I chose the red pill » Technology

Ban on sales of MS Word – Another nail in Microsoft’s coffin

hari — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:40:53 +0000

Finally, I get my retribution. Microsoft is banned from selling MS Word and/or any applications that can open DOCX/DOCM/XML files in the USA!! Whee!! The ruling that made Bill Gates Steve Balmer pee in his pants came from a judge in Texas – a landmark for GNU/Linux, I might add.

i4i Inc – a company operating from Toronto, is the root cause behind M$’s latest fitfall. The firm succeeded in winning an injunction against M$, concerning gross violations of its XML patents. To quote from the ruling, the judgement “prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML”. The incident is reminiscent of the old IE frazzle has kicked Microsoft out cold! The breather for this monopolistic giant is the mere 60 day time window to implement the injunction.

So, does this mean M$ is goanna be the next dead duck?

Not really.

M$ has the money and muscle power, not to mention access to all the movers and shakers. The doyens of the company are taking the news in the stride and have decided to fight back against the small-time company i4i with all might. It’s going to be tough time for i4i, which might, in all probability, go the Netscape way – to dysfunction, considering the might of the corporate conglomerate pitted against it. However, it must be said that i4i has some brave dudes out there who’ve achieved great success against M$ – a victory none else has been able to secure. If things go the way they are actually supposed to be (provided i4i gets a super-awesome lawyer and/or protection from M$’s corporate espionage – if any), we might see the first days of M$ doom. I’m goanna celebrate that with crackers!

Image Courtesy: XKCD

All this brings out the main reason why I all of us GNU/Linux enthusiasts hate M$ Windows – Their highly monopolistic, derogatory and user-hampering principles!! It’s a fact that M$ pays the highest paychecks to its employees and harbours the world’s most brilliant Computer Scientists/Engineers. Yet, just see the countless bugs in Windows Vista!! If a group of ‘hackers’ could collaborate and create a very user friendly operating system that has all the goodies of Vista and consumes a tenth as much memory (Kubuntu 9.04), why can’t M$ do the same? The glaring answer is there in the question itself! The bugs are deliberate. Had M$ been as stable an O/S as GNU/Linux, a major chunk of the antivirus/’protection’ software companies would go bankrupt! Unless M$ finds a solution to the countless bugs in its software and do some serious rethinking about its policies, it’s a downward lane for the company. The indicators have already started pointing to that fact.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m content with my OpenOffice 3.0 and Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope!

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The Computer and I

hari — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:50:05 +0000

People are often deeply attached to inanimate objects, very personally. They’d love such objects like a real human being, giving it all the attention they’d give to their sibling or a close relative!

My object-of-attraction is my PC!

Not very long ago, I’d written a post bidding adieu to my PC – the good ol’ venerable, P4MONSTER. Almost as if in divine intervention, exactly two weeks after the post, the PC was born again! Mind you, even the vendor had written it off, returning it as it was, even refusing to buy money from us for ‘repair’ (I doubt if they’d bothered even to touch the cabinet once, for fear of worsening is ‘unwieldy’ symptoms!) Well, after I got it back subsequent to my S6 exams, the PC magically started working again (only in Kubuntu, this time – Windows XP would crash with the display disintegrating to a motley assortment of colours and/or a BSOD within ten minutes of switching on). Having chosen Linux over windows permanently, long ago, lack of a Windows O/S wasn’t really a problem – until Linux started displaying what was a Linux equivalent of a BSOD, a few days back! Besides, even my Linux installation had problems, it had just 1.2 gigs of (fast-depleting) free space, worsened by the lack of SWAP (virtual memory).

Day before yesterday, frazzled by the inadequacies, I pulled out the hard-disc, reformatted it and reinstalled Windows XP (thanks to Akhil Chettan) and Kubuntu. When the BSOD resurfaced within minutes, I chucked a 256 MB stick of RAM and tried again. Lo and behold, this time, like ol’ times – my PC returned to its good ol’ blazing speed, all set to rule over for at least an year!

As I’d written in the older post, I’ve a lot of emotional attachment to my P4MONSTER – a bond now resuscitated by its rebirth! Apart from the random virus attack (long back when Windows was my sole ‘vista’), it has never let me down! Even today, its modest hardware config is more than enough for my survival – to watch the occasional movie, do the random audio edit, write the much-needed blog post, listen to my favorite play list, and of course, read, read and READ till dad kicks me out of my room!

P4MONSTER is my second computer – the first one doesn’t even exist now, it was sold the day P4MONSTER stepped into my place. 25th March, 2004 was the day it became my buddy. Things weren’t rosy at the beginning, for, I was stuck with a meagre 128 megs of RAM in the beginning (Dad read 512 as 128 – thanks to my LOVELY handwriting !). God, that was hell! I couldn’t even play a decent PC Game, despite the super-awesome 2.8 Ghz HT processor – I was stuck with the crappy piece of hardware (RAM) for over a year. Yet, I tried to make do with incorrigibly slow start-up times, thanks to which, I’m accustomed to slow PCs now! The next year saw me fish out two thousand bucks from my pocket money for an extra 256 DDR1 (which was the stick that went bust recently. )

The RAM stick was the first among a huge array of accessories. To date, I’ve bought two optical mice (Dad destroyed one, in anger!), one keyboard, A DVD Writer and CD Writer (after my original LITE-ON COMBO Drive crushed a CD while burning it!), 512 MB RAM (borrowed from Abhi chettan) and my prized possession Creative SBS 2.1 speakers! Measly, compared to what today’s PCs have to offer, but more than enough for me!

I’ve a lot of pleasant memories about P4MONSTER – most of them being connected to the internet. I was among the first kids in my area to get broadband. BSNL had just rolled out the flagship DataOne and I was among its first 2000 customers for sure. I made the most out of 2-8 unlimited download (during my 12th boards and entrance exam holidays, nonetheless). DataOne has played a great role in kindling by blogging instincts! But, the dream got bust after my dismal entrance exam results (I got an extra zero, after that 200 rank parents were expecting! ), I lost DataOne and entered a dismal phase of my life (a year and a half, to be precise) without internet. DataOne returned to my life, later, in October 2007.

As of now, my buddy’s about 5 years and 4 months old. High time to get a new PC, yes. But I’m waiting, cause I don’t wanna abandon my MONSTER. Even if I buy a new PC/Lappie in the coming weeks/months (hopefully, not years, the P4MONSTER shall remain close to my heart!

P.S.

If that was too geeky, please excuse.

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An Interview with Richard Stallman

hari — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:21:01 +0000

Richard Mathew Stallman is the rightful father of the Free Software movement and an international celebrity by his own right. The man behind the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation, it was he who propounded the General Public License (GPL), also dubbed ‘copyleft’ – a license that quite literally sets software free. Stallman is fully dedicated to his cause of liberating the world from the shackles of proprietary software. Anoop and I caught up with him at the International Free Software Convention held at the Mascot Hotel, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala on December 11. The otherwise-irascible Mr Stallman gracefully opened his mind, even revealing tidbits of his famed sense of humor in between.

How did you get yourself acquainted with computers?

Richard M. Stallman: When I was nine years old, I got access to computer manuals at a summer camp. I tried learning them by myself. The manuals were similar to general-life puzzles and I found them fascinating. It was only later, at around 1969 when I first saw and used a real computer. Then on, there was no looking back

Could you differentiate between Free Software and Open Source? We’ve heard a lot of versions, but it’s always delightful to listen from the horse’s mouth!

RMS: (Smiles) This is the question I answer the most! Both movements are based on entirely different philosophies. In the free software movement, we try to share and collaborate. The free software movement is a social faction. Non-free, paid software literally binds hapless users with chains. We help people break free. Open source is just a technically superior model which gives technically enhanced results by freeing the source code. Its values are narrowly practical, though. Still, both Free Software and Open source converge at the technical level.

How has the Free Software Foundation evolved, since its inception?

RMS: It all started with a small coterie of programmers along with me, devoted to the creation of the GNU operating system, in 1984. With time, we moved on. Now, the organization has shifted its perspective to one synonymous with a social movement rather than a technical lobby.

It’s commonly seen that most Free Software tends to imitate existing software. What’s your take on this?

RMS: Are you suggesting that free software is plagiaristic? Not really. But it’s true that Free software does imitate, quite often. The prime reason behind this is that the main goal is freedom. Originality and innovation are secondary.

It’s a fact that Non-free software dollars actually drive a major chunk of today’s economy. Consider a hypothetical scenario where the entire world was to embrace Free Software one fine morning. What would happen to software companies in such a case? Wouldn’t this result in pinks slips delivered en-masse?

RMS: There are thousands of jobs people can have instead of writing non-free software. In fact, in a macro-perspective, only a minor fraction of the coders work for the development of non-free software. Most paid programmers work towards building custom software based on specific user demand. That leaves only a minor section of programmers writing non-free software: a job they can easily avoid. When a society decides to break free from proprietary software, not a single job gets pruned in the process. Flawed economic policies are the root cause behind the increasing unemployment rate. Needless to say, embracing Free Software clearly involves negligible revenue loss and gargantuan benefits.

Has Free Software caught up with Non-free software?

RMS: To a great extent, yes. But, there’s still ground for progress.

Having taken the Free Software movement to a social perspective, you must be having strong political views. Where do you stand, politically?

RMS: I stand for freedom and democracy. I believe in the role of a welfare state which takes care of all its citizens and promotes general well-being.

How do you fund yourself?

RMS: My speeches constitute my prime revenue source. People pay for my food and travel if I’m going over to some place. They also pay me a small fee. Now I’ve started a new model of revenue generation. I auction Linux collectibles for a living. Yesterday, I made some money for myself, selling a few cute Tux penguins.

What is the future of Richard Stallman?

RMS: The Stallman of the future will be a liberator of the cyberspace.

It’s a previlege to eat with you, Richard!

Thank you for your time, Sir!

RMS: Happy Hacking!

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How to find a great web host for all your needs

hari — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:19:57 +0000

Why would you need a good web host? A self-hosted website/blog always adds on to your credos! Having a domain gives you an edge, trust me. And it won’t even cost the skies! Thanks to competitive companies and democratization of the web, you can get a great domain and a web host, at a very cheap price!

There are trillions of web hosting companies in the WWW. But it’s an extremely hard task to find a great one! Which is where rateyourwebhosting.com solves your problems!

I found this site: Web Site Hosting Reviews (rateyourwebhosting.com) on a Google Search. It has a rather cool listing of web hosting services available in the World Wide Web. The front page shows a list of top 11 hosting companies, featuring the creme de la creme among the hosting companies out there. There’s a detailed review of all the best hosting companies, with all their price plans, packages and services compared and contrasted down to the last detail. In addition to this, the website also has a lot of helpful articles that would help you choose the web hosting plan/company as per your requirement. It also has a good repository of articles related to web hsoting which will help you with all your queries.

Wanna get a cool hosting package? Check out rateyourwebhosting.com now!

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Shifting from Blogger to WordPress

hari — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:31:09 +0000

WordPress is an awesome content management platform! It’s easy, dynamic, customizable and user-friendly – especially for bloggers most of who aren’t familiar with the nuances of PHP, HTML/CSS, Javascript and other ingredients for web publishing. More and more people are realizing the power of this dynamic content management platform and are yearning to move over from other platforms like Blogger/Typepad/Livejournal et al. But some of them stop in the mid-way, bogged down by technical issues. Even I had the same fears about importing my Blogger blog to wordpress. But once done, I realized that it was just a piece of cake.

But I too had to face my set of problems. Here are a few tips for all of you who badly wanna embrace WordPress. (Remember, I’m talking about the custom content management system available at WordPress.org, not the free blog at WordPress.com)

Here I go!

1) Install your wordpress blog correctly – First, buy your domain and get some good quality hosting space. 100 Megabytes is more than enough for a good wordpress blog. Make sure your hosting package includes a MySQL server, since, only then can you install wordpress. You can find detailed instructions on how to install wordpress here. Edit the sample post and add your stuff

2) Import your wordpress blog - In the ‘Tools’ section of your wordpress dashboard, there’s an option called ‘Import’. Select it and you’ll see a host of options, including ‘Blogger’ on the top. Choose it, and follow the instructions. However, there is a possiblity that you might encounter a problem. In such a case, make a WordPress.com blog and import your blogger blog into it. Then export it into an XML File (Dashboard – Tools – Import) and log back into your domain and import all posts. Voila!

3) Maintaining Permalinks: Now, this is going to be an issue you will face. If you’ve used a domain in your blogger blog, your old users won’t get redirected to your wordpress blog, because the permalink structure is different. But again, you can change it by changing the format of your wordpress permalinks to /%year%/%month%/%postname%.html. This feature is available at the Settings tab of the wordpress dashboard.

All this takes just 10 minutes!

Happy Blogging!

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An expert’s take on Satyam, Infy and the like…

hari — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:50:15 +0000

A friend of mine – a budding entrepreneur, recently mailed me his frank assessment of today’s IT sector. He’s been working with the who’s who in the industry for over a year now. He’s read the diverse comments on my Infosys and thought he’d have his opinion here. This is what he has to say:

1) None of the IT companies are out there to do social service. They do it to make money and have every right to do so. They may ask the employees to work 12-14 hours a day, if situation demands – and they have every right to do that. Why else should they hire a production engineering student and put him in front of a computer “coding”? Makes sense?

2) Ramalinga Raju should definitely be punished for what he did. However, why is it that people pick on only private companies? How many of them realize that there is “corruption” on a larger scale in our government? Why is it that no one else is held responsible. Mr. Ramalinga raju could have very well hidden facts the way he did all this while. And when he did apologise and accept his mistake – the Sensex crashed and people started blaming him! How many politicians have done more heinous acts? Why is it that none of them have the balls to come out in public?

3) Indian IT industry survives on outsourcing. We have so many “thriving” companies only because the cost of living here is lower and hence we can provide services at a cheaper rate. And when the main clients in US are affected by the global meltdown, how can you expect the companies to spend the same way it used to?

Having heard that from the horse’s mouth, I feel the guy has a point. What do you have to say? Shout it out!

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