Kiran's Weblog

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kiran — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:44:40 +0000

Linkin park

Debconf Aug 10 – 16 2008

kiran — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:49:09 +0000

http://www.debconf.org/

Debian Conference

Debian Conference is the annual Debian developers meeting, an event filled with coding parties, discussions and workshops – all of them highly technical in nature. It will be held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, from August 10th to August 16th, 2008.

Previous Debian Conferences have featured speakers from around the world. They have also been extremely beneficial for developing key Debian software components, including the new Debian Installer, and for improving Debian’s internationalization.

Debian Camp

Development teams like debian-installer and debian-edu also have the possibility of meeting beforehand for undisturbed collaborative work. However, note that only the basic necessities like bed and network connection will be provided at that time. Interested teams should contact the organizers upfront to make special arrangements.

Debian Day

Meanwhile, decision-makers interested in discovering the benefits of Free Software and Debian users are invited to attend Debian Day, an open house event with presentations of general interest. This time, it will be held after the conference, and in a different city: Buenos Aires, with the purpose of reaching a bigger audience. Its proximity with the Regional Free Software Conference —just after Debian Day, in the same city— will gather lots of people from the community.

Important dates for DebConf8

Reload often! We’ll be updating this schedule with dates you should take into account.

Date	Description
June, 2008.
Sunday, 15th	Reconfirmation deadline. If you don’t reconfirm, you lose sponsored food and accomodation!! Please, if you reconfirm and later decide not to come, tell us in advance. Next year people who fail to do this will be penalised.
Monday, 30th	Paper submission deadline. If you don’t send your paper in time, your talk will NOT be included in the proceedings.
July, 2008.
August, 2008.
Saturday, 2nd	Setup
Sunday, 3rd	First day of DebCamp First day for sponsored food+room (only for people with a work plan for DebCamp).
Saturday, 9th	Last day of DebCamp (and arrival day for DebConf) First day for sponsored food+room for people attending DebConf.
Sunday, 10th	First day of DebConf talks
Wednesday, 13th	Day trip
Wednesday, 13th	Conference dinner
Saturday, 16th	Last day of DebConf talks Last day of sponsored food+room. You should leave the 17 in the morning!
Sunday, 17th	Cleanup, leave
Monday, 18th	DebianDay (in Buenos Aires)

mukt.in 2008

kiran — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:23:49 +0000

mukt.in – wings of freedom.

mukt is derived from the word mukti, meaning the experience of being free from bondage.

Composed of a body of individuals who love Free/Open Source Software (FOSS), the mukt.in team organizes series of events to promote the same.
It aims to collaborate skill levels from complete novice to expert; collaborate to share knowledge and experiences.

mukt.in first started in 2007, aug 24,25,26th. It featured discussions, speeches, presentations, and intense interactions.

This year we are gearing up for:

* Student talks
* Dedicated open source programming & gaming sessions
* Project exhibitions
* Stalls on open source technologies
* BOF’s
* Sponsors stalls
* Free and Open Source Software giveaways

and more, since ideas are pouring in.

Hope to see you at mukt.in ’08

Registration click here :-

KDE in windows

kiran — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:38:15 +0000

This tutorial will guide you step by step through installing KDE in Windows.

First things first, you’ll need to download the KDE-Installer for Windows. You can run KDE in Windows if you’re using Windows 2000, XP, 2003 or Vista. Once the download has completed, double-click the application to begin.

Launch the KDE installer, review the info on the initial screen, and click Next to continue.

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Select an installation directory for KDE and its components. Click the Browse button and navigate to the folder you want to install KDE in. Once selected, click Next.

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On the Install Mode screen, leave the default (End User) selected. Click Next.

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Now choose a directory to store the installation files that will be downloaded. When you’re ready, click Next.

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Select your Internet Connection type (probably the default I have a direct connection to the Internet). Yet again, click Next.

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Choose the download server closest to you, and you guessed it, click Next.

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Now place a check in the box next to each item you want to install. Next.

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Depending on the packages you opted to install, you’ll be presented with a list of required packages that also need to be downloaded and installed. Click Next to start the downloads.

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You may want to grab a cup of coffee at this point, but don’t go too far away from your PC…

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Because you may see the following error a few times during the download process. Each time it happens, click Retry. Eventually it’ll download.

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Once all of the downloads have completed, KDE will begin installing.

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Don’t be surprised if a Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable package also installs.

Once everything has installed you’ll be presented with the final installation screen. Read it over, and then click Finish.

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Now navigate to the folder you opted to install KDE in (way back in step #2). Inside that folder you’ll find a subfolder titled bin. This is where all of the KDE applications are stored. You may want to change the folder to use the Details view, and sort by Type so you can determine which files are applications. Your choice.
click to enlarge
Double-click an application to launch it. The screenshot below shows Konqueror, displaying the Google home page.

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Amarok, the hugely popular music player/ripper/all-in-wonder, launched just fine for me, but I couldn’t get sound working (yet, I’ll update when I figure it out).

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Kopete, an IM client, worked perfectly.

As did the text editor KWrite.

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Happy KDE’ing!

Iphone 3g : Live blog: Steve Jobs at WWDC 2008

kiran — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:33:24 +0000

Steve Jobs unveils the new 3G iPhone at Apple’s WWDC.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/apple/Live_blog_Steve_Jobs_at_WWDC_2008′;SAN FRANCISCO–At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference here, CEO Steve Jobs took the stage just after 10 a.m. PDT. This is a live blog of news from his keynote speech as it happened. For a summary of highlights written after the fact, go here.

9:53 a.m.: Welcome once again to Moscone West, site of so many Apple events over the past few years. The members of the press are mostly seated, and all seem to have managed to make it to the stage without being trampled, although I guarantee that’s the fastest some of them have moved in 20 years. Warm-up music so far is skewing old-school, with a Bo Diddley song to kick things off.

10:06 a.m.: We’ve been revisiting the ’50s and ’60s this morning with the warm-up music, running through Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the like. No Green Day or U2 yet, which either means something totally profound, or it doesn’t. Spotted up front: Apple board member Al Gore; Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook; marketing chief Phil Schiller; and Greg Joswiak, head of iPhone and iPod marketing. Lights are dimming on “Great Ball of Fire,” and WWDC 2008 is under way.

A bustling crowd waits for Steve Jobs’ keynote to start.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

10:07 a.m.: Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage to widespread applause. Standard outfit. “We’ve been working real hard on some great stuff that we can’t wait to share with you.” A record 5,200 attendees are attending the conference this year. 147 sessions are planned for developers, 85 or so for the Mac, and 61 or so for the iPhone. The numbers flew by quickly.

10:09 a.m.: “So, let’s get started.” Jobs revisits the three parts of Apple: the Mac, the music business, and the iPhone. “I’m going to take this morning to talk about the iPhone.” Recently promoted executive Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller will help Jobs out. He confirms that 10.6 will be on the agenda for the week, and Snow Leopard is confirmed as the new code name.

10:10 a.m.: But first, the iPhone. In the first 95 days, 250,000 people downloaded the iPhone SDK. 25,000 developers applied, and 4,000 were admitted. He goes into the various parts of the iPhone 2.0 software, including the enterprise features, the SDK, and some other new features.

10:12 a.m.: Customers told Apple they wanted to hook the iPhone up to Exchange, and they did that with 2.0, Jobs says. The new software uses Cisco’s VPN software. Thirty-five percent of the Fortune 500 participated in the beta program, including the top 5 commercial banks and securities firms. Higher education has also jumped on board, such as Duke, Stanford, and the University of Texas. A demo video is being shown about some of those enterprise customers, such as Disney, where Jobs resides on the board, and an international law firm.

10:15 a.m.: Apple doesn’t usually do these kinds of enterprise-oriented videos at its events, with marketing and IT folks from large organizations singing the praises of the iPhone over a pleasing generic elevator-music-style backdrop. These things are a staple of most IT industry events, though.

10:17 a.m.: The video ends, and Jobs retakes the stage to talk about the SDK, before deferring to Scott Forstall. Forstall goes into a discussion of the APIs in the SDK, which are the same APIs that Apple uses internally to develop applications. Some of this is a repeat from March, where Forstall explained the similarities between the iPhone’s operating system and Mac OS X. The bottom layers of the OS are essentially the same, but the Cocoa programming environment has been tweaked for a touchscreen.

10:19 a.m.: He goes into the development tools that those in attendance will be using to build applications, such as Xcode and Interface Builder. He also discusses a tool called Instruments, which is a performance optimization tool. Forstall moves into a demo of how to build a user interface for the iPhone using Interface Builder.

iPhone developer tools

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

10:23 a.m.: His mock application is going to merge the contacts databases and location-aware services. He’s taking us through the actual development experience, dragging and dropping icons that represent things like the iPhone’s search bar around the development environment. Once the application is done, the developer can test it right on a Mac for bugs or to make different aesthetic choices, such as whether to put things in the toolbar or within the regular fields.

10:26 a.m.: The application finds your friends within a certain radius, but Forstall says nothing about whether the application was designed for the current iPhone, which uses a Wi-Fi/cell tower type of location-aware application, or the new iPhone, which is expected to have GPS. Forstall reads off a few quotes from corporate developer partners like Disney–once again–and Fox Interactive.

10:29 a.m.: Forstall is bringing third-party developers onstage to talk about their application, and Sega revisits the stage. They demoed a game called Super Monkey Ball in March, and they’ve refined it. Ethan Einhorn of Sega comes up onstage to talk about the app. The initial game had four stages developed in two weeks, now they’ve got 110 stages, with all four classic monkeys.

10:30 a.m.: This demo is showing off the capabilities of the accelerometer, where the iPhone can be tilted back and forth to accelerate or brake. The tester gets a nice hand from the audience for hurling Baby Monkey through the goal. Super Monkey Ball will be available at the launch of the App Store for $9.99.

Showing tilt control on Sega games.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

10:33 a.m.: eBay is the next developer to show off an application, and Ken Sun of eBay comes onstage to show off Auctions on the iPhone. The iPhone is already the primary mobile device used on eBay’s Web site, he says. The app has a basic front door with options to track auctions you’ve bid on, see whether you’ve been outbid, and to place new bids. You can also pick up the photos from the auction listings, and blow them up to full screen. eBay is making this app available for free.

eBay application on iPhone.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

10:36 a.m.: Loopt is the third company to demo, and it’s talking about a location-based application. Again, no distinction is made whether this is an application using GPS or the current location-based service on the iPhone. Loopt blends your social networks with the Maps application, so you can see where your friends are. You can also go to their journal to see what they’ve been doing today, what pictures they’ve added, and so on. This app will also be free.

10:39 a.m.: TypePad is next up, for the mobile bloggers in the audience. Michael Sippey of TypePad shows off what they’ve put together, with a simple interface that lets you create a post, take a photo, or add a photo. You can take photos with the iPhone’s camera and add them to a post, as well as add photos from your library on your iPhone. This will be yet another free application.

10:41 a.m.: Our good friends at the Associated Press also have an application to show off. Benjamin Mosse of the AP is showing off the application, which is essentially a reader-style app that focuses on local news. This is another location-aware application that sends you local news based on where you are. You can customize the feeds for your favorite sports teams, and browse AP photos and video. Those stores can be shared via text or e-mail, and civilians can upload their own stories and pictures to the AP from the iPhone, and continuing with the trend, it will be free.

10:45 a.m.: More applications! Brian Greenstone of Pangea Software comes up to show off two games the company ported from Mac OS X to the iPhone, Enigmo, a 3D puzzle game, is very CPU-intensive, says Greenstone, and it doesn’t miss a beat in the demo. Cro-Mag Rally, which is apparently a caveman racing game, is the other game shown off. Driving looks hard, but he is racing on snow, and people from California don’t know how to drive in the snow. Both games will cost $9.99.

10:48 a.m.: It’s a parade of developers. An app called Band was made by a solo developer named Mark Terry, whereas all the other apps so far have been corporate-developed. Band lets you create music on the iPhone, with a touch-screen piano, and the demo guy cranks out a passable version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” There are also drums and a 12-bar blues creation app, which lays down a bass line while you play guitar over the track, and a bass guitar, which is used to play the slinky bass line from Pink Floyd’s “Money.” There’s other stuff, but time is limited. Terry says Band will appear on the App Store in a few weeks’ time.

Developer shows off music application on the iPhone.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

10:50 a.m.: MLB.com is getting in on the action, so we can watch the tortured season of the New York Mets on our iPhones. Jeremy Schoenherr shows off At-Bat, as we check out the Royals-Yankees game. You can see who’s at bat, who’s pitching, the count, and the score: Mussina‘s off to a decent start this morning. You can get real-time video highlights of the Yankees turning a double play. They aren’t really “real-time” since the highlights arrive after the fact, but still.

MLB on the iPhone

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

10:53 a.m.: Modality is the next company that Apple is showing off. These folks, represented by Dr. S. Mark Williams, have developed an application that helps medical students ditch their flash cards and use an iPhone to view anatomical images of the body that are very detailed, down to the arteries and veins, and can quiz students on the various parts of the heart, for example. Within weeks of the App Store launching, the company will have about a dozen applications available for various health-care needs.

10:57 a.m.: Mimvista has another medical application that builds on their niche, medical-imaging software. Mark Cain is representing Mimvista, and he says developing one of their types of applications before the iPhone wasn’t going to work. The idea is to connect doctors with their workstations, so they can evaluate medical imaging from the golf course. The application, like Modality’s, can show extremely detailed pictures of the human system, as well as moving images. “The iPhone has created a new direction for our company.”

11:00 a.m.: Forstall promises that Digital Legends Entertainment is the last demo for this morning. These guys built a game in two weeks, and Xavier Carrillo Costa shows off his game. Their game is called Kroll, and it’s another caveman adventure game where you battle enemies, swing across rope bridges, and solve problems. They expect to have the game ready by September.

Hell boy 2 review

kiran — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:24:45 +0000

Thanks for checking out our Hellboy 2 review. If you’d like to see the video version of the Hellboy 2 review, you can see it at the bottom of this post.

When Mike Mignola’s creation “Hellboy” was brought to the big screen by Guillermo del Toro I was blown away by the results. Having only read a couple of the comics, I wasn’t sure how on earth they could bring this type of a character… this type of a world to the big screen in a way that general audiences would “get it”. Somehow they found a way and made Hellboy probably the most underrated Comic Book movie ever… Hellboy himself is one of the most interesting characters certainly in the entire genre on screen and was perfectly embodied by Ron Perlman. Needless to say I was very excited about the prospects of another Hellboy movies, and last night I had that chance to see it. Was my anticipation rewarded? Yes it was.

THE GENERAL IDEA

The synopsis for Hellboy 2 looks something like this: “The Golden Army begins when an ancient truce existing between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken; Hell on earth is ready to erupt. Hellboy 2 tells the tale of a ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below, defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures. Its up to the planets toughest, roughest superhero to battle the merciless dictator and his marauders. He may be red, he may be horned, he may be misunderstood, but when you need the job done right, its time to call in Hellboy (Ron Perlman), and the B.P.R.D.

The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) will travel between the surface world and the unseen magical one, where creatures of fantasy become corporeal, along with his expanding team pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), aquatic empath Abe (Doug Jones), and protoplasmic mystic Johann Krauss (James Dodd), the newest member of the BPRD. Hellboy, a creature of two worlds who is accepted by neither, must choose between the life he knows and an unknown destiny that beckons him.

A slip-up results in the F.B.I. being forced to reveal the existence of BPRD to the general public. Brash old Hellboy doesn’t play well with the public, which only increases the instability of his already-turning-rough relationship with Liz. However, fellow paranormal Johann (who is a sort of ectoplasmic spirit held within a very special containment suit) is far better with the public — and with Liz, apparently. But in the end they’ve all got to come together to fight Prince Nuada (son of the Woodland King), who, with his army of ghouls, faerie, and the like, is attempting to resurrect a golden army once controlled by his father.”

THE GOOD

Del Toro does such a magnificent job creating this world in which the “normal” world and the world of the fantastic live together in close proximity. Other projects that have a fantastic world within the same realm of our own often come across as cheesy, but the way Del Toro weaves it all together is amazing.

The character design is just beautiful and very different from the run of the mill, cookie cutter creature design we see in a lot of other flicks. Del Toro designed a lot of the creatures himself and you can completely see the signature look that he also used for some of his creatures in “Pan’s Labyrinth”. All very original… all breathtakingly beautiful.

Good comic book movies need a solid antagonist. And Prince Nuara fits the need very nicely. The role is played by Luke Goss who also appeared in Del Toro’s “Blade 2″ as the main bad guy Nomak. He has a terrific intensity about him that make him something to dread. And this may sound odd… but I find the best “bad guys” are the ones who think they’re being “good”. They have a sense of honor about them. To me this is extra scary.

Perlman once again rules as Hellboy. It’s hard to imagine anyone else doing this role as well as he’s done it (although I’m sure I’d be saying the same thing if another guy had done it in the first place too).

The Mythology of the story is incredible. The movie starts with flashback of a young Hellboy going to bed and his father (who died in the first movie) telling him the bedtime story of the Golden Army. It’s a terrific tale with so many classic elements in it. It sets a wonderful framework for the movie as a whole.

I didn’t think I’d like the new character on the team, Johann Kraus, but as it turns out he was one of my favorite characters in the movie. I talked to some people after the screening that thought he sounded silly (strong German accent), but I thought he was hilarious and thought the accent really added to the character.

The visual effects were… WOW… just wow. Especially The Golden Army itself. Some amazing looking stuff.

THE BAD

I was actually pretty happy to hear that Doug Jones (The man who was in Abe’s suit for the first movie, but David Hyde Pierce did the voice) was going to get to do the voice of Abe as well this time around. Doug (for those of you who may not know) was also the body of the Silver Surfer in fantastic Four 2… but didn’t get to do the voice, and the voice of Pan the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth… but didn’t get to do the voice I don’t think either. Unfortunately, i don’t think Doug’s voice worked for Abe. He did his very best to mimic David Hyde Pierce, but for me it fell short. I found myself constantly expecting to hear the first voice come out… but it never did. Too bad.

The movie isn’t a comedy per se, and I understand that… but the first one was a lot funnier. Don’t get me wrong, there are a couple of priceless scenes that had me laughing out loud… but not nearly as many as the first Hellboy movie, and I was expecting a little more of that with the characters you had here.

I can’t really put my finger on it… but Selma Blair (who I really like normally) just didn’t work nearly as well for me as Liz this time around as she did in the last flick. And it wasn’t just the character… it felt to me like Blair was bored or something. In sports terms it felt like she just mailed in her performance and didn’t give much of an effort. She didn’t suck… but she didn’t bring it either… or even tried to… shame.

OVERALL

Hellboy 2 ends up being a fun, beautiful looking fantasy / adventure type movie that manages to be a tiny bit better than the first one. No, it’s not as funny and the lack of David Hyde Pierce was painfully obvious, but other than that it’s a truly fun time at the theaters. Del Toro does it again! Overall I give Hellboy 2 a 7.5 out of 10.

gnufreakz desktop = ubuntu studio + screenlets + karimba

kiran — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:25:04 +0000

Increase semaphores count in a Linux machine

kiran — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 03:45:38 +0000

How much IPC resources are used can be found using ‘ipcs’ command:

# ipcs -a

To solve this problem you can restart Apache, Postgres and other services that consumer many IPC resources or increase limit of the resources in the system using ‘sysctl’. When you stop all services the semaphores and shared memory segments have to be removed, if not, and you still able to see them using ‘ipcs’ command, try to remove them manually using ‘ipcrm’ command. For example to remove semaphore:



# ipcs -a

...

------ Semaphore Arrays --------

key        semid      owner      perms      nsems

0x00000000 201293824  apache    600        1

...

# ipcrm -s 201293824

See ‘man ipcrm’ for more information.

Below is the example how to increase number of semaphores on Fedora Core 4.

get current semaphores value:

# /sbin/sysctl -a | grep sem

kernel.sem = 200        32000   32      128

set new value:

# /sbin/sysctl -w kernel.sem=250

add new value into /etc/sysctl.conf in order the changes persist after system boot:

kernel.sem = 200

Google Browser Sync is now Open source!

kiran — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:58:01 +0000

The technology “Browser Sync” developed by Google has been made open source.

Browser Sync is a Firefox extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.

check out : http://code.google.com/p/browsersync/wiki/HackingBrowserSync

The browsersync extension is however no longer available for download. So roll up your sleeves and start developing!

#gnufreak GGG

Apple iphone 3G – Ready , Set , Sync

kiran — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:02:49 +0000

iPhone syncs with your PC or Mac using iTunes, just like an iPod. Get ready by organizing your content now. When you get your new iPhone, you’ll be able to text, email, surf, watch, and listen in minutes.

Contacts

iPhone syncs with the address book you already use on your computer — Address Book or Entourage on a Mac, or Outlook or Outlook Express on a PC. If you keep your contacts on the web using Yahoo! Address Book or Google Contacts, iPhone syncs with them, too. To get ready for iPhone, organize your contacts in one of these applications and make sure they’re up to date with the latest phone numbers and email addresses. If you don’t have contacts on your computer, you can enter them directly into iPhone.

Calendars

iPhone uses iTunes to sync with the calendar application you already use on your computer — iCal or Entourage on the Mac, or Outlook on a PC — just as it does with your contacts. If you don’t already use one of these applications to manage your appointments, now is a great time to start, so you’ll be ready to sync when your iPhone arrives. If you choose not to use a calendar program, that’s OK. You’ll be able to enter appointments directly into the iPhone calendar.

Email

iPhone works with the most popular email systems — including Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL, and MobileMe. iTunes makes email setup on iPhone easy by automatically syncing the settings from email accounts stored in Mail on a Mac or Outlook on a PC. Don’t worry if you’re not using one of these email services: iPhone also works with almost any industry-standard POP3 or IMAP email system.

Photos

iPhone uses iTunes to sync your photos from iPhoto on a Mac or Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Album, or any picture folder on a PC. You can carry thousands of photos on iPhone, but you can start by creating an album or two with 50 to 100 of your favorite photos, so that when you first sync your iPhone, you can show off your best shots.

Where to buy. What to bring.Locate a store near you where you can purchase your iPhone. Then find out what to bring with you. If you’re new to AT&T, for example, you’ll need your current wireless account number and password. Find a store