A modded(Franken) Green HMT Kohinoor

So I saw a HMT green Kohinoor for sale on OLX and could see that it has been modded heavily even to be designated as a franken. I got it from a private seller. Here are some pictures and cons of modding improperly.

Modded portions 

Dial is not original. If you look carefully, the kohinoor font is different from the original one on the blue kohinoor I posted earlier.

The hands have been changed as well, but this is to my likes, though they are not lume.

The crown is projected 1.12mm from the case. I need to take it to a watch mechanic to have it fixed.

The back is having a exhibition case and the movement is indeed a HMT

The change was done by someone who didn't mod the frequency correctly. The watch is atleast 5 minutes faster per day. 

The straps are not original either.

But for 1600, this for me is still a watch that I would like. But if you are a fanatic, better to authenticate and buy a watch.

Today's feel - though we could read ebooks in digital devices, reading from book is old school and pleasing , just like a vintage mechanical watch

HMT Kohinoor - A gem of the past, present and future

I fondly remember my father having a HMT watch when I was young. He has misplaced it now and I don't know where it is or what model it was. 

I started searching for an automatic watch and was trying to find the cheapest automatic watch available in India. My search took me lot of small manufacturers in India like the OLEVS and Even Benling in Flipkart. But something happened, I got to see a HMT watch being sold as a DIXOT brand which looked very wrong. Then out of curiosity, I started to check on HMT and to my dismay found it was shut in 2016. 

One thing lead to another and in no time, I was in the HMT website and was puzzled to see they were still selling watches and came to understand that there is still very minimal production and after going through their website decided upon HMT Kohinoor blue. I did want the maroon edition but it was not available. Blue looked equally good.

This is a hand wind movement that has power for 24 - 48 hours. It is a smaller dial of 36 mm, but fits nicely for my smaller wrist. 

The glass on it is raised a bit and is also acrylic - can get scratched compared to Sapphire. But I love it. If they offered Kohinoor as an automatic, I would be one of the first persons to get it. 

HMT still make good watches and wish they started a full production factory atleast one to design and share new , cheaper and beautiful watches.

I still have my eyes on Stellar and waiting to get one as soon as a Kohinoor like dial to show up.

They could license one or 2 of the latest Miyota movements and start whole new ranges and offerings. 

HMT - Timekeepers of the nation is a very true statement.

I also ordered a HMT Franken() Pilot watch and waiting for that to show up. I'll have Kohinoor for occassions and Pilot for day-to-day use.

A new hobby - Watch collection

After a tumultuous period in my personal life, I recently found that I needed to reinvigorate myself with something and the thing that has got me motivated now is collecting watches.

It all started with my wife gifting me a Casio royale watch on my birthday. I loved it a lot that within couple of months, I have got my own little collection going. 

I started not with expensive watches but rather cheap ones that fit into my pocket.

I'll have brief personal review for each one of them and how I acquired or found it in separate blog posts.

Blogging again after 11 years

My last post was in 2011 and it's been almost a decade since I last blogged. A lot has changed in my interests and likes, that something within me told me to restart the blog with recent posts. Let me see how it goes. 

Ubuntu Studio - Starting the musical journey

I have been waiting to do some kinda midi based recording/playing for some time now. I have a good keyboard with midi capabilities in Yamaha PSR-730 and considering that my first attempt in getting things sorted out 4 years back ended in disarray with me destroying my then ubuntu linux installation, I had decided that midi and stuff are as such off my limits. Till I decided to try my hands with ubuntu studio like a week ago out of curiosity.

Don't know what is different from my previous attempt, but this time I could see a lot of help post in internet for configuring the various softwares in ubuntu studio and a lot more assisting people in trying out the midi playing and recording stuff which I feel is showing what linux as a whole entity is doing to the Music Production industry. Probably this was the little help that I needed during my last attempt.

Nevertheless, overwriting my current ubuntu 11.04 installation with a ubuntu studio 11.04 installation roughly took me an hour at most and certain things struck me visibly, which I think would require me to go for a new post which I'll do if I get some time in the near future.

For people out there deciding to try ubuntu studio, request you to go through some of the steps that were in place before the current graphical installation engines came long. Extreme knowledge would not be needed as most of them will be self explanatory during the installation.

Once I got the ubuntu studio installed, I still didnt know how to check if I had setup properly or not. For this I needed knowledge of the following important factors and once I started putting them in place, everything started looking and feeling right.

First, a little bit of knowledge about how things work in a normal music studio outside as in the equipments that you use to the way you feed the output from your system to a sequencer, stuff like that. For a guy like me with absolutely no knowledge of that, things like Jack, Virtual Keyboard, QSynth, Ardour everything looked out of sorts.

Jack:

It is like a virtual feed manager. Similar to the way you would take the feed from your keyboard to an amplifier. It lets users link their instruments(virtual or real) to any other software as such. and it is designed in a way to make sure the end user feels the links are not slow and all the softwares in the link recieve their input with very minuscule time differences like something in milliseconds. In simple words, its a server that is used for monitoring existing feeds between softwares and for creating new feed links.

QSynth:
It is a synthesizer very similar to the real world if one has used it. Note: I had only got the opportunity to look at those things in a studio during field trips. Ok, coming to their functionality, they can do stuff ranging from simple functionality like adding effects to the incoming feed to creating customized instrument sounds for incoming midi triggers. In linux software scenario, all midi instruments feed need to be given to a synthesizer before one can get the sound from the instrument because all that your midi instrument does in real send trigger events and information about instruments to be used with them. And your synth takes care of putting the appropriate instrument for it or the ones that you select in the synthesizers. In QSynth though it can work in sync with another synth/virtual instrument and directly produce the sound from it and for this it needs .sf2 soundfont files - files containing information about instruments. A lot of sites allow downloading these files and all you got to do is let the qsynth know of where to locate these files.

Another useful synth that I personally like and the one that I started with was ZynAddSubFX. It comes with both an inbuilt basic keyboard and instrument bank. I still have to check the possibility of creating customized instruments though with it. For starters, It would be great to start with ZynAddSubFX before moving on to QSynth and understanding the concept of how it works.


Virtual Keyboard:
As the developers of the software have put in their sites, this one cannot produce sound on its own, It needs to work with another synth so that the synth produces the sound for the trigger it gets from virtual keyboard. Though I found that by installing some instrument soundfont files in QSynth, it was able to recognize most of the instruments in virtual keyboard and produce the corresponding sound for them. Unlike ZynAddSubFX where in I had to select an instrument that had to be synthesized. So still trying to understand the entire picture of how QSynth works. If I can get the exact sound from my keyboard in Qsynth, it would be super great. Will post more on that If I find anything good in the coming weeks.

Hydrogen:
It is a drum sequencing application and one of the few to directly work with the ALSA sound engine without the need for me to set the link up in JACK. A Simple one in terms of design and a very well advanced one when it come to loading instrument libraries, I simple loved it from word go. First I didnt had to put in the hours as in to understand the Jack, Synth etc. Suggest this for anyone starting with music production in linux. Will help to get the picture of what is in store for aspiring musicians and people thinking about switching to linux.

Ardour:
First let me admit that I didnt know a thing about how it worked. During my first attempt 4 years back, I had to tryst with rosegarden and to say the truth, have still not understood that one well. So Me having to tryst with another software that I had no idea was sending some shivers through me. Ok, to start of with, If you understood jack well enough, Ardour works in a similar way.

2 important things though are the buses and tracks. Remember the following concept that I learnt and it could help you a lot. First Track is something that lets you record music from another bus.
Bus lets you route another instrument like hydrogen or synths feed into ardour.

For each track that you select and for each bus you select you will have to define the input/output sources and once you have done that all that is left is to record some funky tones and see how things turn out.

Since ubuntu studio comes in a 1.5 gig dvd you might think that you will also get the standard linux software like openoffice with it, which is not the case. Be ready to download some seperately. And for people out there still wanting the old gnome interface back, ubuntu studio wouldnt be all that different.

Folders opening in new window - vista & IE 8

This fix is for the vista sp1 update that includes IE 8. Once IE 8 is installed, the folders open in new windows even though the 'open each folder in the same window' option is selected.

This can be corrected by running the IE 8 in administrator mode just once. This will fix the issue. The reason for the issue is still unknown. I'll update it once I get the reason.

(I tried everything to fix this. So thought I could share it with everybody.)

Life on the changing path - World in front of a computer

Its been a really really long time since I blogged.

I don't know if it is just that I don't get time to blog or am I being consumed in this fast moving world?. Usually Saturdays and Sundays were the boring days of the week as I didn't have anything to do. But now it seems that they are the most important things that I wait for when each week starts as I can take rest only on those days. Before I stepped out into this world, I used to have time to think. I used to play around with different technologies. I used to watch movies as they release. Now I don't even know what movie in the theater near my house. I used to have dinner before 9:30 at night. But now even that is not starting before 11 at night. I don't even know what dress my father is gonna wear for office? or what dish my mother is gonna cook?. I'm can see that I'm changing and the worst part is my health. I used to be one of the bulky boys of the class weighing in the mid 80's. Now I find it hard to believe that I weigh a little over 60 kgs. My food habits have changed and So have I.

Is this change good for me?
Is this the change I longed for during my engineering course?
Is this the change my parents wanted for me?
Is this the change that I supposed was gonna make my family happier?
Am I still suppose to be the guy who enjoys everything as it comes?

or

Have I become the personification of everything that one doesn't want to be?

IT has changed India and Indians and I now understand how much?
I suppose there are people out there who would agree with my view.

As I write this, I'm struck by the fact that I have to complete some important documents for some project related work tomorrow. I'm not sure that I'll be able to continue on blogging as I used to. But I'll try doing whatever I can.

Wish someone could foretell my future. Atleast I'll prepare myself for it.

Brawn GP - A team to look out for this 2009 season

This season's F1 had speculations all over it, with the FIA, the Governing Body bringing several changes to the format. They brought back the slick tyres, which was probably a good move. But the change in the specifications of the wings and the highly complicated diffuser seems to have sparked of some heat between the teams.


Brawn Gp Team Formerly known as the Honda, are one who have got nearly everything in the right place for the starting race of this season. Their performance in the practice sessions was excellent, and going by what I have seen for the Qualifying sessions, they are eyeing the Constructors as well as the Driver's championship this year for sure.

Who would have bet their money on a team running into crisis,going up for sale and probablyhaving 2 of the oldest drivers for this season to back so much punch in their maiden run?. Jenson Button and Rubens Barricello(One retired as many thought of him) have come back like veteran tigers with a vengeance to show others of how good they really are. Rubens has oen more time to roar loud, I would say. Going for experienced drivers was more than a boon I would say. Ross Brawn is surely someone who has to be congratulated for his brave initiative.

Sir Richard Branson has already set the limelight on the team and their future, coming out to openly sponsor the team with his virgin brand. This team sure has something in it. Well, something , that could shake the very foundation of this racing world as we know it. Today, they were probably within breaking shumi's 1:24 barrier within 500's of a second.

Wait a second where did the other teams go???
Mclaren - could only get till the Q2, with Hamilton not even coming out for a run in Q2 and Heiki struggling to get anything out from his car.

Renault - Alonso atleast got till Q2, Piquet couldn't even get their.

Ferrari - They must thank god for being in the Top 10. Surely their drivers did something more than what the car could do to get to that spot.

Well, going by the first qualifying sessions in 2009, I would rather like to bet my money on the minnows than go for the Big boys. But you never know, "this is one crazy world!!!".

A.R. Rahman bags 2 oscars

A.R. Rahman bags 2 oscars and sets India on the global movie map. He has won the oscars for the best score and song for the movie "the Slumdog Millionaire". Though this should have been awarded a long time ago, I think this is one that Rahman truely deserved.

Thanks for making India proud!!!!!!!!!!

Wish you get many more in the forth coming years!!!!!!

Getting wireless to work in Ubuntu/Kubuntu 8.04 with atheros wireless card 5007EG - III

Getting WIFI Led to work:-
In this post, I'll describe on how to get the WIFI LED, if any on acer laptops to work. The ndiswrapper driver I used would normally not give a working LED or might be it would work with very low intensity.

The following method involves editing a file associated with the ndiswrapper driver installation and cannot be used for the madwifi installation. If I find any useful information on how to get the LED working in madwifi, I'll try posting that too.

First type the following command from command line and check for the output:-

xxxx@yyyyyy-laptop:~$ ndiswrapper -l
net5211 : driver installed
device (168C:001C) present (alternate driver: ath_pci)

here (168C:001C) means my device is listed under this sub-driver. Then you have to travel to /etc/ndiswrapper/net5211/ and check for the filename like 168C:001C.5.conf. Yours would be different as per the output of the "ndiswrapper -l" command.

Then open the above file as root from terminal by using the following command in case of ubuntu:

sudo gedit /etc/ndiswrapper/net5211/168C:001C.5.conf

and the following command in case of kubutu:

sudo kate /etc/ndiswrapper/net5211/168C:001C.5.conf

The file will look something like this:-

sys_files|ar5211.sys
NdisVersion|0x50001
Environment|1
class_guid|4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318
driver_version|,07/25/2007,5.0.3.67
BusType|5
SlotNumber|01
NetCfgInstanceId|{28022A01-1234-5678-ABCDE-123813291A00}

..................
..........
DriverDesc|NDIS Network Adapter
................

The (........) only means that other lines might be present. Please don't go about adding ....... to your file.

After the "DriverDesc|NDIS Network Adapter" line add the following 2 lines:-

gpioPinFunc1|3
gpioLedCustom|4

If "gpioPinFunc1|3" is already present, then add the gpioLedCustom|4 line alone. In gpioLedCustom|X, the last X can be anything between 1 to 4, This only makes the LED blink at different rates when it is idle. When you connect to a network, it all changes to normal. Finally you need to unload and reload the driver to check the LED utility. This can be donw using the following commands:

sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

Thereafter the LED should be working correctly.

In my next post, I'll discuss on getting your network to a higher level of security such as WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK than WEP. I'll try posting about this in a week or so.

Getting wireless to work in Ubuntu/Kubuntu 8.04 with atheros wireless card 5007EG - II

In this post, I'll describe about installing the madwifi drivers.

2)MADWIFI:-
This will surely be the future where further development will be made as it would seem. Though I dont think this is as good as ndiswrapper at present, this surely has loads of tools that made me enjoy tweaking with it. But I struggled to get it working though. You can try this, if the ndiswrapper method did not work or you don't want the word windows anywhere near you.

• 
  First go to System–>Administration–>Hardware Drivers” and disable by un-ticking the following option- Atheros Hardware Access Layer (Hal). Then Reboot your system.
  

• 
  sudo apt-get install build-essential in a terminal or using synaptic as you wish. Also install all the dependencies.
  

• 
  open the terminal from Applications–>Accessories–>Terminal and type the followind commands in the order given below.
  
  

wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz
tar xfz madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz
cd madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe ath_pci
sudo reboot(or restart your system manually)

if wget command doesn't work properly, you can directly download the file from the given link above to anywhere on your system. Change to that directory using your terminal and execute the remaining commands.

That should do. Now your wireless should work without any problem, just like ndiswrapper installation. If I'm correct the LED will not work, even here(especially with acer laptops). But as far as I know, there seems to be no way of getting it to work with madwifi. If you are ready to do away with the led, then you could be having the best set of madwifi tools available.

So continue using your network, till my next post on how to get the LED working as well as getting your network to a higher level of security namely WAP-PSK/WAP2/PSK than just WEP.
My next post will be on how to get the wireless LED working(with ndiswrapper).

Getting wireless to work in Ubuntu/Kubuntu 8.04 with atheros wireless card 5007EG - I

I did have some ..... well to say the truth, a lot of trouble in getting wireless to work in ubuntu. Mine being an atheros 242x 5007eg card kind of saved me from the hectic work as most of the nice people in the ubuntu development section had already put the critical code on how to get the WIFI up with ubuntu.

For a first time user, all those can be very hectic. I didn't understand what ndiswrapper was or what madwifi was. I went about reading lot of forums/posts to get an idea on how to go about them. And to say the truth, I'm happy that I did some reading because I have got nearly each and every component in my laptop to work - from the wifiadapter to its led. Explain the 2 major wifi drivers in linux in as simple terms as possible.

ndiswrapper - using a driver created by atheros/microsoft for windows operating system in linux using a wrapper around it to work properly in linux.

madwifi - Open source linux wifi drivers running on top of proprietary HAL(Hardware Abstraction layer). I got the above sentence from madwifi site. They are also working on the new drivers to madwifi namely the ath5k and ath9k. Go here madwifi.org to learn much more about the madwifi. There are some excellent madwifitools available that can be of extreme use to the users

Most of them have used both and feel that both of them are equally good, though I felt the ndiswrapper was slightly better and the faster method.

So what both the drivers do is to detect the wireless card on your system. It doesn't scan for networks automatically and connect to them and all. Just tell the OS that there is a wireless card in your system.

Here I'll try illustrating the step to get your wireless card to be detected in your system. I did use the ndiswrapper method, so I'll go about it first.

Ubuntu/kubuntu 8.04 comes with a version of madwifi installed that doesn't account for much. It didn't work for me. So I went for ndiswrapper, just because it was easy to install than madwifi. But still madwifi will be the future in linux.

1)NDISWRAPPER:-
First you have to disable the madwifi drivers from being loaded at startup as you are going to use the ndiswrapper. This can be done in 2 steps.

• 
  
  
  First, If you are using ubuntu, goto "System–>Administration–>Hardware Drivers” and disable by un-ticking the following option. Incase of kubuntu , goto "System->Hardware Drivers Manager" and do the same.
• 
  For making sure that the system does'nt load these drivers automatically at restart, execute the following command in a terminal or console.
  

echo “blacklist ath_pci” | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
(enter your account password if asked to at this point)
The /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist is actually like a text file, so open and check whether the line "blacklist ath_pci" is added to it using gedit or kate.

• 
  Restart the system after the previous step.
  

Now you can install the ndiswrapper(with ndisgtk) in your laptop

• 
  
  
  Incase of adept manager in kubuntu, just search for ndiswrapper and ndisgtk and install the following packages:- ndiswrapper-common, ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 and ndisgtk. Incase of synaptic in ubuntu, you might have to enable the multiverse and universe repositories. This can be done by following the steps in this page in the ubuntu wiki - here.
• 
  After installing the above softwares, you'll get the "Windows wireless Drivers" menu either in "System->Administration" or "System" menu. Click on it. A window as below will open up.
  

• 
  
  
  In this window, click on "Install New Driver" and point to "net5211.inf". This file is one of the many files in a zip file that has to be downloaded from atheros directly if possible. The name of the driver file that worked for me was from acer site itself, the link was ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_5110/driver/Wireless_Atheros_V5.3.0.67_XP_XB63_XB62(WHQL).zip unzip this file and traverse to "Wireless_Atheros_V5.3.0.67_XP_XB63_XB62(WHQL)/Drivers/XP-x32" folder in the zip file. There you can find the 32-bit wireless drivers i.e. net5211.inf file. If you are ot able to get this driver, the try getting an atheros driver that is atleast WHQL (that could do).select it and install the driver.
• 
  After installing, just check whether the line after the driver name in ndisgtk changes to hardware present is "YES". That means you have installed the right drivers for your wireless card. If it shows that the hardware is not present, then you might need to try some other drivers, or check for the correct wireless card in your laptop.
  

After installing ndiswrapper drivers, open a console/terminal check whether you are able to detect your network by typing the command

iwlist wlan0 scan
(it can be wlanX or even ethX or athX, you can check that by using the command ifconfig or iwconfig in a terminal/console to see the correct name of your wireless interface.)
If you are not able to see any networks, then try scanning again, after pressing any wireless button(if any present) that you use for turning on your wireless. For me (aspire 4720z), this button was at the top of the laptop keyboard. You should be able to detect some network like this:-

wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:1E:40:40:C4:36
ESSID:""
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:96/100 Signal level:-34 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : CCMP
Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

If you get something like the above that means, you are able to detect your network properly. If your network is unencrypted or uses WEP encryption, you should be able to browse right away using Network Manager in ubuntu or KNetwork Manager in kubuntu, after giving necessary ip settings and WEP passwords etc. I did prefer WIFI-Radar, as It did detect my network automatically and I was able to browse instantly.

All this time, the wireless LED, if any on some acer laptops would not have worked or worked with very little brightness. I'll explain on how to get that working in the future posts. Next I'll give an brief overlook of madwifi installation.

Installing GFX GRUB in Ubuntu - grub graphically reloaded

Well, GRUB has grown and has grown to be more beautiful. The new GNU Graphics GRUB is the new improvement to standard GRUB boot screen that adds much visual appeal. To install GFX GRUB, the older GRUB has to be removed. (Warning:- removing grub is tedious. If you don't any idea please suspend this tutorial here itself.)

• To remove GRUB, open a terminal and type the following command.

sudo apt-get remove grub

• Download GFX Grub from here.

Before starting make a backup copy of your GRUB menu. goto the folder /boot/grub and copy your menu.lst file .

Now download some additional themes for GFX Grub Menu Click Here.

• Now unzip the files and move it to /boot/grub .. Since it comes under root file system you need to gain root privileged to do that .. Type the following in Terminal

  sudo su root

  Enter password and then type this nautilus this will open a new Nautilus Window. .Navigate to /boot/grub through root nautilus window.. Copy all the message.xyz (xyz can be anything)file to /boot/grub.

• Now since you have added theme .. Lets do final settings to make this GFX Grub work.. Open terminal and type this

  sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

  Add this line at the top of the Menu.lst file

  gfxmenu /boot/grub/message.xyz # the xyz should be replaced with the theme name that you are going to use
  

• Since you have removed you older grub you need to restore GFX Grub so that you boot through OS without any problem.. Open Terminal and do these
  Type
  sudo grub
  find /boot/grub/stage1
  You will get a output like (hd0,4) or other depending on you HDD partitions

• Then type this

  root (hdx,y)
  setup (hdx)
  quit

Where “x” represent the value of hdd sector in which you have installed grub.

• The last thing you have to do is to install Grub MBR .

  sudo fdisk -l

  You will get an output like this

  Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
  255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
  Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
  Disk identifier: 0×0dd6c6bd

  Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
  /dev/sda1 * 1 3187 25599546 7 HPFS/NTFS
  /dev/sda2 3188 8287 40965750 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
  /dev/sda3 8288 9607 10602900 83 Linux
  /dev/sda4 9608 9729 979965 82 Linux swap / Solaris
  /dev/sda5 3188 5737 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
  /dev/sda6 5738 8287 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

  Look for the bold Entry and finally install MBR in Filesystem

  sudo grub-install /dev/sdaX
  Note : Replace sda by hda or anything else, if it is in fdisk -l output. If the grub-install fails you can try adding “–recheck” option to the command.

  Where X represent the number of you Hard Disk sector in which you had installed Grub.

This is what my boot screen looks like:

That must do. If no error occured in any of the steps, Your gfx grub installation has gone well. If any error has occured, please re-install the grub from your repository and follow the final 3 steps (marked by bullets) completely to get working GRUB. and replace the backed up copy of the menu.lst file. I can in no way, help incase of error. Even my understanding of GRUB is minimal. Everything went well for me. So I have posted this here.

All The Best!!!!!!!!!!!

Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex beta released

Ubuntu 8.10 aka Intrepid Ibex has been released for developer testing as on October 2nd and I'm waiting for any reviews about how people feel about the new release.
I'm using 8.04 on my acer aspire 4720z and have been looking for the new one to see if there is any support for my Atheros AR5007eg wireless card(inbuilt). I think I'll wait till the end of this month when they'll release the actual thing. I'm really waiting for that with lots of things to look upto.
I also want to see how kde4 goes about as well.


The countdown has started for the next release of the most popular linux distribution ever.

Federer - He just doesn't fails to amuse

I was awestruck by some of the greatest games ever played in this US open by the swiss maestro and I had to really pick myself up to write what I felt about it.


Roger Federer has reached his peak form after winning the US open championship. He seems to have nearly recovered from the mono that affected him in the Australian open. I did suffer from it once and to say it takes longer than what most people would think to recover from it. But once someone recovers from it all other illness will be nothing for them. Federer still ain't that fit or shows any signal that he has recovered from it. He might have to build some muscles and do twice lot of exercises. But he has shown other the glimpses of what the comeback will be this time around. He played with utmost confidence and desperation as his opponents found it difficult to tackle his serves and volleys which he had nearly given up till this US Open. Federer is still making lots of unforced errors, something that could cause some eyebrows to lift. I feel sorry for Murray that he had to face a man who was getting to the point of desperation and was ready to do anything to get himself back again on the top.

Federer, though played some awesome strokes,But still has to do a lot to regain his full strength and most importantly his fighting spirit that he once had when he went about destroying Pete Sampras. I feel he was starting to become too sedate and numb for others and his liking. He might need to take something like the fighting attitude of Nadal into his game. He can still be the greatest player who ever played the Game.


Anyway on the match, the first set was decided when federer broke murray. Murray did not surrender the set, but he had nothing to do. Fed took the set away from him slowly. Murray did play some amazing returns from far corners. He did play mostly from the back line and didn't approach the net as much as Federer did. Federer showed why he retained the world number 1 for the longest streak ever. He might be showing others, why he still deserves to be playing tennis. In the second set, Murray exhibited some of the best tennis ever. To say it was even better than Federer's game, at some points. But FedEx did the trick on him, after surviving crucial break points and broke Andy's serve near the end to win the set 7-5.

Murray's confidence was battered as he really struggled to get back into the game with federer infact leading the 3rd and penultimate set 5-0 at a time. Murray did manage to stage a comeback, but all was lost as the swiss maestro took the match away from him on his second championship point of the match.


The match was over and Federer managed the fifth straight US open win. He became the only person to win both Wimbledon and US open five straight times. He stands one behind Sampras on the so-called unlucky 13 on the maximum number of grand slams won by a person. He will achieve it and many more for records to be written.

One worry that might still haunt Federer is the number of unforced errors he committed. He did loose the wimbledon with one such error and will surely be looking to minimize them as much as possible. With age comes wisdom and Federer is just showing others what it truely means. His olympic gold medal which he won with Wawrinka must have made him realise lot of things and given him loads of confidence . There was a subtle change in his game play as a result.

We might very well see a completely new Federer, the one from the past before he reached the world No 1, to take on the mantle of doing it again. This time though it could sound deadly for his opponents.

Google Chrome - Redefining Browsing

First and foremost, I was and am a Firefox user till date on both my OS - windows and linux. But I feel Google Chrome is more than just a competitor for Firefox and IE. It surely looks like the next major development in browsing. 

First IE redefined the world of browsing, then firefox with its imaculate features like multi-tab browsing, easy-to-use add-ons and other features. Well, so what is new about Google Chrome?.

I wanted to write my true feelings about using Google Chrome. So for the past few days, I decided to use it as my only browser. As a first time user of an entirely new browser, I felt it was good enough. I began getting a feeling that for non-flash websites that I mostly visit, Google chrome was lightning quick when compared to Firefox or even IE.

For a Firefox user like me, I found the add-ons feature of Firefox was something that I was really missing. In Firefox, I used FireFTP and stuff like that which I felt should have to be incorporated into google chrome as well. 

I didn't face that many problems handling  the new browser. On the whole things went well. 

Errors and Possible problems for Developers to deal with in future releases:

Sometime the title of the tabs just crashed with just the word "Loading" on it. But when reloaded everything loaded perfectly.

Certain things did cause some doubts in me. The address bar is both the search bar and the address bar. When I tried searching for  a valid keyword, I could see that the browser's identity was sent off explicitly to my liking. On the search query I could see a variable source-id which I felt could be used by hackers to spy on people using Google chrome or even used by Google to maintain a record of how many users are using there browser till date, which I could feel like invading my privacy.

Browsing was good enough and my problem with it started showing up when I tried opening many tabs that had flash pages. Half of the time, It just gave an empty page - Nothing loaded up. 

(Solution Found:- Keep scrolling your mouse up and down and suddenly the page looks like it has been there normally for a long time.) 

This I feel could not be due to the browsers design but with the flash player from adobe as I have been facing similar problems with their flash players in Linux. Might be Google could go for a light weight flash component, just like they did as in the case of Javascript VM.

Major problems or say the limitations, I felt were when I was making this post in blogger with my new browser. Image were not that easy to cut and paste in the desired places. You had to click and select the entire image from top to bottom - only then does it get selected for cut or copy.

I usually leave little notes in my mother tongue - Tamil ,which was easy with the same blogger page that showed up in firefox, but not in chrome. I felt sad that I could not even see the language select option here. Might be they have incorporated it yet into chrome.

Another thing that confused me was that there was no language checker as they did mention in the release notes. Nothing came up  - not even a red line as in FireFox or IE to indicate the  wrongly typed words.

I didn't face any sort of problems when accessing the Gmail or Google Docs for that matter as mentioned in the chrome forum.

New Features:

When  a person right clicks on a page generally a pop-up menu shows up. But for none of the sites that I opened does the "View Page Info" option work - amazingly not even for google.

Thumbnails of recently visited sites were like a boon to me. I could just visit the ones that I had visited earlier. This could have been made better by making a scroll down list that grows for each site visited with its small thumbnail atleast for 30 sites. That could have been much more superb.

For a guy like me, just clicking on the tabs and moving them out so that they become a serprate window was a nice feature, which I feel they have got from Google Talk.

I felt like the "Inspect Element" feature was a really nice one and suited a part-time developer like me. Clicking on it opened a Google chrome inspector window. Moving the mouse through it changed the background of the element in the actual window over whose code the mouse was moved in the inspector window. 

The taskman option was something similar to that of the Windows task Manager, but was limited to the browsers componenets alone. For a few websites that I found flash to be slowing me down, I ended the shockwave plugin and things normalised. Only a yellow warning came up on the top of the window saying that Shockwave Plugin has crashed. The browser functioned normally.

Incognito Window was  something that I felt was good enough. Starting a new incognito window, started a page with google's custom message which said all that was about it as in the screenshot below:-

Much of the features till now has been mainly for developers. Future releases could hold higher potential.

I can see the potential of this browser in today's world wide web. Definitely Google could use this for more than just capturing the market share of other browsers. This brower could also indicate that google has the potential to look at the Operating systems market very soon.

Everybody knows Firefox will be the most affected one because of this new browser than IE.

But as for the rule of the earth and survival - "For achieving something, something else of equal importance has to be given up". That being Firefox or IE8 remains to be seen.

IE left the throne, after Firefox came in. Safari was never in the race other than for Mac. Opera and flock made some noises. Firefox rules the kingdom now. Got to look at what the prince Google Chrome can do in future. It's still a baby waiting to explore this world. I believe everyone have to wait for the actual release to see what features are actually available since this is only the beta.

Whatever happens Google has to realize the thing that is, has and will be bringing MS down - You have no right to force others to use only your softwares or things. Accept a open race/challenge and try to come as the first in  there. Then you can survive in this world and will be respected.

I think Google has done half of it by making chrome open source. The rest remains to be seen in the long chain of events that are going to unfold in future.

India's historic AFC cup win & the pathetic condition of footbal in India

India defeated Tajikistan in the AFC cup and booked a direct place to the AFC Asia cup 2011 to be held in Doha. Fittingly, the local boy, Sunil Chetri came up with a hatrick
to confirm India's win. This was historic event happened on August 13, just 2 days before our Independence day and 2 days after India's historic individual Gold medal win in the Beijing Olympics and I believe each and every indian football fan would have been proud of this historic win.


But it still seems that most of the country's popular game continues to be the one and only cricket. I'm really sad to see the way the country is still not able to recognize and nurture the beautiful game. Even worst is the way most of the media went about informing the news about the berth in the finals that India secured.

The following images have been sent to me by an Indian football fan and I think he has every right to get angry and let down.




Well, I think after seeing this images, even I was shocked. Might be the reporter could have thought that since India is in a finals, that has got to be cricket.Something that was satisfactory was that other news sites had the news printed under the right section though. But I feel dejected by this act of a notable and reputed media.

You can call India a formidable force in the cricketing world. But that has no right for anyone to undermine other games in the nation. Only if some big achievements are made by other sports people , are they recognized and rewarded. one example being the Great Indian shooter - Abhinav Bindra. How long are the so called sports reporters wear a band around their eyes and go on saying that cricket is the only game that people of India know, play and watch???

From another football fan who feels much needs to be done and that to soon or we could end up losing precious games in the limelight of one game's unprecedented supremacy.

Headlines Today - Turning News into Masala Entertainment

I do watch news channels now and then for refreshment and I have to say that I have been really enthralled by certain news channels and the way they present important news and facts. Sometimes, even when a cricket match is going on, I usually tend to watch them. I do like NDTV 24x7, CNN-IBN and Times Now. Long time before what the present HT is, I even used to watch it. But now-a-days I think that HT is going far towards entertainment and that too masala entertainment aimed at catching low grade viewers. This is after seeing certain programs in HT a couple of days before.

Everybody watches news to get to the daily headlines as they break and to get some important facts happening around the world. By important, I mean something like a natural disaster or something that makes people understand the current world scenario from a broader point of view or a fair review of a new product from a customer's point with experts involved. News has to be unbiased, representing the true condition of a situation.

HT has gone too far in News. They have started telecasting old wrestling matches and wrestling news from the world of WWE!!!!!! Kane destroyed undertaker!!!!! oh...... I never knew that and that was like a decade ago. I need to tell them one thing. If I want to see wrestling, I can tune into the sports channel that telecasts it.

Well I do know that more than half the people in the world know that WWE is not real fighting. Half the fights are fixed and everything is really a drama. I really can't understand who was the brain who gave the idea of running these things on a news channel!!!! Any news must be such that they give out true events and not just entertainment. Entertainment can be a part only and not the main goal of a news channel.

I really tuned into HT to see the condition of Bihar floods and to know what was the situation(My worst situation was CNN was not coming at that time due to my STB problem). Though I wanted urgent news on the topic, I waited patiently to see whether these people will telecast anything about the floods or not. One of my fellow country man is suffering and these people need wrestling and other kachda vachdas.

And another worst news to be displayed in the waiting time, some actress has a crush on some actor and some actress going on date with some actor. Do you think that these things would attract any true news watcher??? I don't think so.

It was even worst when they did the aarushi incident.

Readers can read shekar kapoor's opinion on this channel here in his own blog. He has every right to be puzzled and angered by these programs.

They just don't have the technical expertiseor it seems that some formaer guy from a masala channel is preparing their program catalog.

At last they did put some news about bihar floods. It was worst than what even DD News had summarized.

They have lost their position as a respectable news channel with these kind of programs. It would be better for them to close this news channel and start a new channel called Gossips Today or Wrestling Today. At least, then they could make some useful profits.

Even NDTV has useful programs like Gadget Guru, a debate session on some topic. Even CNN-IBN have debates and other stuffs. They interview top leaders, national icons. HT has nothing of these sorts and everything they do has and is masala concerned.

Sorry to tell HT, but you have lost one true news viewer and will lose many more, if the programs don't change.

Linux Distros for the weekend

I have been using ubuntu and vista in my laptop for quite some time now. But I think it's time to try something new. So after all the initial research that I could do, I have decided to try 2 different Linux distro's for the time being.

Mandriva
First one is Mandriva. I have only heard of it before and to say the truth I have never actually worked with this one before. I did use fedora and knoppix but that was like centuries ago. So I think this will be something new for me. Well, getting the WIFI to work with ubuntu was the toughest thing I had to do. I just believe it wont be that bad in mandriva though. Well, everything is the basic linux kernel. So might be (only a chance) the same things also apply here too. I think it also has a live CD try only before install feature. I really loved that when it came to ubuntu.


FreeSpire
Well, I found this while just browsing through the net and I liked it from the first look on it. Then I did some browsing to find what others thought of it. Except for the CNR, that comes with this most people believe that FreeSpire is good. Some even thought of it to be better than ubuntu when it came to pre-installed features. Well, actually it seems that freespire is built on top of ubuntu with only some extra customization. So might be it could meet my needs. Further I think that this could even support the atheros wireless card in my laptop even without the ndisgtk or madwifi manual installation.


Well, whatever happens, I don't expect them to destroy my current ubuntu installation or vista installation in anyway.

So as far as that goes, I'm happy. well other distros, I don't think i'll try them for this time. Anyhow I'll enjoy playing with my laptop that already has 2 OSes. (Vista OEM home premium and Ubuntu).