Apple’s iPhone – Battle for the Zune Microsoft Cruxer – All things in a small phone!

The Mac/tech web has been all about the iPhone over the last few days. First it was the hype and exuberance of the new device, then people started to think about the limited information Jobs presented and speculate about the reality of the iPhone — what it is, what it isn’t. For some, this resulted in a pretty dramatic reversal of their opinion on the iPhone; others simply listed some concerns about the device that really were requests for more information rather than some sort of judgment.

We won’t know until June what the iPhone really is. We might see some real-world reviews beforehand, and from there we can start getting a feel for how good (or immature) this device really is.

Phil Schiller demos the iPhone for CBS’ John Blackstone, and it is impressive, especially when you see how well Apple nailed the user interface goals. The GUI and navigation aspects are simply amazing, and the phone seems quite responsive despite all the eye-candy. There’s cross-fading, real-time zooming, and incredibly smooth scrolling. As the iPhone line matures and diversifies, Apple is going to sell millions of these things

de`RPTM Simulation – doubts

System Perfomance Monitoring – Is it possible in Linux?
Some doubts:
(1) Is it possible that we can run in graphics in Linux, as this is in TC.
(2) Which library holds the cache system variable (…like mem usage)?

Can we access variable for cache memory or current page file usage in Turbo C? In linux it seems good, by using the command ‘free’, but can we access that same as in TC, for system variable which keeps changing every sec/ms. Herein do follow the link Click Here (or) paste the following url in your browser window – http://www.shortText.com/zyldr.

This is a part of a program thought for simulating system performance monitoring, yet I can’t tell if it’s okay. But it’s only for some random values,not original one which I hope to make soon post along. Please extract or make a .c file in //tc/bin and run it,yet this is just a small version, hoping some improvements & comments along.

de`Ubuntu 6.10 Released

The Ubuntu home page has been updated to reflect the new release. The Ubuntu download page still shows Ubuntu 6.06 but hopefully that will change later. I’m getting on really well with Drapper Drake and now use it exclusively. I’ve got all my devices working fine. Hopefully when I upgrade to 6.10 I won’t suffer any issues with these devices no longer working.and a big thanks to FOSS community.

Brief Features of Ubuntu 6.10…
Tomboy note taking application, Firefox 2 – nice to see this addition to the release
Appearance of bootup screen nice but it appears no faster than Ubuntu 6.06
Applications like Kino video editor, Google Picasa, XSane image scanner, NVIDIA control panel
F-Spot Photo Manager – A bit like Google Picasa, although not as slick, it allows you to organize your photos and upload to services like Flickr.

de`Foss 3 days

Saw my dear school friend long days after as now he’s being working in a motor mnc, guessed right as ford. Kapil is now working quite heavy tight on a small new revolutionary Scropio Lxi design in his cad suite today at Ford.
Sounds interesting to note the rounds yet steeper and large LeT for LXi than for DXi. That’s not upward compatible! Thats what they seem to be a management stragedy. Take a compensatory off dear.

Elections around the corner. Blarring speakers and nostaligisa of humurous promises and poems yet surmounts in Township.

Lug meeting #3 was held in the mini auditorium, and every thing seemed quite nice until my witched hands fell on the laptop. Not able to control the screen resolution, all damn monitor turned black. Just could never imagine the presentation could just go bad, and what mage us wonder had been quite a game I played switching between a mix of black and white. Showed the videos on LAFKON trusted computing and XGL. The ultimate sense had percevied up to reach by this video we hope to distribute more off in some manner that could help to make up something …

le`Embedded GNU/Linux Meet

All seated in cozy conditioned seminar hall of ece department, Meeting just started with and I made the hurried entry.Things just changed the way I looked up old CSE Department.Saw our thala over there, and what more to say ,Shakti Kannan (SK) & Aanjhan (aka TUX) were there to take up the seminar. First session was quite interesting and it was taken by Aanajhan and closely followed up by Shakti.And it was very good to see some interesting aspects in regard to the VHDL – Verilog Hardware Language Simulation, which if I had to experience as a sample piece of code in my digital paper in 3rd Sem, further the timing diagram made up quite a good sense and the most exicting for me seemed to be the Embedded System seminar and the memory stick adaptation followed.The command seemed to be quite simple rather like to to view the disk format and mounting a device in the 0×0300000 port of the mini PCB shaped embedded system.Well off the evening session had been quite entertaining and we had some grave doubts on embedded system clarified.

This seemed the lol`schedule prepared by logic for today’s meet.

8:30 – 9:00 FLOSS Philosophy
9:00 – 10:15 Icarus Verilog and VLSI basics (+ project ideas)
10:15 – 10:30 Break
10:30 – 11:30 Alliance
11:30 – 12:30 Lunch
12:30 – 13:00 Videos / AIGLX Demo / GNU/Linux Desktop
13:00 – 13:45 Embedded GNU/Linux
13:45 – 14:15 Embedded GNU labs how
14:15 – 14:45 Demo (SK)
14: 45 – 15:30 Projects on Embedded GNU/Linux and discussions (SK and TUX)

Just fascinated to note 98% of all systems around contributed to embedded while the rest desktop systems.Further desktop relies to popularize a UI but may not be a embedded one and shakti just breifed on that aspect on various mini-computer board design & his lab in RIT in States.Cool but awed to see some facts like a world’s mini petrol engine being fabricated on a 1″ mini PCB simulatneously being monitored Real Time.RTOs had been well said and more details had been scheduled but time did not permit(mainly b`coz we guyz were sleepy).Further copied the media stuffs over the flash drive and further my responsibility to distribute! Logic & Fox Glove made a good effort to maintain & co-ordinate the events.

Notes 4 de`2nd meet

Too much yahoo & orkut hype ben made lately for publicizing lug (linux user group) it seems in contributing for Foss movement. Ssnlug (a popular groups over yahoo) – Linux user group has been formed from a handful of few hardcore Linux users (some nutz like me favour both M$ & GNU/Linux stuffs) from our college. And In abstract to say about last meet, followed with a poor turnout, where 2 seniors from different colleges had managed to come on 19th August,2006 (read more adventures stories over logic’s blog ) & discussed some Intro on python progs, And now that we have decided to finalized to conduct a second meet by 2nd September,2006 following Saturday. One dear senior ShaktiKannan, has agreed to come by 2nd lug meet to discuss topics like Verilog VHDL and some Embedded Linux Implentations (mostly useful for 2nd years) and we hope a good audience over there at Software Engineering Lab,in CSE Block. And you have an free (Live & Install) Ubuntu OS cd-rom awaiting for your prescence, just grab it.

GNOME – a geek’s desktop ?

Linux is easily taking the server and geek market but the market were you need to be cool and very userfriendly is not coming to Linux. Linux is just out of ideas and can’t show anything, Linux isn’t a desktop – Linux is still the old terminal with all the commands and the ugly startup and then they are the “Linux inside” people which create a distribution(like Ubuntu 6.06 which Johnson Samuel gave me, bless him) and create all around Linux but as the oldschool Linux is still inside, it doesn’t change… Linux is without a vision – a system that will never suceed because its only like DOS, Linux would win market against DOS but it stopped after that… there are the projects that try to bring desktops for Linux like KDE and Gnome but they are not Linux. Like there is one desktop for Windows and Mac OS X that really wins the people there should be one for Linux but there isn’t, what makes Linux what it is, just better then DOS and only for geeks better then Windows. Apples ideas around x86 are just crazy, limiting and not limiting, they would win people when they would open their system but it looks like they want to wait until Mac OS XI.

The latest KDE approach is coming up in the next time but hey guys you have a little miscaclucation: Firefox is downloaded in a few seconds for most users… KDE is not a download-click-use application, but, not yet?

Take a look: http://spreadkde.org/

There are still working on this website so don’t expect anything yet.Linux wake up and join the straigt idea of Windows and Mac, or keep on geeking and never win the big desktop.

Python AULug Meet

Attended FOSS Seminar on Python Programming languages at my college, damn it got held in cozy interiors of CSE System Software Lab Halls. After several months break, did some bad coding today. Very rusty and full of errors. One thing professional coders don’t realize is that for part time coders, very often we have to relearn the language every time we code because of the breaks – we just don’t have things at our fingertips. But it is satisfying – far better fun than lug politics and flame wars (although those are kinder amusing at times)

Just back from attending a student conference on FOSS at the College I found myself in a panel all day long sandwiched between many familiar guys and I had heard about this cult, but frankly didn’t believe what I had heard. I now believe it. All nice guys, have made and are making contribution to FOSS code,including logic as a devloper, and learned, well read and well versed on current issues in foss – but on the subject of their cult and of their high priest – totally unreasoning fanatics. Perhaps we could live up to their ideals – even that is doubtful. Had to do a lot of damage control, reassuring all that these guys are a small minority and an exception to the rule as far as the foss community is concerned.

LDTP Programmers around the university had seemed a good time hanging around our college. All Linux Desktop Testing Projects seem damn a easy task in visuals, but as logic says no program is as simple as in ‘Hello World’.

Series of Python tutorials, starting from the very basics of Python programming and then covering topics like Python application in Web Development, GUI development with Python, System side applications of Python, etc. damn it was as simple as basic study on Object oriented programming stuffs,I just really was awed to see the LDTP testing in progress and I soon got lurked way out clutching a free Ubuntu OS (both the live and the Install ones) disk logic had got shipped for us. Bless him and hope the cds would work as I am booting out via RedHat Fedora Version 5 Edition.

Some interesting facts we got to say among our geeks surely crept on for a government’s addiction on Linux too. Just came to know about ELCOT (in Tamil Nadu) is the government branch for procurement of all hardware and software used by the government. Heard that the new MD, who sometimes sports a Linux T-shirt – he now has a cool Ubuntu one too, is a Linux fan.

Damn one got really know the facts as those who opt for open office instead of Microsoft office get their 15-inch monitor upgraded to a 15 inch TFT with the money saved, and those who opt for single boot Linux get a 17-inch TFT. All peripherals supplied must be Linux compatible and come with separate Linux drivers from the manufacturers.

Regards to servers, all must be Linux unless the supplier supplies an OS that he can prove is superior to Linux. Microsoft servers will be procured as long as they are supplied at the same price as the Linux ones. (that is the same price as Fedora or Debian/Ubuntu). For all non-mission critical applications, postgresql will be preferred to oracle (they are yet to identify a single mission critical application).

Skill set for programmers to be recruited is Java/Oacle or Php/Postgresql. Thought to walk in and meet some IAS guys, as they keep an open office, as said by some jack whose name I just can’t recall. So all-future government machines are damn sure to be dual-boot ones – M$ starter edition and RedHat/SusE…Hope it rocks

Beat d`Distros

Flash MX and other utilities really had been a creditable stuff Macromedia had left for Adobe.Things are going swimmingly right now at college sympos, doing bit in flashy stuff does not quite really matter your ideals, rather a satisfaction being delivered for the cause. Really its streaming ones skills over the dias does makeover a credit. Some jack whose name I cannot well remember just posed a question I wanted to ponder over as on What Streaming flash movies in a Linux mode. Sounds navaric though as in, I wish to play multiple Flash videos for my buddies in multiple Firefox browser tabs with na a crash nor a thread hang. In fact, I’m feeling so confident about the stability that I’m actually composing this entry while a YouTube music video plays in another tab. Nervously, but still.

Really none does comment the Linux multimedia stuff. I know this may sound simple, but there are problems that can crop up, which we have been dealing with one by one. This afternoon, I wanted to build one and tried it across several Linux installations we have handy around the labs.

Here is the success report:
Gentoo- naturally, since that’s the build machine
Ubuntu
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
SuSE Linux 10.1

But these distros did not work in this impromptu test for fear of starting rumors that we don’t plan to support those distros. The task now is to make those distros work just as well.

de`Systeme calls

The regular hope to contribute in Ani`Mag seemed a real thought provoking concept to implement
Some damn easy C progs for my Operating System assignment.
(Note : this has been just partially finished.Updated review by 25th August 06)
Operating Systems taking my life down hell,pacify dear!

/*#1*/

#include “stdio.h”

void fibo(int num)
{
int sum;
int x=0;
int y=1;
int i;
int d = num – 2;
for(i = 0;i 0)
non_neg_ok = 1;
pid = fork();
if(non_neg_ok)
{
if(pid == 0)
{
printf(“\n\tFibbonaci Range : %d\n”);
printf(“Calling Function……..\n”);
fibo(argv[0]);
}
else
{
wait(2);
printf(“\nParent Process running…..\n”);
}
}
getch();
}

/*#3*/

int main()
{
int i=0,j=0,pid;
pid = fork();

if(pid == 0)
{
for(i=0;i0)
{
for(j=0;j
#include
#include

int value = 5;
//Global declarations
int main()
{
pid_t pid;
pid = fork();
if(pid == 0)
{
printf(“\nChild Process…”);
value += 15;
}
else if(pid>0)
{
wait(NULL);
printf(“Parent : value = %d”,value);
exit(0);
}
}
exit(0);
}

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls
Desktop
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ vi arun1.c
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cc arun1.c

/*#8*/

void main()
{
pid_t pid;
pid = fork();
if(pid == 0)
{
sleep(10);
}
}

/*#9*/

void main()
{
printf(“Process PID is : %d\n”,getpid());
printf(“Parent Process PID is : %d\n”,getppid());
sleep(20);
printf(“I am awake”);
}

/*#10*/

/* execv example */

void main()
{
char *filename = “/bin/cp”;
char args[4];
pid_t = pid();
args[0] = “cp”;
args[1] = “file 1”;
args[2] = “file 2”;
args[3] = “file 3”;
pid = fork();
if(pid == 0)
execv(filename,args);
else
printf(“Error,execv failed …”);
}

Sans`Edgy Eft (U6.10) drift

GNOME 2.16 Beta has been in Edgy Eft (Ubuntu 6.10) for the past few days [or even a week or so]. It is functioning extremely well. I’ve seen some occasional crashes with Epiphany and Nautilus but I hope that it will be fixed soon. Other than that, there are lots of new things in GNOME 2.16:

Speed Improvements:
Nautilus, Evolution, Tomboy, GEdit all have had great speed improvements. Evolution used to use around ~45M on my machine and now it uses barely 25M. Its functionality has improved as well. Nautilus uses less memory. Tomboy/Mono have had some speed improvements as well. As usual, GNOME Terminal has also undergone some speed improvements.
Features:
Tomboy has the functionality and stability to be accepted to the GNOME 2.16 Release. It has been proposed and will be accepted granted a few changes be made to Gtk# Bindings. Evolution now has a Vertical View for those who are accustomed to MS Outlook. GEdit is also very stable now and it has a much faster startup time (again speed/memory improvements) and I have been using more of its diverse features such as the python console, the file browser in the left, all of which are fantastic and fast. Baobab has been added and it is an extremely useful tool for those who would like to see Disk Usage Analysis. GNOME System Monitor’s “Devices” tab has been renamed more aptly to “File Systems”. Rhythmbox has also improved in terms of speed. Banshee, although not an official part of GNOME, is awesome.

As for Ubuntu Edgy 6.10, there have been speed improvements in terms of booting, but it still needs some work, and I am sure that it will be optimized by the release date. It has recognized my USB Camera and my USB Flashdrive out of the box, without any work. I had never tested it but it’s amazing – as hardware support is increasing for Linux and I’m extremely happy about that. NetworkManager has recognized my Wired Network connection, which makes me all the more excited. Firefox 2.0 Beta (Bon Echo) is in the Repositories right now, and it is functioning quite well. Epiphany is also functioning quite well but I have experienced some crashes – which I had never experienced before. As for OpenOffice.org, it has the latest 2.0.3 Version.So, without further ado, here are the screenshots: