Step 7: When the Mac starts to power up click the Option Key (Alt Key) and hold it. Mac OSX and Windows discs will be displayed via the Mac Bootloader. Continue holding the Alt key until the CD-R is displayed. Incidentally the CD-R will be titled Windows. It is normal that all the non-Mac discs are named Windows in Mac OSX. Once the CD-R is displayed click on it. The Ubuntu CD-R will start to load.

Step 8: The first screen will display five options. Choose the Install Ubuntu option.

Step 9: Thereafter you will be led through a series of screens with some straight forward options, first is Language, second is Where are You? (to set your Time Zone) and the third is Keyboard Layout. Under Keyboard Layout choose the Keyboard that has got Macintosh (for example: United Kingdom - Macintosh).

Step 10: Now comes the most important step in the installation process, which is to Prepare Disk Space. Choose the Manual Option. You will be presented with four partitions.

Ignore the following partitions; (1) First fat32 partition (likely to be /dev/sda1) that has got Windows MBR (2) hfs+ partition (likely to be /dev/sda2) that has got Mac OSX and (3) ntfs partition (likely to be /dev/sda4) that has got Windows 7. Choose the second fat32 partition (likely to be /dev/sda3) which matches the size created using the Mac's Disk Utility in Step 4.

Step 11: Press Add. Under the screen New Partition you will be given the following choices ;
(1) Type for the new partition select Primary
(2) New Partition Size. Give a partition size that will leave about 1 GB space for the Swap partition.
(3) Location for the new partition. Select Beginning.
(4) Use as to set the file system. Choose Ext4 journaling file system.
(5) Mount point set to /.

Step 12: Select the next partition /dev/sda5 to set the Swap partition. Press Add. Under the screen New Partition you will be given the following choices ;
(1) Type for the new partition select Primary
(2) New Partition Size. Give a partition size of 1 GB space for the Swap partition.
(3) Location for the new partition. Select Beginning.
(4) Use as to set the file system. Choose Swap.

Press Forward to apply the partitioning changes.

Step 13: Next screen will be Who are you? to set up your login details. Enter the details and Press Forward.

Step 14: You will get the screen Ready to Install. In this screen press the Advanced tab and select Install Boot Loader to /dev/sda4 (likely location of your Ubuntu installation). Do not select (hd0). This will overwrite the Windows 7 MBR. If so refer to my earlier post on how to repair Windows 7 MBR.

Come out of the Advanced screen and press Install.

If the steps are followed as suggested you will have Ubuntu 9.10 installed on your Mac.

Step 15: Now is the time to get back into Mac OSX. Go to the location where rEFIt was downloaded and install the software onto Mac OSX installation volume. Once the installation is complete, rEFIt will load on startup. The second icon is your Ubuntu 9.10 installation.

Here is the screenshot of Ubuntu on Mac. Isn't it amazing?

This is how the Mac Disk Utility will look after Ubuntu installation.

One final point of note. Ubuntu's Network Manager might not detect the wireless card on MacBook. To get wireless internet access, I used an USB wireless adapter (Philips SNU5600), which the Network Manager detected. To resolve the problem I installed Wicd via Synaptic, which detects the MacBook wireless card. Though Wicd detected MacBook's wireless card, it didn't detect Netgear WN111 connected to my Desktop computer. I will write about Wicd's problems in another post.

POST UPDATE ON 01/01/2010:

I also advise you to visit the following webpage (Thanks to Sean):

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook

to get help on the latest Linux drivers required for Ubuntu to work effectively on a MacBook.

Mac OSX Updates

2009-11-12T20:29:00.002Z

Yesterday there were a sleuth of updates/patches issued from Apple and Microsoft. The Mac OSX patch covered 58 security vulnerabilities. A screenshot of what the Mac OSX update actually displayed on screen.

There is more to it than what Apple wants us to see and believe. The other day I read an article on the internet saying that the Mac OSX Snow Leopard (costing £25) was a great value for money upgrade compared to Windows 7 (costing upward of £78). I felt that was hilarious. When I upgraded to Snow Leopard, I hardly noticed any difference. I had to double check "About this Mac" to confirm that Snow Leopard was indeed installed. The changes were more beneath the surface. I certainly felt that it was a wasted upgrade. Comparing that to Windows 7, it is a major upgrade for the Windows XP users and maybe not so much for the Vista users. Before upgrading to Windows 7, my PC was very sluggish. It used to take ages to boot up and applications in general were very slow to loadup. Things have certainly changed with Windows 7. All my computers seem very slick and fast, including my aging Dell Inspiron 8200 notebook.

Repair MBR for Windows 7 installed on MacBook

2009-11-03T18:26:00.005Z

A couple of days back, I installed Ubuntu Karmic (Ubuntu 9.10) on my MacBook to give me a triple OS boot option (which I will write about in another post). My MacBook also had Windows 7 Home Premium Edition installed previously. During the installation, I selected Ubuntu to write the Grub onto a separately created partition (formatted to FAT32) under the Advanced Installation option. Following the installation, I found that the Windows 7 MBR (Master Boot Record) was overwritten by GRUB (Grand Unified Boot Loader). As a result I got a message "Missing Operating System" when I started Windows 7. This is how to get it back.

(Caution: This tutorial is only for restoring MBR on Windows 7. Do not use this tutorial if you are unsure for whatever reason).

Step 1: Insert the original Windows 7 DVD. (For Mac users, press the Alt (or Option) Key and hold until you see the DVD symbol and choose it).

Step 2: Choose the suitable Language, Time and Keyboard.

Step 3: Press Next and choose the option Repair your Computer. Do not press Install Now.

Step 4: Select the Windows 7 Installation and press Next.

Step 5: You will be presented with five options; (1) Startup Repair, (2) System Restore, (3) Windows Complete PC Restore, (4) Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool and (5) Command Prompt. Select the fifth option.

Step 6: You will end up at something like this X:\>Sources. Get set to enter some DOS commands.

Step 7: Type the command "cd.." (without quotes). This will take you to the root directory X:\>.

Step 8: Type the command "cd boot" (without quotes). This will take you to the boot directory, which should look like this X:\>boot.

Step 9: Type the final command "bootsect /nt60 C:" (once again without quotes). This would have restored your MBR to its previous state.

Step 10: Eject the DVD and press Ctrl-Alt-Del for PC users. For Mac users do a Hard Reset (by pressing power button and holding it until it shuts down).

Your MBR would have been restored. I did this on a MacBook and it worked.

Solution for GRUB 2 to detect Windows 7 in Ubuntu Karmic Koala

2009-10-30T20:11:00.004Z

Last night, I installed Ubuntu's latest offering Ubuntu 9.10 also known as Karmic Koala on a partitioned hard drive. Following the installation, GRUB2 did not detect Windows 7, which was on an other partition. I figured out the way to get it.

Step 1: Login to Recovery Mode of the Ubuntu 9.10 Kernel.

Step 2: Once the Recovery mode screen is displayed, look for the option Update GRUB. Click on it.

Step 3: GRUB will detect all the installations including Windows 7 on another partitions.

Step 4: Restart and you will find Windows 7 in the GRUB Boot Loader.

Microsoft Security Essentials

2009-10-25T19:22:00.016Z

I installed Microsoft Security Essentials as a second AntiVirus (AV) software on all my computers running Windows. It is a relief to see a free AV software from Microsoft, atlast. For the past six years, I have been using Trend Micro on my windows run PCs. It costs me approximately £60 for a two years subscription, for an installation on three computers. This latest offering from Microsoft hopefully will save me from paying for an AV software in the future. My first impressions are this is quite a good software from Microsoft. Its operation is fairly non-intrusive, which is quite appealing. The size of the download file is only 4.28 MB and the installation occupies only 10.3 MB. If Microsoft offers this software for free in the coming years, it will shake up the AV software market completely and may make the bigwigs (Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, Kaspersky, ESET NOD32) redundant. Here is a screenshot of the software.....

Windows 7 Home Premium Edition

2009-10-22T12:56:00.015+01:00

Last night, I installed Windows 7 Home Premium edition on my two year old desktop PC, which I pre-ordered from Amazon UK in September for £68 (including VAT and Postage). The total installation process took about 20 minutes, which is quite good considering that I had spent an hour or so on Windows XP installations in the past. So officially, I installed Windows 7 a day before it was released in the shops.

This is how I set out installing Windows 7 on my desktop PC.

The hard disk on my PC has two partitions. On the first partition I had Windows 7 RC and on the second I had Windows XP. As a good measure, I backed up my Windows XP partition first. Thereafter, I backed up the Users folder in Windows 7 RC. I didn't install any software that I had bought for Windows XP on Windows RC, expecting that I might need to reinstall when the official edition of Windows 7 gets released. In the end this proved to be the right move, because, Windows 7 cannot be upgraded from Windows 7 RC or even from Windows XP directly. Only a clean installation is possible in either case.

Coming to the installation itself, firstly, I booted from the Windows 7 DVD-ROM and tried to install straight-off the DVD-ROM onto the Windows 7 RC partition, but the software didn't let me do it. I had Windows XP on the second partition, so I logged onto Windows XP and clean installed onto the first partition, leaving the Windows XP installation intact. A screenshot of the new operating system....

POST UPDATED ON 24/10/2009:

A couple of days later, I received three further installations of Windows 7 Home Premium Edition from Amazon UK, which I pre-ordered in July for about £45 each (including VAT and postage). Though I ordered an Upgrade Edition, Amazon were gracious enough to send the Full Edition. This is a great value for money offer, because I was able to upgrade four Windows XP machines to Windows 7 for £200 (half the price of a decent Notebook and less than the price of a Netbook).

GNOME Do on Ubuntu

2009-10-11T11:08:00.032+01:00

GNOME Do is a launcher tool, which allows you to perform simple tasks like starting an application or search for items on your computer from a single point. Furthermore, it has a dock bar which allows you to drag and drop commonly used applications onto it for easy access instead of cluttering your desktop. Though the dock bar is not as good looking and versatile as the one in Apple Mac OS X or easy to use as the task bar in Windows 7, it is still quite good and useful application from a functional standpoint. Have a look at the screenshot of the dock bar....

For example; if you want to Open Firefox, click on GNOME Do icon on the extreme left of the Dock Bar and type Firefox. It will Open Firefox. Similarly, if you want to access say your music files located in a folder titled "Music", instead of going through the menu route, just type Music. It will display the Music folder.

Though the Dock bar is not available as default, it can be displayed by going into Appearance and selecting the theme Docky. The following screenshot explains better....

In the past I used Awn (Avant Window Navigator) and Cairo docks. Though the appearance of Awn dock is good, functionally it seems a bit unstable. Cairo dock on the other hand has two different versions; (1) Cairo-Dock (No OpenGL), which is relatively stable, (2) GLX-Dock (Cairo-Dock with OpenGL), which is very unstable, though graphically it seems to be quite attractive. Cairo-Dock is probably the best of the three for customisation.

GNOME Do however is the most stable of the three docks. The stability seems to stem from the fact that GNOME Do is just a simple 2D dock bar. Thus, for this reason I am sticking to GNOME Do for the moment, though I may give an occassional shot at the other two.

POST UPDATED ON 27/10/2009:

After writing this post, I went back to check the stability of Awn. It seems like Awn has become lot more stabler. Have a look at the screenshot of the Awn dock bar.

It appears like the icons are placed on top of an iPhone. This can be done by setting the Bar Appearance as per the following screen.

I am beginning to like this Awn dock bar. So bye-bye GNOME Do and welcome to Awn.

Web Apps

2009-09-23T21:47:00.005+01:00

Web applications (or web apps for short) have been around for a decade now. These apps are accessed using the web browser. One of the most widely known web app is Google Docs, which has a web-based spreadsheet, word processor, presentation and form application offered by Google. This app is particularly useful for those who don't have the Microsoft Office Suite of applications. There are plenty of other apps as well, however, they haven't become as popular as one had hoped them to be.

Coming to the question, why this post?

Whilst in office, I was looking to extract a file with a rar (Roshal Archive) extension. Usually in a standard office environment, it is not possible to extract files except those with a zip extension. To get around the problem I used a webapp named WobZIP, which is quite simple to use. You upload the file you want to extract and once it is uploaded it is extracted on the fly on the server and is available for download. You inturn download the file and later delete the file from the server.

A few web apps that come to mind that take the hassle out of downloading and installing locally on one's PC or Mac are PDF converter, Audio rip of Youtube videos, Broadband speed test, Online Virus Check, Photoshop .....

How to use iPhone as a storage medium with easy access to files?

2009-09-02T21:34:00.010+01:00

iPhone 3GS is a great gadget and I have only just started to explore its features fully. I realised pretty early on that there is no direct way to use iPhone as a storage medium with easy access to files. Files Lite is a great free app which allows you to use your iPhone as a storage medium. It works like this on a wireless network with a PC loaded with Windows 7.

1. Download the app Files Lite from the App Store and start it. It will give a server address. Note it down.

2. Go to your PC or Mac and set up a network drive. In case of a PC with Windows 7 RC go to Libraries and right click on Network and go to Map Network Drive.

3. Choose a drive (for example X:) and enter folder name as the server address given by Files Lite, which might look like this http://192.168.0.x:8080.

4. You will see the folder Public under DavWWWRoot (\\192.168.0.X:8080) X: on your PC when you go into Libraries. Transfer the files you would like to store on your iPhone to the folder Public. You may create sub-folders as well.

Files Lite has a limitation of 200 MB storage capacity. For unlimited storage capacity (only limited by the iPhone storage capaciy) one may get a paid app named Files for £2.99.

I usually like to transfer e-books in pdf format onto my iPhone for leisurely reading.

How to remove "Untitled" name for Windows drive in Mac OSX?

2009-09-02T20:58:00.003+01:00

Following the installation of Windows 7 RC on the MacBook using Boot Camp, I ended up with the Windows drive on Mac OSX named as "Untitled". If the Windows drive is formatted to NTFS, there is no way to rename the drive in Mac OSX. The only alternative is to boot into Windows and physically name the drive. It is done as follows:

1. Open My Computer in Windows XP or Computer in Windows 7 and right click on the Windows drive C:

2. Go to Properties and enter the volume name under the General tab. In my case I entered Windows 7.

3. Reboot into Mac OSX and there you see the Windows drive as named.

iPhone 3GS: Battery Woes

2009-08-14T14:03:00.008+01:00

Apple’s iPhone 3GS was released in the UK on 26th June this year. After putting away buying Apple’s iPhone 3G for the past year or so, I eventually bought the iPhone 3GS (on Pay as you Go with O2) a day after its release. In the past six years, I used three Sony Ericsson branded mobile phones; T610, V800 and K800i. All the three phones were good and solid. I had absolutely no problem whatsoever with any of them. My decision to buy iPhone 3GS was based on the positive reviews I read about the earlier model of Apple’s iPhone.

I was very impressed with the iPhone 3GS in the first two weeks of its use. The interface was great, the apps (free ones) were gorgeous and the wi-fi browsing was painless. My favourite apps were TVU player, Google Earth, Reuters News Pro, Skype and Shazaam. The battery life initially seemed okay, though I remember not using it extensively in the first two weeks. The first problem arose on the day I flew down to London Heathrow enroute to Hyderabad. The battery seemed to drain down faster than it did in the first few weeks of its use. On arrival at Heathrow T5, the battery was down to 80%. A couple of calls via Skype brought it right down to 60%. I had to switch off the phone, to preserve power for the rest of my journey. On arriving at Hyderabad nine hours later, switching it back on showed the power level at 10%. I switched it off until I reached home 6 hours later, where I eventually powered it from the mains. The battery seemed to last half a day before draining down to critical levels. I looked up on the Internet for a solution to maximise battery life and found one on the Apple website. I turned off the following (i) location services, (ii) push notifications, (iii) push mail and (iv) 3G. Things seemed to improve for a while, but remember, in the first few weeks I had all the above switched on and had absolutely no problem whatsoever.

I followed a pattern of charging the iPhone every day for a couple of weeks. It all seemed to go well, until I missed charging the iPhone for a couple of days early this month. The battery died down completely and I couldn’t bring the iPhone to switch back on. I took it down to the O2 store in Aberdeen and they sent it back to Apple to have a look.

Now comes the question, why is Apple’s iPhone battery not accessible like all the other mobile phones? It seems absolutely absurd that one has to send the mobile phone back to the manufacturer for them to have a look at a drained out battery. Unlike, other mobile phones, iPhone battery continues to drain down even in standby mode; meaning lot more disgruntled costumers.

Right now, I am looking at HTC Diamond 2 and Blackberry Curve as potential alternatives to iPhone 3GS, if Apple doesn't come back with a solution to my problem.

FOLLOW-ON NOTE POSTED ON 02/09/2009
My iPhone 3GS was replaced by Apple with a brand new one. The whole process of replacement took 12 days, during which time I called O2 a couple of times to get an update on the status and to make sure that things were moving in the right direction. The battery in the new iPhone 3GS seems fine, which is approx. 20% drain rate per 12 hours with moderate access to e-mails, internet and iPod. This is on similar lines as my earlier iPhone before things went horribly wrong. I will keep posting updates on the battery, in case something crops up in the future.

Resolving Sound in RealPlayer 11 under Ubuntu Jaunty

2009-05-14T20:11:00.034+01:00

Following an upgrade from Ubuntu Intrepid to Jaunty, I lost sound in RealPlayer. This is how to get it back.

Firstly, open RealPlayer 11 and go to Tools>Preferences>Hardware. Set the Audio Driver to OSS and untick all the boxes.

Execute the following code in Terminal.

sudo gedit /opt/real/RealPlayer/realplay

and thereafter replace the following text in Line 52,

$HELIX_LIBS/realplay.bin "$@"

with

padsp -n RealPlayer -m RealPlayerStream $HELIX_LIBS/realplay.bin "$@"

Restart the system. You should now have sound in RealPlayer 11 under Ubuntu Jaunty.

Visit to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, Legoland and Greenwich

2009-05-04T17:40:00.039+01:00

This Easter we spent a few days near London to see things, which we missed on our previous visits to the nation's capital.

Day 1: Stonehenge and Windsor Castle

On Day1 we visited the famous heritage site Stonehenge in Southern England near Salisbury, believed to have been built starting from 3100 BC. It is widely believed that the Stonehenge was built as a temple to mark the Summer and Winter Solstices. On the day we visited it was cloudy, which was perhaps not ideal for taking photographs with a normal digital camera. We barely managed to get a few good snaps, but with a digital SLR it was a different story. A few pictures....

Later in the afternoon we visited the Windsor Castle. Windsor Castle is perhaps the largest and oldest inhabited Castle in the world. It is one of the official residences of Queen Elizabeth. It is the finest castle I had visited so far in my life. St. George's Chapel is certainly the highlight of the visit. We also managed to get a glimpse of the day's last Change of Guard. A few photographs from the visit....

Day 2: Legoland Windsor

On Day 2 we visited Legoland Windsor. Legoland Windsor located in Berkshire County in England, is a children's theme park built completely with Legos. Yes, I mean Legos, the tiny plastic building blocks used by children to build a variety of things. This place provides a source of inspiration for the children, on what is possible to build with Legos. The children really enjoyed the day at Legoland. The best part was Miniland, a Miniature city. We visited Madurodam in Netherlands a few years back and Miniland though not in the same league, is very good. A few photos from Legoland Windsor...

Day 3: Greenwich

On Day 3 we visited Greenwich. Greenwich famously known for its Prime Meridian (0° longitude) is located a few miles south of Central London and close to the famous business district, Canary Wharf . The Prime Meridian is located at the Royal Observatory, the home of GMT.

Later that evening we visited Queen's House and National Maritime Museum, both good in their own way. We thereafter passed underneath River Thames via the Greenwich Foot Tunnel to reach the other side.

Thus, concluded our Easter break.

Google Maps - Street View

2009-03-20T08:34:00.007Z

Yesterday, whilst looking for some directions on Google Maps, I came across this amazing feature called Street View, which gives a street level view of things from a driver's perspective.

To use Street View, you need to drag the icon of a man just above the zoom slider onto a street of your interest. It covers most cities in the UK and probably the world. The amount of detail available is just mind blowing. This feature strikes me as just a step away from real life virtual driving, where one could drive around major cities from the comfort of their seats. Hats off to Google....

“Earth – The Power of the Planet” by Dr. Iain Stewart

2009-03-02T16:36:00.007Z

I finished watching the DVD “Earth – The Power of the Planet” presented by Dr. Iain Stewart this weekend. It took me a couple of weeks to watch the complete Two volume DVD with approximately 5 hours running time.

This DVD was an attempt by Dr. Iain Stewart and his team to explain the various forces (Volcanoes, Oceans and Ice, Atmosphere and Impacts from outer space) that shaped our planet so far and how the actions of the human beings over the past few thousand years are leaving an indelible imprint on the planet’s delicate ecology. It is difficult to pick what is best in this DVD, because every section is amazing and breathtaking. However, I most liked the section that is close to my heart termed “Rare Earth”, which is about an extraordinary sequence of events that led to the shaping of the planet that we live on today.

The conclusion by Dr. Iain Stewart and his team is our planet, because of its resilience, will eventually survive whatever the mankind may throw at it – but we humans may not be that fortunate.

The contents of the DVD and the presentation by Dr. Iain Stewart were truly exceptional. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this very informative DVD. To illustrate a point on how good the DVD is - by the end of the first DVD I was so impressed with what I saw that I felt like chucking my career in Oil & Gas and go and work with Dr. Iain Stewart on whatever project he is likely to work in the future. I would rate this work by Dr. Iain Stewart and his team as “Top notch” with an outcome that is “Truly brilliant”.

My advice is BUY this DVD set, if you are interested to know how our Planet was shaped over the past 4.6 billion years to its present state and how we humans are affecting its delicate ecology. If you are unable to BUY the DVD at least try and borrow it from wherever possible.

Fixing Silverlit X-twin R/C bi-wing's Tail

2009-02-16T07:59:00.032Z

In the New Year, my children persuaded me to buy a Silverlit X-twin R/C bi-wing airplane (which was on Sale) in Maplin whilst I was looking for some hard drive enclosures. This post is about how I broke the tail of this toy plane and how I eventually fixed it.

Back at home on that day of purchase, the children didn't need to plod me to set off to the nearest open space near my house. The first fifteen minutes or so we flew the airplane quite well. On couple of occasions, it got stuck onto lower branches of nearby trees and on one instance it flew into a fenced backyard of a neighbour's house. We managed to get the airplane back on all the occasions. It all seemed to go okay until I pushed my luck just that bit more, wherein I flew the airplane into some high branches of a tree. It took some out-of-the-box thinking to get the plane down. During the process of bringing it down, the major part of the tail got ripped apart thereby ruining the airplane's ability to fly. The children were really disappointed with what had happened. To wipe the disappointment off their faces, I promised that I would get the tail fixed. This post is about the quest of getting the airplane's tail fixed.

Immediately after we got back to the house that day, I searched the internet to see if anyone had faced a similar problem in the past. I also checked whether I could buy a spare tail from the original manufacturer. My search was futile because no one had faced this particular problem before, probably because it is very unusual and rare for a airplane to loose its tail, unless it had a mishap similar to ours. Furthermore, the original manufacturer only stocked propellers and not the tail sections. We thus had to give up the idea of fixing the tail at least for the time being.

Whilst shopping at a supermarket a couple of days later, I found an empty cardboard placeholder for Garnier Moisturizing Cream, which I felt might do the job for us. I later went on to cut a few different sizes of elevator and rudder sections. Unfortunately none of them worked. I got onto the internet to see, if there are any photographs of the tail section, so that I could cut the cardboard to match the exact dimensions. I found one as below.

I cut the cardboard to match the dimensions as per the photograph. Still we had no luck in getting the airplane to fly. The problem was most probably due to the fact that the weight of the cardboard was different in comparison to styrofoam. We felt that we might never see this airplane fly again.

Last weekend, whilst eating at Costco (off styrofoam plates) an idea suddenly struck upon me - why not use these plates - especially because the material and thickness resembled that of the original airplane tail section. We had a couple of spare plates left over, which we expected would do the job for us.

This weekend, I cut the plates to match the dimensions of the earlier cardboard sections, duplicated from the manufacturer's photographs. I glued the sections to the airplane hoping that finally we might get this airplane to fly. Once outdoors we did a few test runs on our driveway to see whether it was worth the trouble we had taken and to our surprise the airplane flew. Later in the afternoon, we went to a nearby open space to fly it for a longer duration.

Surprise! Surprise! the airplane flew really well. It was nice to see the smiles back on my children's faces. During the course of that afternoon, we learnt to do circular manoeuvers and make soft landings, which we didn't manage on the misfortunate first day.

A few photographs of the exercise of getting the tail fixed onto the airplane.....

Afternoon Walk

2009-02-14T16:27:00.017Z

During my working day, I go for a brisk walk in the afternoon for about half an hour, whenever the weather permits. I live a very sedentary life and I feel that this walk improves my general fitness to a certain extent. I took these snaps using my Sony Ericsson K800i, during my walks in the past week or so...

Windows 7 Ultimate Beta: From a Windows XP user's perspective

2009-02-01T16:15:00.044Z

Windows 7 Beta (Build 7000) was officially available for download to the public on 9th January. There was a mad rush to download the Beta version at around noon CST (7pm UK time), as it was reported in the press that only the first 2.5 million could download the Beta version. To be frank, I was one amongst the millions who had frantically tried to download Windows 7 Beta that day. I must have tried for about a couple of hours before giving up.

Later that evening, I read that Microsoft servers were overwhelmed by the activity on their servers that the Beta version wasn't made available for download. An announcement was later made, which said - to give the user a pleasant download experience - the download would be available on more servers in the coming days. On Sunday, I read that the Windows 7 Beta was available for download and the 2.5 million download limit was removed.

I personally think it was the smartest move made by Steve Ballmer. With the lot of bad press received about Vista, it was time Microsoft needed to get as many people as possible on their side. There was every chance that the move could back-fire on Microsoft. However, the top brass at Microsoft were confident that this time they have got it right.

I eventually downloaded Windows 7 Beta on the 9th of January. It took me a day to download it. The reason why I wanted to test Windows 7 was - I like many others had avoided switching over to Vista from XP. In the early days I was swayed by what I read about Vista and the reasons to avoid it. Furthermore, most hardware vendors weren't really geared up with the drivers to run their hardware on the new operating system. I waited for a year to see whether the situation would change, but by then, the die has been casted against Vista, with the announcement that Microsoft were in the process of developing a newer operating system, that would be leaner and faster.

In this post, I wish to share my experience about Windows 7 Beta. I loaded Windows 7 Beta on a total of four computers at home.

Windows 7 Ultimate Beta on a 6 year old laptop:
My first installation of Windows 7 Ultimate Beta was onto a Dell Inspiron 8200 six year old laptop, which has a 1.8 GHz processor, 1 GB of memory and 32 MB onboard graphics card. This laptop originally came pre-loaded with XP. I upgraded its hard drive from 40 GB to 160 GB. Thus, it had some spare capacity available to load a new operating system. But having only 32 MB graphics card compare to the recommended 128 MB, I was sure that I wouldn't be able to explore its fullest potential, especially the Aero theme. However, I knew if anything went wrong, I wouldn't really feel sorry about the experience. I was pleasantly surprised, when I saw Windows 7 working perfectly fine on a 6 year old laptop. The old hardware which didn't have the necessary drivers all seem to work miraculously. There in lies the secret to the success of Windows 7. For Microsoft the biggest selling factor for Windows 7 lies in its ability to run successfully on older computers with low form factor. In the current economic climate, where people are reluctant to invest in a new computer, installing Windows 7 on an old computer would give the user an experience that is new, different and fast compared to when XP is installed.

How different is the experience compared to Windows XP? It is very different and for the most part very good. I however didn't like the default desktop background screen with the blue goldfish. It just seemed too cheesy. I only liked a couple of desktop background screens provided with the installation. The one with snow mountain peaks was good. Microsoft need to get some very good professional photographs for the desktop background, based on various themes, like Landscapes, Wildlife, Sealife, Portraits, Space, etc.

Here are a few comparative screenshots of XP and Windows 7 Ultimate Beta to give a flavour on how things compare.......

Control Panel (XP / Windows 7 Ultimate Beta)

Devices and Printers (Windows 7 Ultimate Beta only. No Single Screen Equivalent in XP)

Device Manager (XP / Windows 7 Ultimate Beta)

Help and Support(XP/Windows 7 Ultimate Beta)

One might notice that few of the screens are eerily similar, like the Device Management. Whilst some on XP look better for example, the Control Panel and Help & Support.

Windows 7 Ultimate Beta on a 1 year old Desktop:
My second installation of Windows 7 Ultimate Beta onto a 1 year old Desktop was pretty uneventful. As my Desktop was Vista Capable, there were really no issues with the compatability of my hardware. Furthermore, most of the hardware I added later on have updated Vista Drivers. The performance of Windows 7 on the Desktop is quite satisfactory.

Windows 7 Ultimate Beta on MacBook:
My third installation of Windows 7 Ultimate Beta was onto a MacBook using Bootcamp. The default drivers provided by Apple's installation disk for Vista worked for Windows 7. However, I got my first Blue screen when I updated the drivers for the trackpad. I had to do a System Restore to an earlier state (before the trackpad driver update) to get rid of the problem. This meant that, I cannot use the right click with a two finger tap. I personally feel the experience of Windows 7 is undoubtedly the best on MacBook, for the simple reason that the system is extremely responsive (in a way snappy). I feel that the trackpad in MacBook is the one bit of hardware, that sets MacBook truly apart from other Notebooks. I think the manufacturers of Windows Notebooks need to unashamedly try and duplicate the performace of the MacBook trackpad.

Windows 7 Ultimate Beta on VirtualBox:
My last installation of Windows 7 Ultimate Beta was onto VirtualBox on Ubuntu Intrepid OS. I had used VirtualBox in the past and it is very good to try any operating system, without the fear of crashing your system due to incompatible hardware. The performance of Windows 7 Utimate Beta on VirtualBox is quite similar that of Windows XP. Nothing spectacular, but adequate.

CONCLUSION:
I really like the look and feel of Windows 7. It has got umpteen new features that do not exist in Windows XP. The website Gizmodo makes an interesting read about Windows 7 features, which is worth having a look before deciding for oneself.

But for me, I will surely upgrade to Windows 7, when it is released. Microsoft might pull the plug on the support for Windows XP once Windows 7 hits the streets. I thus think it is imperative for everyone to upgrade to Windows 7. Planning ahead would save the Windows XP users the agony associated with an upgrade of an Operating System.

Sound Troubleshooting in Ubuntu

2009-01-29T12:41:00.005Z

Usually, whenever I run into problems with Sound on Ubuntu, I turn to the Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide on Ubuntu forums, which is very elaborate and easy to follow. Thanks to the above post, I managed to wriggle out of many a situation-which arose due to my overzealous nature of making too many changes that are difficult to track back upon. The problem is exacerbated by the presence of two sound cards on my desktop computer-one an onboard sound card and the other mounted on a PCI slot.

I also found another post with its responses on HOWTO: Surround sound in Pulse Audio very useful.

Indian IT's poster boy falls from grace

2009-01-10T10:01:00.010Z

B. Ramalinga Raju, the poster boy of Indian IT and the most known business face from Andhra Pradesh has fallen from grace. The doyen of the Indian IT industry and the leader of Satyam Computers has admitted that he is no angel, but just a conman, cheat and a liar. The man who built Satyam Computers, which is now spread over 167 countries, across six continents and has about 55,000 employees has tarnished the image of India's IT sector forever. The ramifications of this scandal are, it might have a far reaching effect on India's economic growth.

Ubuntu Intrepid on MacBook using VirtualBox

2009-01-03T20:24:00.081Z

I installed Ubuntu Intrepid on my MacBook using VirtualBox. Any reason for installing Ubuntu on Mac? None whatsoever.

VirtualBox is a x86 virtualisation software developed by Sun Microsystems. I used VirtualBox in the past to install Windows XP on Ubuntu and I have no complaints so far. VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts. Moreover, it is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

This is a Tutorial on how to install Ubuntu Intrepid on Mac:

1. Download VirtualBox for Mac.

2. Install VirtualBox.

3. Download the image file of Ubuntu Intrepid (The link is from Canonical UK server).

4. Burn the image file onto a CD or a DVD. This is how you do it:

For Mac OS X 10.3 or later

Open Disk Utility. It's in the Utilities folder (/Applications/Utilities).
If the disk image you want to use doesn't appear in the list, drag its icon to the Disk Utility window.
Select the disk image and click Burn.
Insert a blank CD or DVD into your computer's disc drive and follow the prompts.

5. Leave the Ubuntu CD or DVD in the DVD drive.

6. Start VirtualBox.

7. Select "New" and Click "Next".

8. Name the Installation. In my case I named it as Ubuntu.
Select Operating System: Linux.
Select Version: Ubuntu.

9. Select the Memory size. Recommended base memory is 256 MB. I chose 1 GB. Click "Next".

10. Create a new virtual hard disk. Click "Next"

11. Then select storage type as Fixed assuming that one would like to limit the guest operating system size. Click "Next".

12. Leave the location as Ubuntu and slide the bar to 25 GB. Click "Next".

13. Tick the Boot Hard Disk (Primary Master), select "Ubuntu.vdi" and thereafter Click "New" and then "Next".

You will come out with the following screen....

Click "Finish". Your virtual hard disk is installed and ready for use.

14. Remain within VirtualBox. Now select “Ubuntu” and then click “Settings".

15. Under "Storage" select “CD/DVD-ROM”. Then, check the “Mount CD/DVD Drive” and select “Host CD/DVD Drive". Then Click “OK”.

16. Now double-click on the virtual machine “Ubuntu”. A new window should launch. Followed by couple of other screen changes. To the capture mouse within the VirtualBox window click "OK". To bring back the mouse onto Mac environment click "cmd".

17. Now select “Start or Install Ubuntu”, with the arrow keys, then hit “Enter”. These screenshots follow...

18. Next you get 6 steps to setup Ubuntu Installation.
(i) In the Welcome screen you select the language. In my case I selected "English". Click "Forward".

(ii) In the second screen you select your timezone. Click "Forward".

(iii) In the third screen you select your Keyboard Layout. You might select "United Kingdom - MacKintosh". Click "Forward".

(iv) In the fourth screen you prepare the disk space. Select "Guided". Click "Forward".

(v) In the fifth screen give your details and then Click "Forward".

(vi) In sixth screen you will come with something like this. This is the final screen before the installation is carried out.

Just mind that before you click "Finish" select "Advanced" with regard to the location where the boot loader needs to be installed.

Select the location where the ATA VBOX HARDDISK is located.

You will see the following screens during installation....

You are almost there. Click "Restart now". Before you restart eject the Ubuntu Installation CD.

19. Before starting "Ubuntu" complete rest of the "Settings", which are self-explanatory.

Here you select your Ubuntu hard disk.

To get the full functionality of VirtualBox, like mouse integration, seamless and full screen modes of display and improved video support you need to install "VBoxGuestAdditions.iso". This would have been installed in the folder "/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS"

In this screen click + button on the right to add the USB devices.

You can set up a Shared Folder, which will allow you to share files between Mac and Ubuntu.

You are now done with the Ubuntu Installation. Only the installation of the Guest Additions needs to be done. For that Start Ubuntu.

20. In Accessories->Terminal run the following command:

sudo /dev/cdrom0/VboxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

VboxGuestAdditions will have now been installed. Before you restart Ubuntu you need to do one last thing.

21. You might be wondering why you are unable to increase the display screen beyond 800 x 600. For that you need to do the following (Thanks to Aviran Mordo):

Open your guest machine’s xorg.conf file in Terminal:

gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Find the device section, which should look like this:

Section "Device" Identifier "Configured Video Device" EndSection

And replace it with this to enable the VirtualBox driver:

Section "Device" Identifier "Configured Video Device" Driver "vboxvideo" EndSection

Next find the screen section, which should look like this:

Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Monitor "Configured Monitor" Device "Configured Video Device" EndSection

And replace it with this, but change 1280×800 (if your's is a MacBook) to your preferred resolution:

Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Device "VirtualBox graphics card" Monitor "Generic Monitor" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1280x800" EndSubSection EndSection

Save, exit the editor and log out. You can now enable full screen display on Ubuntu Virtual Machine in Mac and also have a mouse pointer integration.

Good luck! with your installation.

Lifetrons Ultra-Slim Internet Phone

2009-01-02T19:59:00.007Z

I bought this phone on a recent KLM flight to India. Initially, I didn't think much about writing a post on this phone, because most notebooks these days have a built-in webcam, microphone and speakers. Having a separate Internet Phone might not sound like a great idea. However, for an old laptop, this phone is quite handy. Moreover, there is an element of privacy, if one were to call in say an airport over Wi-Fi.

Coming to the phone itself, it is an Ultra-Slim Metallic Plug and Play Internet phone (about 7.5 mm thickness). One could make VOIP calls through Skype. It is compatibe with both Windows Vista/XP and Mac OS X. This phone is manufactured by Lifetrons of Switzerland.

Though it is a bit pricey (Euros 40), one could save on expensive phone calls whilst abroad. I used this phone a few times and I am impressed with its quality.

The Unexpected

2008-12-27T19:08:00.006Z

Sometimes the unexpected comes from quarters one least expects it. In an earlier post on Lifetrons X-mini Capsule Rechargeable Speaker, I mentioned that my Dell Inspiron 8200 internal speakers had stopped working for sometime. Furthermore, it had a problem with its Trackpad. I felt that the Palmrest/Touchpad Assembly (Part No. 3H400) comprising of Palmrest, Trackpad and internal speakers needed to be replaced. I found a used one on eBay for £14.99. Following the replacement of the assembly, the speakers started to work, which was totally unexpected.

I now have a fully functional Dell Inspiron 8200. This notebook is six years old, but still works fine for VB programming, web design using Dreamweaver, MS office related work and web browsing. My seven year old uses it ocassionally to browse the internet and do his homework. Though there is a two year old desktop at home, which both my children use to do their homework, using the notebook right now seems a bit of a novelty to them.

Apple MacBook

2008-12-23T11:53:00.043Z

Hurrah! I have now officially entered the Apple Mac user club. After dilly-dallying for years, I finally took the plunge and bought the new 13-inch Apple MacBook.

For the past many years, I followed Steve Jobs presentations at the MacWorld Expo. Despite liking whatever I read about the advances made by Mac, I was somehow reluctant to enter the Mac kingdom. The reason behind the reluctance is partly to do with Mac's closed architecture. I personally don't like the idea of using a system built on proprietory hardware, which restricts the end user's ability to customise it according to his or her needs. Unlike Windows and variants of Linux, which work on any Personal Computer (PC) that has suitable hardware, OS X only works on Mac hardware. One cannot install OS X on any other hardware. Mac operating systems (OS and OS X) have been around for years, however the tying up of OS X to proprietory hardware has stifled Apple's growth in the world of mainstream computing. Though the degree of sophistication a Mac provides in terms of User Interface (UI) is quite outstanding, I don't see it replacing a Personal Computer, which meets the demands of most users around the world. The reasons are a computer unlike a personal music player like say an iPod, has a certain degree of dependance on various peripheral devices it interfaces with, which requires an open architecture for quick and effective development. Furthermore, there are many software (for example: programming), which just cannot make their way onto a Mac because of its closed architecture.

The above rant brings us to the question, why did I buy the Mac in the first place?

In 2006 Apple released an Intel-based Mac, which had the potential to natively run Windows-based operating systems on Apple hardware using Bootcamp. This gave the users the ability to use Windows applications on a Mac. This was the principal reason behind my purchase of the MacBook. I wanted a system, where I could use the OS X for working on digital movies and natively run Windows applications for my day to day work.

After using the MacBook for a few days I am very much impressed by it, though it took me a few hours to get used to the various keys for obvious reasons. I opted for the latest model, which has the Aluminium unibody design, LED display and a giant Trackpad. Having dismantled my Dell Inspiron 8200 a few days back to replace the palm rest assembly (and the difficulty it posed with numerous small feeble parts), I can really appreciate the advanced Aluminium unibody design of the MacBook. Both the LED display and the giant Trackpad whose functionality is quite similar to that on a iPhone/iPod Touch are worthy additions to the MacBook.

I ordered the MacBook on 16th Dec and it was delivered on 22nd Dec, which is quite quick given the fact that it was custom built and shipped from Shanghai. Here are a few photographs .....

Lifetrons X-mini Capsule Rechargeable Speaker

2008-12-18T07:30:00.019Z

Dell Inspiron 8200 internal speaker has stopped working for more than a year now. I however get sound when connecting the headphones to the audio out port. The solution I found out was the motherboard needs to be replaced; which I reckon is an expensive option for a six year old notebook.

Whilst on my flight to India (in KLM's inflight magazine) I came across this tiny speaker manufactured by Lifetrons of Switzerland. The product is the world’s first extendable vacuum bass speaker, utilizing the patented Bass Xpansion System™ (BXS) technology which was developed and powered by Singaporean based technology company XMI. It costed me 30 Euros, saving me an expensive motherboard replacement. I am certainly impressed with the quality of the speakers.

Snow in Aberdeen

2008-11-24T22:34:00.007Z

Over the weekend, we had about 5.5 inches of snow in Aberdeen. A couple of pictures taken from my house.

Cameras in my closet

2008-11-13T19:32:00.087Z

I looked in my closet a few days back and saw five cameras lying around. I thought why not write a post about them.

Over the past 12 years, I bought a new camera whenever I felt the need to keep up with the latest technology.

My first camera was a Canon Prima Zoom Shot, a film camera, with a 38 to 60mm in-built zoom. I bought this camera in Bangalore from GK Vale in 1996 for Rs.7000, just before I left for UK on secondment from Kvaerner John Brown. This camera was not great, but was adequate. The following photo on the right explains what I mean - good but not having adequate detail.

However, with this camera I clicked some of my most memorable photos both in India (Bangalore, Tirupati, Srirangapatnam, Mysore, Rangantittu, Madikeri, Tala Cauvery, Shiva Samudra), and Abroad (London and Houston).

My second camera was a Samsung ECX1, a film camera, with a 38 to 140mm in-built zoom. I bought this camera in 1997 for circa $280, whilst I was in the US on secondment from Kvaerner Process. This camera was very good and I used it until a couple of years back, at which point the digital camera technology became so advanced that there was no benefit in holding on to an old manual 35mm film camera. Furthermore, storing films was a problem. For a time, I scanned the negatives and try to digitise my photographs. The task was arduous as the negatives tended to develop scratches and degrade over time. A digital negative scanner is limited in its potential to come up with near digital quality photos free of any blemishes. So I am done with my Samsung ECX1.

I got a first whiff of the digital camera technology through a colleague of mine whilst I was in Muscat. He had a Fuji DX-10 a 800 pixel digital camera (a dinosaur in terms of today's technology). He wanted to upgrade to a higher spec one and thus wanted to sell this camera. I bought it for 60 Omani Rials. Looking back it wasn't a great buy, because the pixel count was just good enough for 4" x 6" print size photographs.

Whilst I was at my friend's house in 2002, which was when I newly moved to the UK he showed me his photo collection taken with a Canon Powershot A70. These photos were crystal clear and the detail was unquestionably the best I have seen in my life. This is when I bought a new Canon Powershot A70 for circa £260 from Amazon. It had 3.2 mega pixels with a 3x optical zoom. This camera lasted for three years, before its LCD display gave up on me. I had to return it to the Canon dealer, who was kind enough to replace it free of charge with a Canon Powershot A520. This has 4 mega pixels with a 4x optical zoom. Both these cameras helped me immensely in building up my digital photo collection. My wife and my children have taken a liking to photography and they have taken quite a few photographs with Canon A520. A few selected shots from both these cameras from locations in Switzerland, Keukenhoff, Algarve, North Wales, Barcelona, Tarragona and Paris.

My latest camera is a digital SLR camera. It is a Nikon D50 and I bought it from Costco for about £500 in December 2006. The camera came with a body and a twin lens kit (18-55mm and 55-200mm Nikkor lens). A few selected photographs with my Nikon D50. These days I use Nikon on most occasions.

Footnote:
(1) I used Panasonic PV-GS400 (a camcorder with a built-in camera, which takes decent photos) for the snapshot of all the cameras and the individual camera photos.

(2) I bought my Nikon D50 after reading about it 0n Steve Digicam.

Mini Magnetosphere: An aid to Deep Space travel

2008-11-12T12:42:00.005Z

A recent article in Telegraph said that the British scientists were successful in creating a Mini Magnetosphere in a 'laboratory' that can deflect solar radiation. The solution lays in the fact that, it mimics earth’s own defence (magnetic field) against harmful solar radiation. The implications of this work are far reaching, as it would some day aid humans in Deep Space travel (beyond moon).

TAS 2008 Diwali Celebrations

2008-11-05T20:05:00.061Z

During the months of October/November each year, when Diwali is usually celebrated, I get a chance to socialise with the people from the Indian Community in Scotland. Me and my family make it a point to visit the Diwali celebrations organised by the Telugu Association of Scotland (TAS) every year. We attended this year's celebrations held on 2nd November at Ballarup Hall in East Kilbride. This year was a bit different from the previous years, in a sense that we watched a musical performance by a newly formed group of Indian origin singers/musicians living in the UK. The group is named "Rainbow Raagas" and is based in Liverpool. The event was compered by an ex-anchor in Mana Telugu TV, Mr. Vijay Bhaskar.The celebrations were inaugurated by Mr. Murthy an Andhraite, who left the shores of India many years back and is now settled in Glasgow.

Kumari Anjali started the evening with the Telugu song written by Sri Sankarambadi Sundarachari "Maa Telugu Talliki". Pranav and Lalit then recited a few Telugu slokas and Lakshmi Ashtakam.

President of TAS, Dr. Ashok Bhuvanagiri gave a speech highlighting the progress made by the Association in the past six years. Kumari Vakya then performed Kuchipudi dance.This was followed by rendition of Telugu Kritis by Kumari Soumyasi and Kumari Anjali. Few other children performed dances and played the violin and the keyboard.

The proceedings were further enlivened with "Rainbow Raagas" performing telugu songs from the present and yester era. The group consists of founder and singer Andrew, singers Kalyani and Rex, drums player Charles and a Keyboard artist.

During the intervals, Prem a very talented mime artist performed a couple of miming acts. The first was about a man trying to get rid of a chewing gum and the second was about a man's ordeal in search of water.

Later in the evening, "Rainbow Raagas" performed some more melodious songs. There were interludes of dancing by some Indian Students studying in universities in and around Glasgow.

The celebrations concluded with the felicitation of all the participants by Mr. Murthy.

Autumn in Aberdeen

2008-10-27T22:38:00.018Z

Yesterday afternoon, we visited three parks to watch the Autumn in its splendour at Aberdeen in Scotland. Firstly, we visited the Hazlehead Park located in the west of Aberdeen.

Secondly, we went to the Victoria Park opposite the Westburn Park on Westburn Road. In the six years in Aberdeen, this was the first time we visited this park.

In the end, we visited Seaton Park located off King Street. We visited this park for the second time. The first time we visited was with Yaji's family about four or five years back.

Chandrayaan-1

2008-10-22T12:43:00.007+01:00

ISRO has successfully launched its first spacecraft (aptly named Chandrayaan-1) this morning on an unmanned scientific mission to Moon, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. India joins an exclusive list of nations, like USA, Russia, China, Japan and European Space Agency that have sent missions to the moon. The satellite was launched by a PSLV-C11 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket, which has been a workhorse of Indian Space Programme with 12 consecutive successful launches behind it.

Post Note on 25th November 2008:

Chandrayaan-1 is now in Lunar polar orbit at an altitude of 100 kms and is beaming back photographs and other information on the lunar terrain.

Sun's heliosphere is shrinking

2008-10-20T12:34:00.005+01:00

I read an article in the Daily Telegraph, which says that the Sun's heliosphere is shrinking. Sun's heliosphere is a sort of a protective bubble created by the solar wind, which shields our solar system from harmful cosmic rays emanating from the interstellar space. The latest data suggests that the heliosphere has weakened by 25 percent in the past decade. The affects of this change is not entirely known, but continuing weakening of the heliosphere could affect the life on earth in a big way. NASA has launched IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) yesterday to study the interactions between solar wind and the cold vastness of space. Hopefully, we will learn more from the mission in the coming months.

Spawning error in Virtual Box

2008-10-18T10:58:00.010+01:00

Kernel upgrade in Ubuntu usually is a straight forward process. However, last night following a kernel upgrade from 2.6.24-19 to 2.6.24-21, Virtual Box on which my Windows XP is loaded came up with a spawning error. This prevented Virtual Box from loading Windows XP.

Googling for a solution, I found the following that resolved the problem.

Execute the code below in 'Terminal' after every kernel upgrade to ensure that Virtual Box works.

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

Catching Up

2008-10-16T19:28:00.046+01:00

Last night, I had an opportunity to catch up with my cousin Krishna Karedla, via e-mail. Krishna has co-authored books on computer programming with his wife Bharati. His business involves lot of activities other than just authoring books.The books are available through his website. In his words,

The website gives information about key aspects of building an application using asp.net, vb.net and sql server. Various topics which are useful to programmers, students and faculty alike are covered and some are listed here: connection string - how to use a connection string, connecting to server, working of a trading firm, creating and deploying a web service, web service tools, middle tier, data, object, data binding, constructors, asp net validation controls and many others.

Krishna also maintains a blog, which has some very interesting posts. By the way Krishna goes by the name Madhava on his blog. The blog has photos of some of my cousins, nieces and nephews, whom I've met ages ago and some whom I haven't met at all.

BBC iPlayer

2008-10-12T13:22:00.017+01:00

BBC iPlayer is more than a year old now. Launched on 27th July 2007, it offers viewers living in the UK to catch-up with programmes they missed viewing on TV, via the internet (with Broadband). BBC could be considered as the pioneers of this service in the UK.

Before the arrival of BBC iPlayer, Sky TV had a media player named Skyplayer. It offered limited programmes, like sport highlights, which on most occasions weren't very current. I watched BBC iPlayer extensively during the Beijing 2008 olympics, to catch up with the missed action at the end of the day. I found it very convenient.

I watch very little mainstream TV. On most occasions, I watch channels between 520 and 530 on the Sky network, like Discovery, National Geographic and History channels. Last night, I went onto the BBC iPlayer homepage to see what I have been missing on mainstream TV lately. The programme that interested me was The World's Strictest Parents: India, which was about two British teenagers, Josh Breslin and Charlotte Abrahams visit India to get a first hand experience on how parenting is done in a conservative Rajasthani family. Josh mentions in a news article that the experience for the most part was positive.

World stock markets meltdown - Part 2

2008-10-07T12:35:00.005+01:00

It seems like the Mondays are becoming synonymous with the word 'Black' in the stock market world. The markets around the world took a renewed beating yesterday. I lost count of the number of times this has happened in the past few weeks. There seems to be no end at sight. The ordinary investors must be feeling really jittery with this latest Catch 22 situation. If one were to sell their stock now, the losses become real. However, if one were to hold on there is no guarantee that the value wouldn't go further down in the near future, thereby increasing the losses.

Obesity in Britain

2008-09-28T21:46:00.010+01:00

During my visit to Blackpool, there were so many obese people I saw at the Zoo, restaurants, Pleasure Beach, roads, hotels and the Blackpool Tower. It seemed like middle Britain is inflicted with the obesity epidemic. I cannot say the same about Aberdeen, a place where I work and live.

Googling for the articles on 'Obesity in Britain', I came across the following news articles (courtesy Daily Mail), which seem to confirm what I saw in Blackpool. However, the articles do not suggest that obesity is only restricted to middle Britain. The epidemic appears to be much more widespread.

Fat Britain: Tackling the obesity epidemic. Click here.
Overweight Britons are among the fattest in Europe. Click here.
13m obese by 2010. Click here.

Lord Venkateswara Temple

2008-09-28T20:33:00.015+01:00

We visited the temple of Lord Venkateswara at Tividale, Birmingham during our September long weekend break, which started at Blackpool and ended at Tividale. This temple is supposedly the first Venkateswara (Balaji) temple in the whole of Europe. We last visited the temple in July 2006 when it was in the final stages of its construction. The temple is now complete with poojas being performed daily. The temple complex additionally houses the deities of Lord Ganesha, Lord Kumar Swami, Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Hanuman. We had a good darshan; which included Archana and Madhyana Mangala Harthi.

A selected pictures of the temple complex.....

Long shots of the Temple Complex

Family at the Lord Venkateswara Temple

Blackpool

2008-09-23T06:41:00.090+01:00

The children got a mini break from school (19th to 22nd) on account of the customary September long weekend. We took the opportunity to visit Blackpool, a popular holiday destination in Britain. Blackpool is located in the Lancashire county off the west coast of England, approximately 330 miles from Aberdeen.

Blackpool is most famous for its pubs, night clubs and casinos. For the children, its offers a Zoo, Pleasure Beach, Blackpool Tower and Circus, Sealife Centre, Sandcastle Water Park and many more. We visited the first three attractions spread over two days during which the weather was quite good and interluded with sunny spells.

The Blackpool Zoo was fun for the kids; though I would hasten to add that the South Lakes Wild Animal Park at Dalton-in-Furness, which we visited four and a half years back was much more memorable.

We started off at the Dinosaur Safari Park, which had life size models of various dinosaurs and woolly mammoths.

We then watched the sea lions being fed during their feeding time, though not for the first time.

In the past, we viewed sea lions at Blair Drummond in Scotland and Zoomarine in Algarve, Portugal. The routine with the sea lions in Zoomarine was very entertaining. The picture below shows a shot from such a routine.

We thereby went past enclosures, that had lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes and various other animals and birds. The highlight however was watching the Red Panda, a shy creature that spends most of its time on trees. We had an opportunity to watch its routine, which we believe is what it does most times; wake up from sleep, descend down the tree, have a quick eat, drink some water and make a quick ascent back up the tree.

A few selected pictures of animals and birds from the zoo....

A Kangaroo and a Markhor Goat

A Squirrel Monkey and Flamingoes

In the evening, we watched Venus Reborn an illuminated theatre tableau on Promenade.

The next morning we visited Pleasure Beach. Pleasure Beach is a Theme park with fun rides available for both children and adults. Needless to say the children had great fun. We booked a full day's wristbands (which allows unlimited access to majority of the rides) in advance via the internet and got a hefty discount of £40. For a family of four, two adults and two children, it costed us £81.

My advise is for families with children, where all the members would get onto atleast a few rides this option would work out cheaper. There could be instances where some family members may not want to get onto the rides. Under such circumstances, one is best advised to explore the option of buying tokens, which cost £1 each. A few small rides may cost 2 to 3 tokens, whilst there are the big rides which cost somewhere like 8 to 10 tokens.Wristbands are not valid to get onto Go Karts. One has to pay £4.50 per person.

A few pictures from our day at the Pleasure Beach.....

Children's Ride and Avalanche

Mini Dodgem and Go-Kart

Go-Kart and Carousel

In the evening, we visited the famous Blackpool Tower/Circus. We just had time to go to the top and get a visual spectacle of the city with all its bright and beautiful illumination.

The children got to do the 'Walk of Faith' wherein they walked over a sheet of glass with nothing underneath for about 320 ft.

Techfest 2008

2008-09-17T07:10:00.020+01:00

On Sunday (13th September) we visited Techfest 2008, an annual festival of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), which usually takes place in September at the Aberdeen Beach Ballroom and Leisure Centre. The idea behind the festival is to nurture interest in children and adults alike in STEM.

We started the day by visiting the stall 'Curious about Chemistry'. Here the children discovered the wonders of chemistry. One of the experiment was to create a rocket type lift-off using some commonly available items at home. This is how it is done. Pour some vinegar in a small cylindrical photo film holder, then put an antacid effervescent tablet and place the cap over the holder. Shake it a little and the pressure built within creates a lift off to about five meters. Children also learnt how to create slime in a lab.

At 'Catch the Wind' stall, we got to design and build a practical windmill. We managed to assemble a windmill which worked, but our design generated power which was less powerful (10 secs slower) than the top design.

We then moved on to 'Madlab', where Lalit learnt the secrets of soldering and making his own electronic gadget, a Lie Detector.

In the afternoon, we attended a show titled Professor Brainstorm's 'Feel the Force'. This show taught the children about Magnetic, Gravitational, Centrifugal and Compression forces.

We later got to participate in a 'Satrosphere Solar Sprint', where we had to build a Solar Buggy out of recycled materials. Lalit built a buggy which was faster than the one I built.

The children really enjoyed this year's Techfest. In the previous years they learnt about Bendy Bridges, making compost in a bottle, making a Fun Copter and many more.

World stock markets meltdown

2008-09-15T12:11:00.009+01:00

The world stock markets took a beating this morning following the news that Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank in the US have filed for bankruptcy. 5000 people in the London office have lost their jobs. Now HP is set to cut 25,000 jobs over the next three years. If this can happen to the biggest names in the business world, then nobody is immune from this once in a century economic crisis the world is undergoing at the moment.

VirtualBox in Ubuntu

2008-09-14T08:38:00.006+01:00

I use Ubuntu as an alternate operating system at home in place of Windows XP. I started using it extensively since the release of Fiesty Fawn, which is a year and a half back. It is installed on my external hard disk (WD Passport). Ubuntu is an operating system based on Linux, which is free and the community help pages are more than adequate to help a novice or an intermediate user. I managed to get help whenever I got myself into sticky situations. The most recent one was to do with the Network Manager, about which I'll write in a future post.

Following the release of Google Chrome (newest entrant to web browser market) earlier this month I wanted to install it on Ubuntu, but was disappointed that a Linux version is not available. I got to know that it could only be done using Wine, a Windows Emulator on Linux. My experience with Wine isn't that great till date because of its inability to provide the full functionality of a windows software (like iTunes, Winamp, Realplayer etc.) on Linux.

Scouring through the Google results I came across a website which showed how to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu using VirtualBox. Wow! I thought, a virtualisation software, where I could run software built for windows (which do not have a Linux equivalent) without having to leave Ubuntu. I loaded my virtual version of Windows using Virtual Box following the instructions on the above website. I then installed Google Chrome and voila. Here I am using Google Chrome browser to access my blog and write this post without having to leave Ubuntu.

I could have done the same dozen other ways, but I chose to do it this way.

Using VirtualBox I can run the fully featured Real Player, Windows Media Player and also Winamp. I will download iTunes some other time and am sure it will work just fine.

Britain's Credit Crunch

2008-09-12T06:32:00.003+01:00

Britain's economy is hit by the credit crunch. The stock market which had a great run in the past three years or so, is officially into its bear phase. FTSE 100 has fallen from its lofty heights of 6400 on May 19th this year to the current 5300. The same can be said of the housing market. There are more sellers than buyers and the situation just seems to get worse. The news is Barratt Homes (one of the biggest builders in Britain) is trying to attract buyers by paying stamp duty on houses worth up to £500,000 and protecting people selling their Barratt-bought homes from house price falls of up to 15% for the next three years. Such innovative ideas may attract the buyers, but the mortgage lenders are few and far between. Furthermore, London brokerage Savills expects house prices in the UK to fall by 25% over the course of 2008 and 2009. This would surely put off the first time buyers from stepping onto the property ladder.

I had an interesting incident that happened recently, which prompted me to come up with this post. In my earlier post I mentioned that I ordered a Seagate 1 TB Hard Disk from the BT shop. The original order was made on 20th August, scheduled to be delivered by the courier Amtrak on the 22nd. I called them up on 22nd afternoon saying that nobody would be at home and I would collect the parcel from their depot on 23rd, which happened to be a Saturday. On 23rd I was informed that due to some technical reasons they were asked not to give parcels to any customers. Only later did I come to know that Amtrak had gone into Administration on 22nd.

The latest news today is the holiday firm XL has gone into Administration. With the high fuel prices I expect a few of the low budget airlines could go into Administration.

Geni

2008-09-11T06:44:00.003+01:00

Geni is a website where one could interactively build their family tree.

Last week we had visitors from India who were second cousins of my wife; Kalpana and Dr. Adinarayana Sastry. Dr. Sastry is a surgical Gastroentologist working in NIMS Hyderabad. Dr. Sastry received an FRCS award at Hunter Hall, University of Glasgow in recognition of his work in the field of GI.

Dr. Sastry is very interested in Genealogy and is the one who has introduced me to Geni. I have started to populate the family tree on both my father and mother's side. I intend to extend the tree as far as I can with the help of other family members to know where our families stood a few generations back.

Seagate 1TB hard disk

2008-09-09T20:15:00.004+01:00

After a long wait for two weeks, I got my 1 TB Seagate hard disk yesterday, which I ordered from the BT Shop. I have a Dell Dimension 9200, which originally came with a 250 GB Seagate hard disk. I needed the extra storage space for my videos and pictures and to backup my hard disk. Initially, I was a bit apprehensive about installing it myself, as I have never installed an internal hard disk before. I looked at the Dell manual available online, which gave the necessary instructions on how to replace one.

Tools needed: (1) A mini screw driver with a star head and (2) Anti static wrist strap.

The Dell manual missed out the vital point about screwing the hard disk onto the bracket. An other aspect to note is the SATA cable and the power cable in the box supplied by Seagate are too small to be of any use. It is advisable to atleast buy a SATA cable, the one with a single right angle connector for installing a hard disk in a similar Dell make PC.

Post installation, I enabled the hard disk in BIOS and then formatted it using the Seagate Discwizard software. The software had the following handy features: add new disc (which let me do my partitioning), clone disc, image backup and image restore. The software is available for download from the Seagate website. I cannot vouch for its use on non Seagate hard disks as I never had a chance to use on one.

Google Chrome

2008-09-09T20:10:00.007+01:00

Last week I installed a Beta version of Google Chrome ; the latest entrant to the browser market from Google. BBC website featured the pre-release news about the web browser in the UK. On 1st September I looked at Chrome’s comic book feature, which made me sit up and take note, as it seemed a pretty innovative way of presenting a new product launch. After a pretty long wait on 2nd September, the eventual moment arrived at 9 pm GMT when it was available for downloading. The downloading and installation processes were pretty uneventful.

My first thoughts are the browser is definitely quick. I am a great fan of Google Maps and I always had trouble loading them in other browsers; Firefox, IE, Opera and Flock. In Chrome they loaded almost instantaneously. The picture in YouTube appeared a bit better than in the other browsers. However, it doesn’t work on music sites with embedded media players. Raaga.com is one of them, which uses an embedded Realplayer.

The feature I liked the most in Chrome is ‘One box for everything’, i.e. merging of the address and search boxes into one. ‘Incognito mode’ feature may seem new and innovative to the IE and Firefox users, but in Safari the Private browsing mode has been available since 2005.

The experts verdict is it has bugs. The foremost one is the carpetbomb bug, which for the moment has kept me away from using Chrome as my default browser. My wish is all the known bugs are removed before its final stable release.