tuxmaniac’s blog

It happened today. The bicycle trip to a distant place which was getting postponed and postponed due to various reasons happened today. The destination was the Art of Living Campus (No! I am *not* associated with it by any means. It was just a destination for the trip ) on the Kanakapura Road, 26 Kms from the place I live. Number of weapons of destruction were five. We started at around 0700 hrs and reached the ashram at around 0900 hrs or may be even before that. The trip to the destination was fun with the road sloping down most of the journey and hence we knew that the journey back would be even more fun. After having breakfast at the ashram we started exploring the huge campus. We reached a place called the Sumeru Mantap and I slept off for a power nap. I woke up to find the other guys playing a game of chess and joined in. The journey back was extremely challenging and I still dont remember the number of chocolate bars I gulped down. Returned back to Bangalore at around 1400 hrs.

Some lessons learnt.

1. Have enough stock of Glucose and water.

2. Chocolate bars are instant sources of Energy. Dont have any carbonated or sweetened drink as they tend to dehydrate you.

3. Keep the bum off the saddle in upward slopes and make maximum utilization of downward slopes (Go in top gear at full speed) so that you can cover a huge distance after the slope ends without much effort.

4. Take breaks whenever you feel like and dont overdo things. I recommend knee caps if the journey is a bit long.

5. Enjoy to the max.

Looking forward to more such trips.

No! This is not a post on some conference happening during this time, every year. Its about the “Gibbon”. Yes, I just upgraded to the next release of Ubuntu codenamed “Gutsy Gibbon“. Not much difference between Feisty Fawn and Gutsy when it comes to Artwork. But there have been significant addition of features and the latest from upstream. The upgrade from Feisty went very smooth except for some trouble because of my emacs-snapshot installation which I later did a fresh install; otherwise it was a “All is well that Ends well” upgrade. Some significant things that caught my attention were the following:

1. Leaving a message when the system is locked is a nice small feature.
2. Open Office is now v2.3
3. Gimp is 2.4rc.
4. 2.6.22 series kernel.
5. Bluetooth apps have got even better but not yet like the KDE counterparts. I still remember afresh using pradeepto’s lappie for doing some data transfer between my mobile and his laptop.
6. Games have upgraded, especially torcs, the circuits have improved a lot with better scenic and more realistic backdrops.
7. Pidgin rocks!
8. Thunderbird 2.0 ’s new mail pop up by default makes it more “Outlookish” but still a good little one.
9. Compiz-Fusion in by default

More as I explore.. Oh yeah I forgot again. The power management notifications just got even better Experience them yourself! Hold your breath ladies and gentlemen.. The Gutsy is gonna be out! Yet another milestone for the Ubuntu Community. Great job guys!

There are events in your life that people do not forget! Things that stay in your memory for quite a lifetime. One such thing is “Promotion” or call it “Progress in one’s career(???)”. Ironically, I just forgot completely that I am a “Senior Engineer” from this month until someone talked about his promotion to me. My reaction was “Oh Yeah! Even I got promoted to Senior Engineer! Forgot to tell you” *grin*

Does that indicate something???

Have you been in a town filled only with Students? A place where all businesses have evolved around the student population and nothing else? A place where there is a mix of Medical, technology and management students from all over the globe? Yes, Manipal is one such wonderful place. Buzzing with activity! This weekend I had been to Manipal and Mangalore to give a talk on Free Software, VLSI CAD Tools, a brief talk on Ubuntu-IN community and different ways of Contributing to Free Software. Talk went very well with around 30 enthusiastic guys and gals attending it. Something that shocked me is that, the univeristy has rejected the formation of a Free Software users group. They need some kind of organisational support without which the university authorities are not ready to approve. Very strange! All in all a good trip with a lot of fun and travel.

Ubuntu-IN Presentation can be found here.

Updated a few photos and btw check the new look Deccan Airlines!

Easily… By far… Hathway Bangalore wins the worst Indian Internet service provider. Its been ages since I connected to the Internet properly. Its been days since Internet is working now! The Customer Care *executives* are the most pathetic executives I have ever interacted with. They are prompt in asking Bill payment due date for a service that I have not used. God save them from my Wrath! After so many calls for the status, I have not received a *single* call back from the so called “Invisible” technicians as told by the so called Customer “Care” “Executives”. Some of you guys might say that others are bad as well, but I have been there done that and believe me, these folks are worse.

So the moral of the story is “A Strict No No to Hathway as a Internet Service Provider”. Can someone recommend me a better service provider in Bangalore? I think its time for a change.

After several unpleasant circumstances, situations I managed to land in at the Capital of the world’s largest democracy. Yes, I am talking about the *huge* city of New Delhi and the wonderful scenic venue for Freed.in 2007, Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy. Freed.in is the new incarnation of FreeDel and a big big success this time. Apart from that feeling of a Speaker at such a conference, what made me feel so accomplished is that sense of involvement, feeling of being part of the team and that mindset of “Its our conference”! I have never had such a feeling of involvement in any other conference till date and thanks to the wonderful evergreen team of Indian Linux Users group Delhi (ILUGD).

 

The entire #linux-india was there and it was great fun relating nicks to *actual* faces. Good food every day, wonderful place to stay (yes! I got a suite for all myself ) and great discussions of dogs, maggi, free software, music, internet/service providers and what not. My talk went very well and things look like I will be travelling to Delhi atleast two more times for workshops in a few other colleges. I talked on Free and Open Source VLSI CAD Tools and gave a quick demo of all the tools and listed down some to-dos that students can start contributing towards.

After those good-byes, we (Kartik Mistry and myself) decided to use the little over 6 hours that we had to roam around New Delhi. Visited Qutub Minar, India Gate, travelled in the wonderful Delhi Metro (brought back my European memories ) and had some nice burgers at Wimpy’s Restaurant. Headed off to the airport and here I am back in Bangalore doing the mundane stuff of working and blogging my life

Photoset on Flickr:  Freed.in and New Delhi Outing