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How To Shutdown Your Computer When A Download (Torrent, Direct etc) or a Task Finishes

2012-03-02T20:27:00.000+05:30

This simple tutorial show how you can shutdown your Linux computer automatically after a download (torrents as well as direct) is finished or a task is completed.

Last day I posted about how to get email alerts of downloads' progress going at your home computer and promised to come up with more interesting stuff like this. So here I am, and in this post I will tell you how you can shutdown your Linux computer when a download finishes. Note this also applies for direct downloads or the downloads going on via torrents. You can also use this trick to shut down your PC after installation of a file has been done. I will show you two ways of doing this, one via a script and second via an application. Basically, the script can be used to shutdown your PC after finishing of any task, while the application has more parameters to shut your PC down.

To shutdown your computer via a script, we go our usual way of creating the script first, say tasks.sh. Then we write the commands we wish to execute in it one after the other, and at last we issue the shutdown command or init 0. When we execute the script, all the tasks we listed are done one after the other and when all the tasks are done, the computer shutdowns. Here is the simplest example of shutting down your PC after a download is done.

wget http://www.example.com/file1.tar.gz

init 0

In the above example, wget, the file downloader will download the file1.tar.gz from example.com and after its done, it will shutdown the PC automatically via the init 0 command. Please note that you need to be superuser to shutdown or reboot your PC via the command line, so you have to execute this script as root.

sudo su

./tasks.sh

Using this script, you can shutdown your PC after completion of *any* command-line tasks. Just make sure you add the init 0 command at the end and run this script as the super user. E.g. to shutdown your PC after an installation has been completed, use:

apt-get install package

init 0

You can also list more than one tasks in tasks.sh file one after the other, in order you wish them to get executed. To learn more how to create such scripts and how to make them executable, consider reading my previous article.

The above process has certain limitations, e.g. it can be used only for command line task and shutting down the PC after direct downloads. For shutting down your PC after torrent downloads, or using GUI downloaders, I use an KDE application called Sentinella. You can use this application in other desktops like Gnome too, provided you have necessary libraries installed.

Sentinella

Use you package manager to install it. Arch Linux users will have to get it from AUR as its not available in official repositories yet.

The program is very powerful and can do a lot of tasks such as shutting down, rebooting. playing an alarm, executing a command, putting the PC to sleep mode or terminating a program depending on the activity of computer.

To shutdown your PC after a download (torrent or direct) is done, click on Network Traffic, select download is lower than 3KBps, or a speed you prefer on the interface you use to connect the internet during a specified period of time (say 5 minutes) and select the action "Shutdown". Don't forget to save your settings by clicking the start button. The application will hide itself in the notifications tray and will monitor the system activity. The moment download gets lower than the speed you specified for specified number of minutes (indicating end of download), it will shut the system down. Note that this app can be used for more actions, not just shutting down your PC at end of download, I leave it to you to discover more.

--Saurav Modak
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What Does Freedom Mean To You?

2012-02-28T21:51:00.000+05:30

This post is aimed at answering the common questions that one faces when he hears about Linux - What is software freedom and what is Open Source.

A lot of people visiting this site had asked me how does freedom relate with Linux. Many have seen the tag line of this blog and have wondered what does that mean. Well, here I want to clarify all your doubts and questions about Free software and Linux and the term "freedom" as associated with it.

What does Freedom mean to you?

I first came to know about Open Source when I was in 9th standard in my school when I had accidentally bought a Linux for You magazine from the store. To me, it was the curiosity of Linux with drew me closer. I had heard about Linux before, only once and twice I guess. To my unknown eyes, Linux looked a command line giant, where only geeks can fit themselves in. Flipping the pages, I got to know that Linux is not just a kernel and other software utilities that make up the system. Its a software culture, a religion which is more humane that proprietary ones. Its where the 'good people' still exist, and the thing called sharing and caring is still exercised. Unlike the real world, people still follow manners and morals here and goodwill of the community is looked before individual profits. Fast forward four years, my first year in college and the first time I tried Linux in a computer. Today I know that Linux is powerful, extensible, fast, secure and what not. But I don't love Linux for it. I love Linux because its good.

To you, I ask a question. What does freedom mean for you? When can you call yourselves free? From the philosophical context, here I list a few points that must exists to call yourselves "free".

The ability to be not under control someone
Not under any restrictions
The ability to make choices of your own
To "own" yourself or what you own

Though it may seem that all the points above mean the same thing, I will explain how they differ and why, in a short while. Before that, lets have a look at what drives the Linux thing - Open Source.

Though Open Source software is also termed as free, both of them mean the same thing. The software we use in computing today is made by programmers using some kind of high-level languages. Many organisations and also individuals are after these software creation and maintenance. In most cases, the source code, i.e. the code of high level language the software is made in, is not exposed to the users for the obvious reasons,, they don't need it. Open Source software follows a different philosophy, the code of the software is given to any one who wants it, and he/she can duplicate and modify the source code according to his her needs. This is called "freedom", because you are free to obtain the software and do whatever you want with it according to your needs.

Open source benefits a lot to developers as it reduces a lot of work. Imagine you are making a dish, and some part of it is already ready made supplied to you. Wouldn't it be nice then? Not only it will save your time, but also money and other headaches. And whats more better if you are able to mould the ready made ingredient according to your wish without any restrictions?

Please note that Free and Open Source software (FOSS) need not to be free of price, though mostly it is. Imagine again the Kitchen example to have a clearer view of it. You need to buy all the ingredients from the market, be it salt, pepper or chilies. However, you are free to use them as you like, and mix them to quantities you desire. No one will object on how you use it. Same is the case with FOSS software. Maybe sometimes you will have to pay to buy it, but to use it or to modify it, you are free.

Our Indian readers will understand it better. There are two terms in Hindi, one is "muft" (which means free of price) and another is "mukt" (which means free to modify and use). Here in open source, we focus on "mukt" one, though most of the time, "mukt" software can be "muft" too.

Its comes from a common sense that Open Source offers a lot of benefits for the developers and software makers. It makes the software making process faster and the software more reliable. In proprietary software, its a few individuals that make the software, but in Open Source, there is a whole community. And its a fact that more heads are better than one or few. If there is something wrong with the software, then its gets fixed by the community in a short time. A bigger community also means a better help system, as you have a lot of people to ask and seek help. This is the open source culture, where people share and care the code, and are always ready to help any person with a problem. Its more social, more helpful and more good.

Okay, now how odes Open Source benefit you, as a user, who doesn't need to care what the code is? As stated earlier, it makes the software more reliable. Also as lot of people are behind the project, bugs and errors in the program are fixed soon and there are large communities that help you in every distress. Also, as most FOSS softwares are also free of price, it doesn't make a hole in your pockets. It offers you a lot of freedom which proprietary software cant offer you anyday. Now to discuss freedom we have to move to our previous discussion as what does freedom mean to you. We will discuss the points that we highlighted and discuss them one after other in FOSS context.

The ability to be not under control someone : You are not under someone, if you use or develop an Open Source software. Open Source software are not owned by any individuals, they are owned and are a product of the community of users who made and use it. Its you who make decisions regarding it.
Not under any restrictions : When you use any software or maybe a site, you must have come across pages with the title "End User License Agreements". Its a document you must agree to before using any software product. On the contrary, these License take away your rights and restrict the software usage and put you in some boundaries, beyond which you have no legal rights to use the software. Open Source software has no such restrictions, and you are free to do whatever you like with it, without any boundaries or limitations. I am using Linux for the past one year and have never seen any EULA agreements in all my software installations!
The ability to make choices of your own : Linux is lot about choice. If you don't like a software, or any part of it, you are free to dump it and make changes to it as you like. You are also encouraged to make the changes in software as you like, and pass the same to others for the benefit of the community. This is how FOSS software works, always evolving from good to better at every new release.
To "own" yourself or what you own : You own your computer, your software and your system. You are the soul owner of it and are free to use and change it according to your needs. No one restricts the your ability to use the computer or the software.

Thus we see that FOSS software offer a lot of freedom at all levels. Maybe you are thinking that Open Source software are not that popular, but thats not true. Every one loves the Mozilla Firefox and the VLC media player, isn't it? All of them are free software. The Free Download Manager is another example. Also large websites such as Facebook and Google run on FOSS software. Government organizations use FOSS software to cut costs and improve reliability. To list all the achievements will make this post more long and boring, so we leave it up to you to discover more Open Source software.

FOSS is perhaps the only part of the "good" world still left, where people share, cooperate and help each other. Linux is just a part of this revolution. FOSS software changes the way you think and use your PC. So the next time, you come across the word Linux somewhere, you know its not just a software, its a religion.

Image Credit : http://blackcatsgraphics.com/

--Saurav Modak
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Get Email Alerts of Downloads' Progress in Linux

2012-02-25T18:41:00.000+05:30

In this article I will show you how to get free email alerts of progress of downloads going at your home. It comes handy when you are away from your desktop.

Yesterday was a family get-together, which meant I had to be out of the house most of the day. But the thing was that I had a download currently running, ArtistX DVD iso (yes, review and screenshot coming soon). It weighted over 4 gBs which meant over 4 days of constant download in my slow connection. So, something had to be done which notified me about the download progress and shuts down my PC if the connection is broken/download is done. I chose email as the notification because I could access it all the time from my cell phone.

So basically, what I did is installed a console based email client that emails me the file details, and set up a cron job that executes the program on a regular interval of time.

Here we go.

Using your favorite package manager, install mutt. I chose mutt against clients such as sendmail and others because its easy to configure and use. If you are on Arch Linux, you can use this command.

sudo pacman -S mutt

Once installed, you need to set up IMAP and SMTP so that it can send and receive emails. I used Gmail with following configuration. If you use other service, inquire about it settings and set it up.

set from = "yourname@gmail.com"
set realname = "Your Name"
set imap_user = "yourname@gmail.com"
set imap_pass = "your password"
set folder = "imaps://imap.gmail.com:993"
set spoolfile = "+INBOX"
set postponed ="+[Gmail]/Drafts"
set header_cache =~/.mutt/cache/headers
set message_cachedir =~/.mutt/cache/bodies
set certificate_file =~/.mutt/certificates
set smtp_url = "smtp://yourname@smtp.gmail.com:587/"
set smtp_pass = "your password"

This is the minimum configuration to have mutt working. Save the file as .muttrc in your home folder. Also create two folders, .mutt and .mutt/cache in your home folder.

mkdir .mutt

mkdir .mutt/cache

To check mutt is working or not, fire it up by typing mutt in the terminal. If it does and you are able to access your emails, congrats, you have successfully set up the first part of this setup.

Now remember that you have to do the downloads in a single folder where no other files reside. So create an empty folder specially for downloads you are going to do while you are away. I used wget because its utterly relaible, you can use any download client you want. For the list of best download managers in Linux, click here.

The format of command line for mutt to send mail is something like this

mutt -s "subject" address@domain.com < body.txt

We need to write the script now, the first thing that we need to do is to write the downloading file details in a file that will include its size. Go to the empty folder you created and first create the script file, say tasks.sh. In it, write

ls -l downloadingFileName > message.txt

This will write the file details including size, owner and read-write access to the file "message.txt" which will become the body of our email. By seeing the size attribute, you will be able to determine how much of your file has been downloaded.

Now in the next line of the script, we will invoke mutt and send the message.txt file to your email address. The whole script now looks something lie this :-

ls -l downloadingFileName >message.txt

mutt -s "file progress" yourname@gmail.com <message.txt

Save this file as tasks.sh in the same folder where file is being downloaded. Make it executable using

chmod +x tasks.sh

Now we will setup the cron job to email us at regular intervals. Open terminal and type:

crontab -e

This will open your cron file in an editor, possibly vi. Type the following to send you the file progress by email every hour.

@hourly /path/to/task/file/tasks.sh

Replace the path with the path where you saved the tasks.sh file. Thats done. You will receive email alerts no matter wherever you are about the download progress going at your home. If you want to get alerted every 10 minutes of the download progress, you can do something like this

10 * * * * /path/to/task/file/tasks.sh

Replace 10 with your preferred number of minutes.

In the next few posts, I will tell you about how to get free SMS alerts of the progress of download (this will come handy if you are on an expensive data plan), a perl script that will send the percentage of file downloaded and a trick to shutdown your PC automatically when download is done. So it will be the right time to subscribe to our RSS feeds so that you get updates of new posts.

--Saurav Modak
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My Journey with Linux - Year One

2012-02-21T17:43:00.000+05:30

My Experiences With Linux During The First Year of Using It

21st February 2011, that was the day when the first time, I was successfully able to replace Windows and install Linux in my newly bought PC. Though I had bought my PC a month ago, on 30th January, I had to wait almost 20 days to get the internet connection working and download a CD image (.iso) of Fedora 14. I choose Fedora, though many preferred Ubuntu because I didn't like what the majority like. The truth is, I don't like Ubuntu now also, because first of all I hate its nasty 6 month releases and also the apt-get (.deb) package manager, reason I don't know why.

With Fedora came a breath of fresh air, and it just took me a week to dump the crappy Windows XP and replace it as my primary operating system. Though I got some hurdles in the road like installing the mp3 and media codecs (remember, they are not present in official repos), after all, it helped me learn more and more, and understanding the Linux system. Today, if someone ask me what distro to follow to learn Linux, I always advice him Fedora.

presto magic in Fedora

I am on a cheap wireless connection, and if you are lucky, speeds hardly cross 25 kBps. The Fedora system has an amazing system of delta RPMs, and with yum plugin presto enabled, you can significantly reduce size of updates. May be thats why the reason I hated apt-get from first, and Ubuntu also. This seemed as an magic to me, and also helped me love Fedora more and curse my connection and fate less.

Those were the good old days of Gnome 2.x. I remember that I managed to make the windows and panels transparent to show off the guys who said that with Linux you cant have eye candy. The result was something like the one shown below. Amazing, isn't it?

Eye candy Linux desktop

But the most thing that impressed me me about eye-candy in Linux is the Compiz with wobbly windows and rotating desktops. Though I failed to install it in the first chance, I finally managed it. One of my friends who was amazed my it, finally decided to switch to Linux. It feels nice when others choose freedom like you. :-)

Security in Linux

One of the Linux things that always impressed me is the sense of security it offers. Imagine a life with no viruses or malware, where your data is yours and no one else has the right to access it. My friends debate on which antivirus they use, and no one comes to a definite conclusion. Even though, they spend around a thousand bucks per year on these security products, I can guarantee that all of them are not 100% full proof. While they worry, I humbly use Linux without a single sense of worry in my mind. This screenshot justifies my statement.

The thing I loved about Fedora, and Linux in general was that the ability to tweak it to your own liking. I learned how to change my boot background image to make it look good and also I didn't like the GDM login screen, so I switched to KDM.

Come November 2011, and I had the brand new Gnome 3 desktop running with Fedora 15. I *really* was amazed by it, as mentioned in this blog post. No desktop icons, no menus but a interface that is somewhat comparable to your Phone's UI and netbooks. It made my work even faster and distraction free. The empathy integration, which had a bug solved recently made me chat more and more with my Facebook buddies. Who said Linux cant be fun?

Good looks, tweaking and excellent support in forums. Fedora had everything. I loved it, to the extent of joining their Ambassador program. But one thing I hated about it was it 6 month releases. What it meant was that I had to format and re-install the OS. That used to be hectic task, and a day wasted to download and install the applications I need. I wanted a solution to this problem, and what I got was a thing called rolling release, in the form of Arch Linux.

To those who don't know, rolling release is a software (or operating system) concept where you don't need to format and re-install to update your whole system. The software vendor provides periodic releases, which you install in your box and whole system will be up to date without formatting it. Imagine running the state of art software all the time. I am an update freak, and having an unlimited internet plan means downloading and installing updates every sunday. This is all I wanted.

I am totally satisfied with my Linux journey till now. In this past one year, I am comfortable with the command line, have learned to do basic tasks such as word processing, listening music, surfing internet and things of that sort, and also advanced things such as programming, using MySQL, PHP and hosting web servers. One thing that Linux taught me is that there is not any end of learning in this world. Even you learn one thing, there are more things you don't know as Newton rightly said "I have just picked the pebbles in the ocean of knowledge". So I hope, my thirst of knowing Linux more and more will remain constant in this year too, and I will tweak and personalize my system more and more, till I break it.

I love the freedom that Linux offers me. There isn't a thing called piracy, everyone shares the good software and mostly you don't need to pay for it. You "own" your system, and can do whatever you like. You don't need to see those long End User License Agreement pages before using any software and agree to them. Thats freedom, to do whatever you like, edit any software to your needs and no one will say that you are doing a crime

I must say I have fallen in love with Linux (reason why I started this blog). And its a love I know that will never die. If you don't use Linux now, don't worry, its never too late to start. If you are not convinced as yet, have a look at this post containing all the features why I love it. Trust me, once you will fall in love with it, it will be impossible to come out of it.

To my loyal blog readers, here is a small gift. Have a look at this public Linux Magic album in Facebook to know what amazing things I have done with Linux last year. These are the lovely memories I wish to cherish forever.

--Saurav Modak
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Secure Your Facebook Account by Activating Login Notifications

2012-02-20T17:28:00.000+05:30

This tutorial shows how you can make your Facebook account more secure and prevent it from being hacked by enabling login notifications. With them enabled, you will get notified by email or SMS whenever someone tries to access your Facebook account from any location.

Facebook has become an integral part of our lives, and most of us open it at least a day to stay in touch with friends or relax. As we have become close to it, its natural that we share a lot of important information in it and the data and privacy of it is valuable to us. Here I will show you how you can secure your facebook account so that you get notified whenever its accessed from any device or mobile phone. I will also show it how you will more control over it and revoke the access in case it get hacked by someone.

To do so, login to your facebook account and hit the drop down menu and go to account settings.

Facebook Account Settings

Click on the security tab and then login notifications. Activaite the email and Text notifications. Note : for enabling text notifications, you must have your cell phone number registered with facebook.

You can also view the set of recognized devices, from which if you login, notifications wont be sent.

Facebook recognized devices

To view the locations that you are logged in from, choose the active sessions tab. If you notice any suspicious activity, you can end that session. Also don't forget to change your password as it may be the case of your account being hacked.

Active sessions page

Next time, whenever you login from a new device, you will find a checkpoint page where you will have to enter a device name to proceed. If you often login from that device or phone. choose to save that, else not. In either case you will get an SMS and detailed email alert (indicating the IP of the computer logged on) which will be useful if your account gets/is getting hacked.

Facebook Checkpoint Page

--Saurav Modak

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And I Though It Was Love..

2012-02-15T10:46:00.000+05:30

My take on teenage love affairs, Valentine's day and love..

Yesterday was Valentine's day, and as for that, I had enough time to think about one thing that bothers everyone at some point or other - Love. It meant I had to go through the times I had fallen in it and find what went wrong, why they didn't work out, or .. was it love at all?

To those who don't know, I am a 19 year old Indian teenager, studying in college. I am a geek, and to some extent, you can call me shy. By geek I mean I love all the technical stuff related to electronics, not someone who drowns himself to books every day (there lies the difference between nerds and geeks). I am a okay guy in studies and only thing I hate about myself is that I am not so tall, but you cant call me short too. Anyway, that didn't stop me from falling in love and getting girlfriends.

Okay, lets analyse what happens in teenage in the matter of love. For some reason, one of our friends gets inspired by an older someone to have a girlfriend, and he does. Seeing him, others follow his suit and soon it happens that more of you friends are in a relationship than single ones. At that time, you feel strange, it comes to you that its cool to have an affair with someone, and you start searching someone. Here, the co-ed schools help a lot, and if you are not in one, you have other things where you can find a lot of girls like coaching centres and social networking sites. So friend requests, messages, taking numbers, late night chats and finally you end up with one you can manage to impress.

I don't blame us for hunting for girls like this. Physical changes and hormones do play a role here, and its not a crime, rather its natural to get attracted to someone of opposite sex.

Now something happens that you don't expect. We are grown up seeing movies where we see unconditional love and "they lived happily ever after" things. Sadly life is just not so, so you get dumped/cheated/whatever easier to say by you. You allocated a portion of time from you daily life to one person, and had some strange habits like waking her up in the morning, chatting the whole day, calling late night and caring for her with asking things like "eaten, reached home", etc. Suddenly they all stop at once, so its natural that you feel awkward (read lonely). You start posting sad status updates on Facebook where no one cares what you do, and develop a quick fetish for heart-broken and sad pictures which you set as your phone's wallpaper or profile picture. Hopefully we start understanding things by now and soon realise that our dream of spending our life with a single person was just fake. So we start that cycle again, hunting for a new girl and managing to impress her. This goes on and on until you gain spirituality or find something more interesting than girls (like I did).

Now my question is, can we call this love? Its a thing developed by peer pressure or our emptiness. Truly saying, 90 % of the time what we do is not love, its either a show off to your friends that I can too have a hot boyfriend/girlfriend or a way to fill our loneliness/spend our spare time.

I had experiences in falling in affairs which I regarded as love before. But strangely yesterday I realised that they were not love at all. Its true I had developed feelings and caring for some person, maybe liked someone too, but not to that level to be labeled as love.

Neither I am ready to say what my friends do is love. Yes, maybe one or two do have intense feelings for their lovers, but the rest, its just a show off business.

So when does love happens? May be when we get older say 25-26 years when we start to get settled. Or does it happen at all? My loyal readers, older in age than me will answer this question better.

So are teenage affairs just a waste of time? I don't think so. You get to learn many lessons which no books can teach you ever, and in the process gain experience and know its dangerous to trust someone soon. I am proud to say I am more matured than before, and have known how to judge people by their behavior, all thanks to the affairs I had.

This is the first Valentine in my adulthood that I spent as a single. Though I had a date with a friend, I got to know that I have too less a time to have a girlfriend. I consider myself a busy person (thanks to programming and Linux and me being addicted to them), and when I can't give much time to a friend for a day (reason for my last breakup), then how can I nurture a relationship and make it grow?

But its true that I am waiting for someone, a special someone rather, who will care for me and understand me. Hope to meet her someday, and find love, if it exists at all.

PS: To those who are teenagers and in a relationship, don't worry much, everything is okay. :-)

Image Courtesy : http://kristinquotes.blogspot.in

--Saurav Modak
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Empathy Bug : "No reason specified" Error Solved

2012-02-13T10:34:00.000+05:30

This article shows a solve, rather a way-around of the long standing Emapthy IM client bug which displays a "No Reason Specified" connection error whenever you try to login to your chat accounts. Using this trick, I hope you will be able to bypass the error and chat easily.

So I posted a few days ago about a bug in the Empathy IM client. Whenever I try to login with any of my chat accounts (Facebook, GTalk etc), an error pops up saying "Connection Error, No Reason Specified". This was a cause of worry because no other IM client, say Pidgin, Gajim etc provides as easy integration with the Gnome shell as does Empathay. Here is the discussion on Bugzilla. The bug has been assigned but sadly, it hasn't been fixed yet.

I fiddled a bit with it yesterday and have luckily found a way-around to solve this problem. I said a way-around because though it works 100% for me, it may or may not work for you. Here's what you need to do. Open the Network Settings and go to the proxy tab.

Proxy Settings Gnome

If the proxy is set to Automatic or you have manually specified some, set it to none. Disconnect your internet and restart your computer. Hopefully you wont get that error anymore.

The reason for this error is that native Gnome Applications like Epipany and Empathy, cannot, for some reason, resolve the proxy and connect to the internet. I discovered it when browsing a page with Epiphany, which I couldn't. Surprisingly I could browse without any problem with Chromium.

If you are still facing problems connection with Empathy, mention in comments below and I would see what I can help.

--Saurav Modak
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Hurt, Ignored, Used... And Used to It

2012-02-11T00:04:00.000+05:30

Hello readers, I am back again after ages of writing this blog. I seriously think that now need to be tamed for more and more posting here, but after all I am a lazy human being meant to break promises. Anyway, today I would like to tell about what I had been up to these days. I researched a bit about human beings and their relationships, specially that they build with someone of opposite sex and here are the findings.

Let me start with a story, something that most of us must have faced at some point of our lives. You meet a girl somewhere and take her number. Then you behave as a normal guy will do, calls, SMSes and late night chats. Then suddenly one day, the girl stops replying your SMSes all of a sudden, leaving you thinking whats wrong. You call her, no response too. And you then realize that she ignoring you. You have only one question in your mind, why?

We start to frame all the answers we can at that point of time, starting with the best to the worst that can happen. Maybe her phone is silent, maybe her balance got over, maybe she is away or busy, maybe she is angry with me (again why),.... and the last, maybe she has got someone else and wants to forget me.

We all are cynical creatures that feel less and think more. The more we think, the more bad reasons come in our minds and the more we get depressed. At some point, we get so sad that there is only one thing left to do, become a desperate person and start disturbing the person more who is ignoring us.

I am not here to judge what right or whats wrong. I know it really hurts when the person you loves starts ignoring you, I have been innumerable times through situations as thus. Maybe you feel cheated, used and hurt all at the same time and thats whats makes the things worse, the moment you start comparing yourself with a material.

We are not things to be used, like a toilet paper where you use it to clean your shit and throw it away. If you feel that you are being used, I can surely say that you have disrespecting yourselves when you feel so.

Let me tell you another story that will elaborate this more clearly. A certain spiritual guru was giving a speech at some part of India. He took out a 500 bucks note and showed it to the audience and said that those who want the note may raise their hand. A majority of them did. Seeing this, he took the note in his hand and crumbled it and asked the same question again. Same people raised their hand again. This time, the guru threw the crumbled note on the ground, and used his legs, kicked it and asked the same question again. The audience raised their hands again.

The 500 Rs note, though is just a paper, has also got a value attached with it. So no mater how much you crumble and kick it, its value remains the same.

We are also the same, like the note. We have our value which is a currency of our character. So if other people crumble or kick us, their value may get reduced in our eyes, but our remains the same. The biggest mistake someone can make is disrespecting ourselves by feeling we are “used”.

So what do you need to do when someone does something like I said before. Well, the best thing will be just ignore her and move on. Thats the best thing for you and also the other person. And frankly, to say the truth, there is not a dearth of girls in this world, and if you are good enough, chances are you will find a new one soon.

I have had girls in my life before who may have done the same without throwing any reason. Girls do keep secrets, and I must say that they are good at it. Now, I don't give a f**k of whether people give me attention or ignore me. I am not born to impress them anyway, its my life, its totally their opinion whether they get impressed by my way of living or not.

I don't ask God as to why people have hurt or ignored me anymore. I know I wont get the answer now, not because I trust God less, but because I know that something better is written in my life after this, during which I will get justified.

Life plays a survival of the fittest theory everywhere, even in relationships. So the people who are best will ultimately stay with you, and those who don't deserve you will get erased at some where in the timeline of life. So if someone leaves you without any reason, be glad that you have better relationships in life than before.

To those wondering why I am telling all these : This post is specially for some troubled souls and single friends who are feeling out of control in this Valentine's week when love is everywhere except in their lives. I hope that you will find this useful.

--Saurav Modak
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[Arch News & Bugs] Pacman 4.0 Update - Empathy No Reason Specified Error - GNOME Weather Extension Bug - Totem Bug - Chromium 16 memory hungry

2012-01-26T16:27:00.000+05:30

This section is dedicated to the current outgoings in the Arch Linux community, bugs fixes and updates. Today I will discuss experiences on the most recent topics and bugs I faced - Empathy No Reason Specified Error, a Totem bug that makes the Movie Player never start, GNOME Weather Extension bug, Chromium 16, and Pacman 4 Update.

Sorry for the late post. I know many people do love this site except me and so they also expect things like more regular posting and things of that sort. But this week I had been busy with something that is quite a new concept (I will write a post about that soon :-) ) so had dedicated all my energies to that. Anyway lets move straight to the topic - latest and greatest things going on in the Arch Linux community.

Pacman 4.* Update

Well we had been waiting for it quite long, and thank God that finally it has arrived. Our favourite package manager pacman has finally the capability of using signed packages. Although this means more security, one of the thing is sure that if you use it now you will get more annoyances than that, as the repos are not quite ready for package signing (yet). So the best way is to disable the package signing check. You can do it in a simple way, rename the old /etc/pacman.conf file to something like /etc/pacman.conf.old and the new .pacsave file to /etc/pacman.conf. Also don't forget to activate wget as the download agent in the configuration file. If you would like to learn more, here is the news and here is the blog post regarding its usage.

If you are having problem updating the pacman due to package conflicts, just uninstall them (like I had problems with pacman-color, gnome-packagekit and package-query). After its updated, you can manually re-install all the packages.

Totem bug makes the movie player never start (fixed)

All of us love Totem, the default video player for the Linux system. But sadly I faced a bug that makes the player keeps loading and it finally crashes without any notice. When I checked the log, I found a problem of loading of shared libraries. Luckily after a whole system update, it runs fine now. If you are facing the same problem, make sure you remove it with the command pacman -Rns totem and again re-install it. (Oh yes! Sync the repos before doing that)

"No Reason Specified" error while connecting in Empathy

Well this has been troubling us for quite long and sadly it hasn't been fixed as yet. While connecting with Facebook, Gtalk and MSN I face this no reason specified error. While searching in Google you will find a number of fixes, but none of them looks to work for me. For the meantime I have replaced Empathy with Pidgin and eagerly waiting for an update.

Empathy Error - No Reason Specified

I first faced this error while I was using Fedora 15. It worked fine for a few weeks in Arch, but I am again facing it from this week. Sad thing is that I will miss easy chatting like this -

Empathy Integration GNOME 3

If you are also using Pidgin, here is an extension that provides Gnome 3 integration but it provides just the notifications, not the chat box.

Gnome Weather Extension keeps showing the loading sign

I loved this extension because it helped me a lot to plan my day. But currently this one is also broken and keeps showing the loading sign. So unless you are not lazy enough to visit a website to check weather, its gone for now.

Gnome Shell Extension Weather

Chromium 16 Memory Hungry Issues

I don't know whats wrong with the superfast browser Chromium. I have a slow connection and I need to open multiple tabs to browse the internet. When ever I do that, its memory usage shoots up and occupies more than 2/3rd of my RAM. I hope it will get fixed in chromium 17 soon. For the meantime, I downgraded to Chromium 15.

Chromim 16 RAM usage

If you have found a fix of any of the issues stated above, kindly let me know and I will update this post with your solution. If you would like to receive updates on bug fixes, kindly subscribe to us free via email or RSS feeds.

--Saurav Modak
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[Q & A] "Media change, please insert the disc" error while installing software in Ubuntu

2012-01-19T11:55:00.000+05:30

This post is the solve of the common error which occurs in Ubuntu based system - "please enter disc labeled 'Ubuntu' in the drive '/media/cdrom/' and press enter.

This question was asked by one of my Facebook friend. If you also have some doubts or question regarding Linux and open-source, kindly look at the options below the post.

Hey! I'm having some problems with Ubuntu. Thought you might be able to help. When I try installing Wine 'sudo apt-get install wine', I get the following error. Media change: please insert the disc labeled 'Ubuntu 11.10 _Oneiric Ocelot_ - Release amd64 (20111012)' in the drive '/media/cdrom/' and press enter.

- Pranav

Hey Pranav here is a easy solution to this. Open the Ubuntu Software Center.

Ubuntu Software Center

On the menu bar, go to Edit - Software Sources. A window will come like this.

Ubuntu Software Center - Edit Sources

Uncheck the option marked as "Cdrom with Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot'" and check all other options except "Source code". Once done, exit the Software Center and open terminal and type -

sudo apt-get update

This will sync all the software headers from the repositories and henceafter you will be able to install wine using the command you typed. The problem was happening because you had mistakenly activated software installation from CD ROM, but apt couldn't find any disk in your drive.

If you have any doubts or problems regarding open-source/Linux software, you can send me an email to intoanotherdawn [at] gmail [dot] com, message me at my Facebook profile, or tweet me.

--Saurav Modak
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Education.. Exams.. Marks

2012-01-18T10:52:00.003+05:30

The anger of an Indian Student on the Education System which expects him to be God and an all-rounder in around a dozen subjects

The day before yesterday I got my B. Sc part one results. To those who don't know, I am doing a Bachelor in Science with Computer Applications as the major subject. I know many people will say if you are doing Computers, you must have opted for Engineering, but I opted for a B. Sc because I want to do research after a point of time, not jobs. Anyway, I fared well in it, in fact I got the best marks in my life in any public exam – a lovely 89% with 96 in practicals alone. I was satisfied, (but not done, because I had expected better in my theory papers), but my parents weren't.

The reason of their dissatisfaction was my marks in Physics and Maths, that were there as just a helping subjects, not even compulsory ones. When you carried out the aggregate, only my marks in majors will be taken in account, not them. You just needed to pass in them. I had passed, but got a merely 50% in them.

I agree I had expected better in it, but I didn't bother what I got. They did. They didn't see what I have got in my majors, that mattered, but what I got in Physics and Maths and straightforwardly said that my result wasn't good.

That hurt me. First you work hard the whole year to get a marks like this, and second you hear your results were not good even after topping the college. To spread some more salt in my wound, I had told one of my close friends about my results, and her mom was like as she is on cloud nine. She even called me, with all smiles and said that she is proud that I did a result like this. Why is it so hard to satisfy your parents?

I am a okay student in Science subjects and had got above 60% in all of them, till date. This year it went wrong because even tough I studied hard, the marks you get in college is given on average basis, and I even doubt if the papers are checked. So one who attempts in 80s there, gets marks in 40s in pass subjects. I know I am doing something bad, passing the blame on someone else, but sadly this time, this is the truth, and you can't really do anything about it.

I didn't expect my mom to be on happiest person in the world like my friend's, but at least, she could have appreciated something in my result. Why is it in human nature to see the most negative points in a bright positive picture, and ruin the lovely scene as a whole?

Or why is that Science subjects bother so much in every Indian student's life? And if they do, why you need to study other subjects like History, Geography and Civics from before you gain conscience? Why is it that parents feel sad even when you get above 90 in English but below 60 in Maths?

I know people say that students who get into IITs are the brightest in India. Here I want to clarify a point. They are not brightest in India, but brightest in Physics, Chemistry and Maths. Every year when IIT results are declared, you hear the buzz going on through India. But why this doesn't happen when CPT or IAS results are declared?

Are the students that do well in Political Science, English or Literature are not good? Or its just that science is what that matters in every day's life? To say the truth, at this point of time, India needs more Economists and Lawyers than Engineers. And I am still surprised to see the mad race in Engineering.

Lets come to my point. Does it matter what I get in my pass subjects when I will surely go forward with my majors, not my pass ones? Or lets give some examples from successful people of my field – Bill Gates, Mark Zukenburg, Steve Jobs, or even our own Sabeer Bhatia, the creator of Hotmail. Does anyone bother what they got in Physics in college? To the best of my knowledge, the former three were college dropouts.

2011 had been an eventful year for me, the first time I started creating apps for myself, with one being which lets you control your computer through SMS. Sadly these innovations will not be counted as much until I get above 80 in Physics and Maths.

If you think that I am jealous and saddened, yes I am. After all I am an human being, I cant be good and all-rounder in all subjects. But I know the fact what is good in me and know how to respect it.

Poor middle class of India (and I being unfortunate in being one of them) just follows what the crowd follows..

Thanks to twoone-s.blogspot.com for the image.

--Saurav Modak
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Speed up & Secure your Internet Browsing and Access Blocked Sites in your School, College or Office with Google Public DNS

2012-01-16T11:15:00.002+05:30

In this post I will tell you about how you can speed up and secure your Internet browsing significantly in both Windows and Linux and also access the blocked sites in your college with the help of free service - Google Public DNS

When it comes to Internet speed, every one wants it to be fast, isn't it. A few days ago I posted how you can make your downloads faster in Linux and today I will tell you about how you can make your browsing faster in both Windows and Linux. For that you need to change your DNS servers to Google Public DNS. DNS servers? What are they?

The thing is when you type a URL in your browser's address bar, like www.google.com, it first get resolved to a 12 digit IP address as computers can only understand numbers, not any alphabets. This IP looks like 125.008.025.147 and each of the sub-addresses separated by dots ranges from zero to 255. This work of converting a alphabetic URL to its corresponding IP address is done by a DNS server (DNS means Domain Name Service). By default, your Internet service provider have their own DNS servers, but as many people use them, they may get jammed and resolving may be slow, thus slowing down your browsing experience. Google Public DNS is a free DNS server which you may use as an alternative to your ISP's DNS servers. As Google bots crawl millions of web pages every day, they resolve the IP addresses and cache them, thus using Google Public DNS may significantly speed your browsing experience and also make it more secure and reliable.

Using Google Public DNS in Linux

When you are connected to the Internet, open the Network Settings and switch to your active connections tab. It will show you the current DNS information, if any.

Network Settings

Now open Network Connections option and select the tab of connection you use, e.g. Wired, Wireless, Mobile broadband etc. Open its settings and change the DNS servers to 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4. Save and exit.

Changing DNS servers in Linux for Google Public DNS

You are now ready to use the new DNS and browser faster.

Using Google Public DNS in Windows

Here I will show you how you can switch to Google Public DNS in Windows 7. I have used this operating system here, if you use XP or older, you can find similar options. First open the start menu and go to Control Panel.

Open Control Panel

Click on Network and Internet option

Network and Internet

Click on Network and Sharing Center

Network and Sharing Center

Click on Change Adapter Settings

Change Adapter Settings

Right click on the connection you use and click on Properties

Connection Properties

Click on Networking tab and click on IPV4. Click on Properties.

Network Connection Properties

Select "Use the following DNS server addresses" and type 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 in the field.

Changing DNS in Windows

Accessing Blocked Sites with Google Public DNS

If your College, Office, School or Organization blocks some websites, you can simply unblock them and access them freely by using Google Public DNS. Change the DNS by following the above steps and it will be done.

Note: In both the steps, you will not be able to use the new DNS settings until you disconnect and connect again to Internet.

--Saurav Modak
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How To Download Youtube Videos in Linux in Desired Format

2012-01-14T17:28:00.000+05:30

In this tutorial I will show you how you can download Youtube videos in your desired format, batch download videos from a file, or extract the audio only from the downloaded video in Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora Arch Linux etc).

As everyone knows Youtube is the largest source of online videos in the world. There are many Youtube Video downloaders available in Windows platform, but most of them don't work or are slow or require you to pay for downloading videos. Today I will show how you can download a Youtube video in your Linux machine for free also in desired format using a open source software known as youtube-dl. This will work on all popular Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, Linux Mint etc.

Installing youtube-dl

Check your distro's repositories if youtube-dl is available there. For Debian based distros such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint, you can use the following command.

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl

For RPM based

sudo yum install youtube-dl

Arch Linux users can use pacman to install it as follows

sudo pacman -S youtube-dl

You can also compile from source by downloading it from this page.

Using youtube-dl : Downloading videos, Pausing and Resuming downloads

To download a video, go to youtube.com and search the video you want to download. Open the video page and copy the URL from the address bar as shown below.

Copying Youtube URL

Make sure you have installed youtube-dl using the above steps. Issue the following command to start downloading the video

youtube-dl <video URL>

eg. if the video URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc0CVEuUvRs, type

youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc0CVEuUvRs

You will see some information as shown in the screenshot below, after which the video will start downloading and you will see the current speed and time remaining.

Downloading Youtube videos using youtube-dl

To pause or cancel the download, use Control-C. You can resume downloading the video using the following command

youtube-dl -c <video URL>

Batch Downloading Youtube Videos from a file

You can also write URLs of the videos in a file to be downloaded and issue a single command to download it at once. To do that, search all the videos you want to download and copy paste the URLs in a text file, each URL in a separate line. Then issue this command to download all the videos at once. This is especially useful if you want to download a lot of videos and don't have time enough to issue the command separately.

youtube-dl -a filename.txt

Where filename.txt is the file where the video URLs are saved.

Batch Download Youtube videos from a file -youtube-dl

Downloading Youtube videos in Preferred format

Often it may happen that you may want to download a video in a format different from the default one, or in a different resolution. To know what format a video is availiable, use the following command.

youtube-dl -F <video URL>

Make sure you typed capital F. It will display the formats and resolutions the video is available in and their specific code in the first column.

Download video in a different format - youtube-dl

To download the file in your preferred format, type

youtube-dl -f <format code> <video url>

Eg. I want to download the file in .flv format with resolution 240x400, so I use this command

youtube-dl -f 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc0CVEuUvRs

The lower the resolution, the smaller will be the size of the file hence will save your data usage. By default, youtube-dl downloads the file in the best quality format.

Extracting Audio of Youtube Videos

If you just want the audio of the youtube video, you can issue this command to get it.

youtube-dl <video URL> --extract-audio

This will extract the audio in best format available. You can also specify your preferred format such as .mp3 as follows:

youtube-dl <video URL> --audio-format mp3

To specify the quality or bit-rate of the audio

youtube-dl <video URL> --audio-quality 256k

The default is 128kbps. If you want to keep the video file too after the audio has been extracted, you can use the -k option. Hence all together to download my video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc0CVEuUvRs and extract the audio in mp3 format with a bitrate of 176kbps and keep the video, I use:

youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc0CVEuUvRs --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 176 -k

For more options, type

youtube-dl -h

--Saurav Modak
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Best 8 Download Managers/Accelerators for Linux - Reviews, Ratings, Screenshots and Downloads

2012-01-13T11:29:00.000+05:30

This post lists the best download managers and accelerators available for Linux, both command line and GUI. Also I have rated them on the basis of speed of download and other features.

When it comes to downloading stuff from the Internet, all of us want it to be fast so that we can save our time. In Windows platform, there are a lot of download managers and accelerators available that gives you boosts in speed, which otherwise through normal download will take a lot of time. In Linux platform too, there are various download accelerators which do the same task. Single threaded and multi-threaded, interactive and non-interactive, command line and GUI, I have rated them based on the boost of speed using a calculation algorithm given below and created the following list of eight best download managers available. Note that all of them support resuming of downloads. The list is arranged in descending order, with the worst at the first and the best at the last.

Note: For some reason I couldn't compile the Download4X (d4x) download manager, also it seems that the software is not maintained anymore hence it is out of this list. Also this ratings are based on a rough calculation which is dependent on my ISP. Things may vary in your computer.

Calculation of Rating :

(Average speed of this download manager / Average speed of best download manager) * 10

Average speed is calculated by dividing the size of the file by seconds taken to complete a download. Same file, hosted on the same server is taken as a download sample. For calculating the time in commandline downloadmanagers, I wrapped them around in a time command, for GUIs, I used a stopwatch.

Connection I used :

I used a wireless dialup (GPRS-EDGE) for carrying out this test. I purposely used a slow connection because ratings will be more accurate in it as download acceleration is more observeable.

#8 kget

KGet Download Manager

Kget is a download manager that is available from the kdenetwork group. Its only plus point is its simplicity. Not a download accelerator, but its best feature is that it can integrate with the Konqueror browser and make your downloads easier.During my test, I faced several problems like downloads getting stalled and being paused sometimes, also things such as download speed, time remaining etc are not accurate. Hence this software is at number 8 in rankings.

Ratings : 4.0/10
GUI : Yes
Website: http://www.kde.org/applications/internet/kget/
Download : In most distros can be installed through your package manager.

#7 aria2

Aria2 Download Manager

This is a download manager that dissapointed me a lot. In spite of being an advanced software with multi-threading support, it fails to download things fast. Some best features of it is that you can download torrents from bittorent protocool using it. Also it can be easily integrated into you package management application such as yum or pacman.

Ratings : 6.1/10
GUI : No
Website : http://aria2.sourceforge.net/
Download : Thorough your package manager.

#6 wget

wget download manager

This is one of the best non-interactive and powerful downloaders ever created in the Linux world. Non-interactive because once you issue a command to it to download some stuff, it keeps on trying to download the file until full of it is retrieved, even if retrieval is broken in the middle.. So its actually the most trustworthy download manager you can get. There are cases when other download managers fail, but wget succeeds in downloading it. So it would be wise to keep it installed in your PC. It is at this spot because it doesn't support multi-threading yet. One of it most advanced and useful features is that you can download all the files of an website using a single command in wget.

Rating : 6.5/10
GUI : Frontend available - gwget
Website : http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
Download : Comes pre-installed in most distros.

#5 multiget

multiget download manager's UI

What I love about it is its wonderful GUI and classification of various downloads based on file type. Also as shown in the picture above, it can display a visual representation of the multi-threaded download progress. Much alike Free Download Manager in Windows. But the interface is a bit buggy and doesn't work quite well in Gnome 3

Rating : 6.9/10
GUI : Yes
Website : http://multiget.sourceforge.net/
Download : Through you packange manager

#4 curl

downloading using curl

A download manager based on the libcurl library. Not multi-threaded, but suprisingly it outdoes wget for its speed. Downpoint is that it hard to use commandline.

Rating : 7.0/10
GUI : No
Website : http://curl.haxx.se/
Download : Through you package manager.

#3 axel

axel download manager

This is the download manager that impressed me a lot. Simply put it one word, it can really accelerate your download to upto 30 % more speed. Also multi-threaded and can also be integrated with package managers. If you dont have it the repos, you can compile it from source.

Rating : 8.7/10
GUI : Frontend availiable - gaxel
Website : http://axel.alioth.debian.org/.
Download : From repos or compile from source.

#2 DownThemAll Firefox add-on

downthemall firefox extension

It is availiable in all platforms because it runs as an extension inside Firefox and can be integrated for downloads. Also a good accelerators and one of its most interesting features is that it can download all similar files such as images or music on a single page using wild cards. Nice GUI and for advanced features, DownThemAll is at number 2.

Rating : 8.8/10
GUI : Yes
Website : http://www.downthemall.net/.
Download : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/

#1 prozilla

prozilla download manager

Its the best download manager you can get under Linux with speed acceleration that is comparable with IDM in Windows. A nice UI and advanced features puts it at number 1.

Rating : 10/10
GUI : Frontend - ProzGUI
Website : http://sourceforge.net/projects/prozilla/
Download : Through package manager in most cases, or compiling from source.

--Saurav Modak
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Tips and Tricks : How To Get Best Deals on Tickets (Concert, Theater and Sports) in America

2012-01-11T15:58:00.001+05:30

The other day, my friends wanted to buy sports tickets for NBA Matches. But they were a bit confused from where to buy as there are a lot of sites that offer the same and they couldn't trust any. I remembered my cousin had bought concert tickets in Halloween. I just gave him a call and asked -

"Hey whats the name of the site you had got the tickets from??
"Its Ticket America.. They have the best deals on tickets, check out.."

"Do they sell sports tickets too??"

"Yes! And theater tickets also. I got the best places in concert tickets I had bought from them?"

"My friends are willing to buy NBA tickets from them. Are they trusted?"

"Yes very much. They give a buyer guarantee so you can shop with confidence"

I immediately opened Ticket America Official Site and was impressed by it. Their website is so well organized and you get tickets for every sports ever played in USA. Also, their 100% unconditional guarantee is worth mentioning. I came to know that its the world's largest ticket inventory where each ticket is guaranteed and 100% authentic. Its a safe and secure market-place which fan-to-fan and Internet auction sites cannot provide. They offer a fast confirmation s and prompt with professional ticket delivery, always in the time of the event. In case the event gets cancelled or rescheduled, you get a 100% refund of the tickets.

Ticket America's Website

They also have a good support system, just go to their site and call the number mentioned on the top, and all your questions will be answered in no time!

So next time you want to buy best tickets for the concert of your favourite rock band or want to get best seats in theatre, be sure to go to Ticket America and get best deals and cheaper prices.

--Saurav Modak
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Ubuntu Now Available For Your TV!

2012-01-09T20:53:00.000+05:30

Buying or Renting a Movie in Ubuntu TV

Finally after computers and mobile phones, Ubuntu, the 20 million "human beings" strong free operating system has spread its wings to capture the television platform. Ubuntu revealed their newly developed product Ubuntu TV in the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The UI of the interface looks much like the Unity, except that it runs in a TV rather than PC or notebook. The main features of the product include easy integration with online and broadcast services and apps, searching recording and playing broadcast, millions of movies and TV shows streaming on the web and by demand, shared screen space with iOS, Android and other Ubuntu devices. So you can pause the broadcast on your TV, go to your room and play it from the paused location on your iPhone! Other expected features include Ubuntu One integration and a App Framework.

The main UI

Shows Schedule

While televisions with Android and iOS platforms will be available towards the end of this year, people at Ubuntu are expecting to lure television companies by giving this product for free. The source code of this product has been released online for developers to play with.

Images from : OMG Ubuntu

--Saurav Modak
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Killing a virus with Linux and the Magic of Gnome 3!

2012-01-08T22:43:00.000+05:30

Boring Sunday isn't it? Not for me. Today I had the luck enough to meet one of my old friends of back in my school days. None of them were geeks, so you could really guess that they haven't used Linux any day. He considered myself good in computer stuff, so called me and asked -

" I think there is a virus in my pendrive, whenever I attach it my PC, it hangs"

All non-geek people I have met in my life use Windows, this one used XP. I just asked him to come to my home and I would see what I could do. He came after an hour, right in the middle of my lunch.

"Sharing things with friends, I guess" - I asked.

"No dude, my bro's boss took it last day to see the presentations he made, and it haven't worked since then."

I attached the drive in my USB and opened it with Nautilus. As I expected I saw two .exe files that were not supposed to be there. One of them was New Folder.exe, the thing that attacked my phone when I didn't had a computer and created folders inside folders. Not that harmful, but I am a good organizer and had a lots of folders, quite nested, so it was really a tough work from me. I deleted the executable files and the autorun file. To let him feel more secured, I even copied the existing documents to the hard drive and formatted the pendrive. Its so easy getting rid of a virus, isn't it?

"Wow, you are a genious!"

Gnome 3 Windows View

My OS is. He became fascinated by the look and feel of the quite newly released GNOME 3 and started experimenting with it.

"This looks really gorgeous yaar, you should teach me how to use Linux!"

"You don't need to, its damn easy, easier than Windows"

Gnome 3 Applications View

It really is.. He haven't used it even once in his previous life, and I saw him switching windows, using applications and discovering whatever he felt like, just like a pro Linux user..

I really wished that people came out of their old thoughts that Linux was for geeks, you cant use it except knowing the command line and things of that sort. Today it was coming true, I am just seeing a completely non geek student use Linux easily, easier than I learned to use it.

There were more things to impress my friend. He needed to get connected with the Internet, and like all students, he had a mobile phone with a GPRS plan which he used to connect using USB and connect Internet from there. If you used Windows, you need a thing called PC suite to do that. In Linux,you can connect to Internet using your mobile phone in three simple steps. Just select your country from a dialog, select your provider and APN and you are done!

Linux has taken huge steps to become easy for a user, also retaining the power, speed and customization it had before. Even my dad can install Ubuntu without any problem. Just take the example of GNOME 3. Its a whole new user interface, without any menus or desktop icons. There is only one thing, an "activities" hot spot pressing which you can see and switch open windows and also launch new apps. There was much criticism about it before, but it seems most users, specially newbies love it now. Without any doubt, I do. Why? It made my work up to 50% faster. No need to take your mouse down in the task bar to open a new window, you just need to hit the hot spot and click on a window to focus it. Easy isn't it? Also I love the ever growing set of extensions it has.

Weather Extension Gnome 3

Like this weather extension which shows the weather information and also the prediction of today and tomorrow. Better than windows 7, I bet.

Music Integration Extension Gnome 3

Or my favorite extension, the music player extension which shows the name of the music on top and lets you change music by just a click without opening your music player. Cool

The best feature I love is shipped by default without installing any extensions. Its the empathy chat messenger integrated with the desktop. I love it the way its easy to chat and catch up with your Facebook, G-Talk, Yahoo! friends without even opening the browser or installing any software.

Empathy chat integrated in Gnome 3

GNOME 3 is a altogether a new thing which users haven't imagined before. Those who haven't used Linux once, get one installed, those who are KDE fans, use it one. You will surely be impressed.

--Saurav Modak
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How to Install Ubuntu 11.10 (11.04, 10.10) alongside Windows 7 and XP without losing data (dual boot).

2011-10-15T18:42:00.000+05:30

This detailed tutorial explains how to install Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) 11.04, 10.10 or older operating systems on your computer/laptop alongside Windows 7 or XP without losing data.

Ubuntu is a cool and widely used Linux operating system. Its is very good for new Linux users because its very easy to use and its installation and other software installation in it is very user-friendly. The best thing is that you can use it freely and also obtain, distribute and modify it freely as its a open-source software. If you want to explore Linux and have no idea about it, its undoubtedly the best choice. This guide will explain how to install Ubuntu alongside Windows on your computer. Just follow the instructions and screenshots and it wont take more than 30 minutes to install it on your system. Once you use it, I guarantee, you will fall in love with it.

If you don't know what Linux is and why is it better than Windows, consider looking at this post for your answers. Also have a look at Ubuntu 11.10's cool features and review here.

Unlike Windows, Ubuntu's new version is released every 6 months so that you can have state of art software always with you. The version number of the software depends on the year it is released along with the month it is released. The latest release at the time of writing this post is on October 2011, hence the name is Ubuntu 11.10.

Okay enough of explanations, now straight to work.

To install Ubuntu on your computer or laptop, you need three things.

Ubuntu installation image.
PenDriveLinux software.
A USB Flash drive/Pendrive or a CD.

Step One : Download the Ubuntu Disk Image

Go to Ubuntu download page and download the CD image (.iso) file from there. If you are an Indian user, you can download it from Indian mirror for better speed. The name of the file will be something like ubuntu-11.10-desktop-i386.iso. Also if you have more than 2 GB of RAM, you can also obtain the 64 bit versions from there. If you already have a Ubuntu CD along with you, you can skip to step 4.

Step Two : Download PenDriveLinux Software

Once you have the image, go to PenDriveLinux and download the software. Its a just 1 MB software that helps you to install Linux from your pen drive. Unlike Windows, you can also use your USB/flash drive to install Linux. Or if you don't have a USB port, and would like to install Linux from CD/DVD, just write the .iso file to a CD using Nero.

Step Three : Extract the bootable image on your pendrive.

Open the PenDriveLinux software that you just downloaded and accept the license agreement. In the select Linux distributions, select Ubuntu 11.10 or the version/OS you would like to install.

In the next box, browse and locate the Ubuntu iso file you have downloaded.

In the next drop-down menu, select your USB drive. Once all options have been set, click on create.

A confirmation box will appear. Click on Yes.

The software will extract and copy the files on your pendrive.

Once complete, you will get the following screen with the message “Installation Done! Process complete”.

Step 4: Tweaking the BIOS to boot from Removable Device/Pendrive

Insert the pendrive or the CD in your drive and restart your PC. If your BIOS setting permits external booting, you will find Ubuntu booting on your PC (a glowing brownish screen). If it doesn't you need to tweak your BIOS. Restart you PC again and while it is booting, press the Del key (or the corresponding key as mentioned in your motherboard manual). A blue or black screen will appear. Using arrow keys, go to the boot options menu. From there, select the first boot priority to removable device or CD drive. The picture below will help you.

Step 5: Booting Up and Installing Ubuntu

Once you have successfully booted from the USB drive or CD, you will notice a brownish screen with a loading like sign.

Let the thing load, and once its done, you will find a screen something like this.

You can try Ubuntu to give a test-drive without making changes in your hard-disk. However, for this tutorial purpose, we will show you how to install Ubuntu. Click on install Ubuntu, and the setup will check if your PC has enough requirements for its installation. You will need at least 4.4 GB disk-space for a successful installation.

Click on continue. You will be presented with three options. Install Ubuntu alongside Windows, replace Windows with Ubuntu and Something else.

Choose the first option and you will be presented with a screen that will allow you to change the disk-space associated with Ubuntu. Drag the partition pointer to set your desired space. I have allocated 10 GB to Ubuntu as shown in the figure.

The installation will begin. Click on your country or type on the box to select your time-zone.

You will be asked to choose your keyboard layout. In most cases, you must leave it default.

The setup will ask your name, your username and password. Fill it. Do not tick the “encrypt my home folder” option until and unless you know what you are doing.

Done! Now the setup will copy files, configure hardware and do other stuff needed. While this is done, you can have a look at the nice sideshow to get to know the new features of Ubuntu.

Once the installation is done, you will be presented with the following dialog. Hit “Restart now”.

You will be presented with the following screen where you can choose which operation system you need to boot to. Choose Ubuntu (first option) and you will be booted to your new operating system.

In the login box, type your password

and you will be taken to the desktop.

Explore a little of your new OS. Be sure to check out next tutorial on first steps after Ubuntu installation. Play, enjoy, its fully yours.

When done, go to top-most right corner of your screen and click on the ring icon. From here, you can restart or shutdown your computer.

Be sure to subscribe to us or like us in Facebook to get to know how to get things done and do the most from Ubuntu OS. If you encountered any problem, you can comment it below.

--Saurav Modak
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Thank God, some people don't change in life

2011-10-03T10:27:00.000+05:30

A short poem by me specially for those people who stood by me all through the ups and downs, and are still doing the same

I have seen them falling apart, and then tried to unite again
I have seen people change more faster than seasons
And some leaving me without any reason
I have known to put the broken pieces of my heart together
And to be strong, for a day another..
Through all these pain, I have grown,
From stories still unknown
While I look back, I smile at the sight
Thank God, some people dont change in life..

--Saurav Modak
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Boulevard of Broken Dreams

2011-10-01T23:15:00.001+05:30

This is probably the last time I am writing like this, that is a silent pain in my heart, and eyes moist, most probably of because whats happening inside me now. My grandma, inquisitive and caring as usual asking me questions one after the other of how was my day, where I went, etc. I am not interested in answering all that, and am becoming more and more irritated as she goes from one question to other, all that doesn't matter me much.

Today is my third day without her, something which I never had imagined.

This would have been one of the best days of my life, because I had gone to Kolkata to enjoy the best pandals in the occasion of Durga Puja, with one of my old friends, Samyadip. But see, she removed, automatically the fun gets removed even in the best day of my life.

While I write all this, I am having a look at my cell every few minutes, still waiting for her call or SMS, even though my cell is at the loudest mode and I will get notified of any activity. Old habits die hard.

It all started on 29^th of last month. She was not talking much with me through the whole day. Afternoon, while returning from college, I called her:

“Where are you?”

“With my friends, enjoying in the ghat” - her voice said.

“Couldn't call me once”

“I forgot”

It was usual nowadays of forgetting to call me and SMS me, like all duties that are forgotten. I kept down the phone and said to my inner self - “this wont last long”

Immediately at an instant, another voice within me said, “Come on dude, you can let it end like this, you have to improve things with her”

I didn't wanted to lose her at any cost.

Evening flew, I waited to call her at midnight, our usual time for talking. After getting up from dinner, I finally got an SMS from her - “I want a breakup”

I coudnt believe. More than that, I never believed her saying so. I replied back - “Don't be silly, you are already on a break”

I expected something positive. Even though I know it was vain to think so.

“I am serious, I want a full breakup”

I started calling her, her phone was busy. I waited. She replied finally - “I will talk with you a bit later”.

I knew everything is over. I switched off the lights to let me be in a most comfortable position possible at that moment. And truly saying, I cried the loudest in my life, more louder than I ever had.

My grandma was still awake. Hearing the noise, she said - “What happened?”

“Nothing”, I said in normal voice.

She felt asleep. Not me.

I called her again. It was still in waiting. The longest wait I had ever had. Just 20 minutes now seemed like a day.

Finally she received.

I asked her - “What happened?”

“Nothing. And I am damn serious of what I am talking about.”

“U cant do something like this”

“I am doing so”

“Okay, why?”

“I don't have any feeling for you”

“I know that, we will work on it...”

“Stop acting like a fool. For two months I don't have any feelings for you and you are telling it will get back in three years? It will never come back again”

Her voice was firm. I said - “look you are on a break already for this. I cant give you a break up again for it”

“Okay, you want to know why I really want a break up? I love another guy”

“Whose that?”

“Raj”

Raj – I recalculated. The guy who is a model, and fucks an aunt in his upper flat to fulfill mutual desires. And this girl is lame and foolish enough to fall in his love. If anything seemed funny and stupid at the same time at this moment, it was this.

“So, you can ignore him, and control your feelings..”

“I cant ignore him, is that clear? And I don't want you to tell me which feelings to control either”

I agree I was a bit possessive, but I had nothing more to do now.

“Okay, listen, one day you will suffer for it”

“I will suffer, you don't need to worry about it”

She disconnected the phone.

I had no time to think now, moreover I didn't wanted anything to think. I just dialed the number of my good friends in college, announcing the news to them.

I was not crying. My mind was blank.

They were more than happy to say the truth. Finally we can flirt girls together.

I fell asleep, and as I had expected, I woke up early at 5 AM. And the first thing that came in my mind is that we are not together anymore. I checked my phone, no SMS from her.

Yes. I had broken all contacts with her last night.

Friends were supportive, more than I had thought. Some found her act stupid, some said good that you are free to look other girls, all the things to ease me the most. Thank God, some people don't change.

I waited for her SMS the whole day. Last night she had sent me one - be happy with your life, best of luck for your future, don't cry and do all that stuff.

I had sent this reply – I am not going to cry for a girl like you. And I know that I will be successful, even without your wishes.

Maybe she will reply that..

She didn't.

One day passed peacefully. The nights and midnights were the hardest to keep my mind away from crying. I found an easy solution – to sleep as soon as possible.

It was now the time to analyze my charge-sheet and have a look at what I had lost. The thing which I hurt me the most is that I had lost a friend whom I could share all the feeling with.

Last three years, there were only rare stories that I haven't told her. I lost that person.

As I thought deeper, I found the reasons of our breakup. She always wanted a person who was good looking and could dress up well, was a hunk, had a tattoo in his arms etc things that only immature girl think when at teens. I knew I look good, but regarding dress and more trival thing, I had more serious things to worry apart from them.

My hopeful heart had other stories to tell. It wanted her back, I didn't. It stroked a deal, if she calls me today by 12 night, she is going to come back to me.

May be something like telepathy is really there. She actually did called, only to ask me if I was good. She expects so. Wow.

These raised more false hopes that I do not want to live with. I don't want her in my life anymore.

I realized – her voice, her SMS, that I could die for one day, are making me weak. I made it clear to her that I don't want any contact from her before three months. I don't want false expectations to arise in my mind at this stage.

Whats next? I have great things to have fun and keep me busy. First of all there is Puja. Then a vacation to south, and to sea, the thing I love to go to. Then there are damn interesting subjects to keep me busy – like Visual Basic, Gambas and Linux.

It will pass. Time will heal me, I know that. Only if she doesn't calls me again and I keep my mind busy enough so that I don't feel lonely.

I am a human being after all. I have already made a checklist of my next girl. First of all she must a techie, to feel the passion I have for it. Second she must be matured and intelligent enough to judge a person not based on looks. And third she must be my good friend.

I know that girls of this age are not that matured. So I am expecting my next relationship after graduation. But I am keeping options open. May be I will find her in college, or the institute I want to take admissions for the crash course, or may be in the train from Chennai.

Even after all this, life continues to show you dreams..

PS: I was literally crying before writing this, but now, I am perfectly okay, positive and happy. That's what the power of writing your mind out is.

--Saurav Modak
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Free Domains : .co.cc, .tk, .co.nr, .co.nz : Are they worth it? Legit or Scam?

2011-09-27T20:54:00.001+05:30

Free domains like .tk, .co.nr, .co.cc etc are present all over the internet, also they look attractive for most webmasters. But are they legit or a scam and really worth?

So finally you have got a blog. You have enough data to share. But you don't like a me.blogspot.com or a me.wordpress.com address. It hurts your ego much because you feel that you are under someone. No one likes dominated right? So then, you want to throw your sub-domain and get a domain. But you are either too poor or too miser to spend. So you open the best tool on the internet, and type two golden words : free domains. And lo! You are amazed by the plenty of free things on the internet. Relax. You haven't got that far yet.

Speaking of free domains, I have personal experience with two of them. One is .co.cc and another is .tk. Of the above list, a .tk domain looks the best, because it doesn't has a .co tag attached with it. People will have to type less to reach your site. Also it looks good for technology blogs, because it sounds something like tech. But before plunging into getting one, just have a look at my story below.

I got a .tk domain quite a few months ago, when my blog was new and I had chosen custom hosting because of the limitations wordpress.com gave. Now getting a good free host is another story, which I will discuss later. For that time, truly speaking, I was more than happy, so much that I even joined their ambassador program as a return for their gratitude. The site says that they give free domains to support poor people of Tokeleu islands. If you join their referall program and urge people to join their site, you will get a virtual currency called fish. With more fishes you accumulate, you can exchange them from gifts such as MP3 players, mouse etc. Good enough right?

One thing that always irritated me is that though you have full control over the domain, including CNAME records, nameservers etc, you don't get full ownership of the domain, unless you pay them If you have a .tk domain, you can check the whois to confirm this yourself.

There is no free lunch in the world. When they give you a free domain, its natural that they expect something back from you. But that something was too unnatural to believe. Just 25 hits per month. That's what my website used to get in a few hours, so I used to not worry much about that. What worried me more is this blog post which says that .tk was a domain parking scam. For non-IT people, what does that mean?

Well, in layman's words, when you start a website, its natural that you will publicize it much over the web because everyone loves more and more visitors. This is mainly done by writing good articles, and giving the link over wherever you can. More you link pages of your site, more it improves search engine position because Google ranks sites according to algorithm that is much dependent on backlinks. Lower is your search position, its likely that more visitors you will get.

By parking scam I mean is that .tk people give you a free domain for using and publicizing. When your site is getting enough visitors and has got enough links, they sell it to someone who is hungry for free traffic. And sadly, you can do nothing about it. Because legally you are not the owner of the domain.

At first, I didn't believe it, as I am a normal human being who doesn't believe things until that happens to himself. But over searching keywords like .tk scam I got more and more worried because of increasing number of complaints they have got. Also, I was a member of their Facebook group and after every few days, a guy used to come and complain for his rejected domain.

I became cautious and number of links of my .tk site was increasing. What if they snatched my domain someday? My all hard work and visitors will go in vain. Finally one good day, I decided to switch to a standard .blogsopt.com address. Not cool enough but definitely more reliable.

Time passed, I had made the domain to redirect to my blogspot sub-domain. Nothing unnatural happened. Finally one fine day I got to realize that I have taken the right decision. I got an email from them, screenshot below:

I bet you have a look in my sight once, you wont find any adult/copyrighted material. Even for images I have taken from somewhere, I always provide a backlink to the original site in the courtesy section.

Now whenever I open my .tk site, I land up in a site which has got only adds and nothing else.

So its quite proved that .tk is almost a scam, unless you pay them. Frankly speaking, I will better get a more popular domain that paying $6 an year for a .tk address.

Next comes more free domains in the list such as .co.cc and .co.cz. Now both of them are banned by Google, because its believed that most of their sites host malware, so you cant expect search traffic (which comprises a good number of visitors) from them. For me, except for the banned fact, .co.cc domains are quite reliable. I have been using them for an email domain for over an year now (using Google Apps), and haven't experienced much problem from them.

The best of all domains according to me is a .co.nr address. But as far as I know, they just do URL forwards, so they cannot be termed as a real domain. Also, apart from this popular ones, you can have a search for more free domains on the net.

But the real question is : are they really worth it? First of all for them, your site doesn't look professional, and if you are getting quite a number of visitors per day, it never hurts to pay just Rs. 99 and get a .in domain. So my advice for you is : post good articles, gain a regularly number of visitors per day, and then buy a domain. It will definately help you in the long run.

--Saurav Modak
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Facebook Charging For Its Service - A Rumor

2011-09-26T19:47:00.002+05:30

Unfolding the rumor which says you will now need to pay to use Facebook.

I came across a rumor (well rumor really) that is floating in the Internet whole today. I am an active Facebook-er (here's my profile) so its really irritates me a lot to see things such as this, and irritates me more that people start believing it. Some screenshots of status updates by my friends -

You may have noticed updates like this even in your friends' wall, which says that if you do not copy it to your wall, you will be charged. Here is another status update which mentions the tariff of the charges:

Like I said before, though the updates say that I has been declared on the news, I haven't heard things of that sort from any news channel or site. Here is the update from Facebook official page.

What this means? Well chill. Facebook earns enough from ads and other sources of income. So its free for now, and hopefully for future too. Click this link to read the original message.

--Saurav Modak
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Tattoo Tycoon Free Review and Download - Best Mobile Java Games

2011-09-26T13:47:00.003+05:30

Tattoo Tycoon is an interesting and fun filled mobile game availiable on java and android platforms. Here is a short review with download links of it

When I am writing a post on this blog after almost two months, that also review and story-line of a game, then you must assume that this has something special. To say the truth, I had almost given up mobile gaming after getting a PC, but this one has the ability to get you addicted and leave your PC for a while and comfortably lie on your bed and play it for hours.

Tattoo Tycoon is just another Real Time Strategy kinda game from Handy Games. But unlike most RTS games, its simple to learn and also simple to win. So even if you are not a strategic gamer, and also hate playing games because you lost, I bet you still would love it. The main object of the game is to run a tattoo studio and make your business profitable. Over time, you have to fulfill some simple objectives like tattooing a specific number of people, earning a stated amount of money, etc.

There is a tutorial and also an extensive help system that briefly describe all the aspects of the game. Once you go through the tutorial, you are ready to have fun and waste your time for hours.

Apart from earning money, you also have to keep in mind two other scores – one is customer happiness and second is reputation. These are directly proportional to the number of items you have in your shop, so serving customers and earning money quickly is the easiest strategy to win.

In most campaigns, in the beginning, you will be presented with two items – a stool where your customers sit for tattooing and a cash register. When a customer is interested in tattooing comes to the cash register, you will have to counsel him to find the right tattoo suited for him. After that he/she sits on the chair and you do the tattooing.

Each tattoo consists of combination of love, animal, death and tribal signs. You can research more tattoos by buying a drawing table and charge more thus earn more money. Also you can improve your tools in later levels that make your work faster, more perfect and injury less.

Apart from tattooing, you can have more means of earning money, such as soft drinks, t-shirts, coffee and posters. Also as it becomes hotter outside, make sure you have sofas and ventilators to make your customers more comfortable. You can also have decorative items in your shop such as plants and displays. All this makes make your customers more happy, directly earning you more reputation, and indirectly more money as more and more customers come to a well reputed shop.

If you are having trouble with your work, you can hire employees to do work such as tattooing, researching new tattoos or improving your tools. Also you can buy new rooms and expand your business. If you are having less reputation, you can buy a computer and advertise your studio, though its effect is short-lived.

The game ends when you have earned enough reputation and money, and then you can proceed to the next harder campaign. There are six campaigns in total, all enjoyable and intensively playable.

The free version of the game is a adware, but it wont hurt you much to get the developers paid for this wonderful work they have done. Also this game is supported from old java based phones to newer android models, so download it and get playing :-)

Rating: 4/5.

Quick tip: Buy cheaper items such as plants to quickly earn more reputation and do a profitable business.

Download Links : Android (Paid) | Android (Free Adware) | Nokia (Java Free Adware) | Handy Games

Image Courtesy: jamster.com | androidzoom.com | andguru.com | mobile360.org

--Saurav Modak
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Customizing Linux GRUB (Part II) : Changing the GRUB Background (Splash Menu) Image

2011-07-21T14:57:00.002+05:30

This tutorial helps you to change the background image of GRUB, i.e. the splash image that comes behind the OS menu while booting.

In the previous tutorial, we had learned some basics of GRUB such as changing operating systems' names, adding more OS entries etc. In this tweak, we will learn how to change the background image of the GRUB menu which shows the operating system list. I found the background image quite boring, so I did this.

Note : Although the GRUB background image will be changed, after every GRUB update, it will be reverted to the original one, so you have to repeat this after every time you update it.

Step One: First of all, you need to find an image. If you don't have it already, consider looking at gnome-look.org or a simple google search for some good ones. Please note that .gif images with animations cannot be included as GRUB background.
We are going to set up this image as our menu background.

Step Two : GRUB doesn't support images with more than 14 colors in an image. So we need to reduce the above image to 14 colors so that we can use it in GRUB. To do that, open the image with GIMP. Go to Image menu > Mode > Indexed.

A window will come as shown below. Select “Generate Optimum Palette” and set the maximum number of colors to 14. When done, select convert.

Your image will be transformed to 14 colors. If it doesn't looks good, you can select another image to set as your background splash image for GRUB.

Step Three : Next to scale the image, go to Image menu and select scale

A window will come like this, set the width to 640 pixels and height to 480 pixels. Then select “Scale”. It will be changed to the provided size. Save the image and exit.

Step Four : Now we have saved the image, it it to be noted that GRUB doesn't supports traditional .jpg or .png formats. We need to convert to to a special format called .xpm. Previous versions of GIMP supported the .xpm format, but modern ones don't. Also note that .jpg image may not support 14 colors so you may need to convert it to .png first.

Go to the site http://www.convertmyimage.com which is an online image converter site that supports many formats, including .xpm. Upload that image and convert it to .xpm. When done, download it and save it in your PC.

Step Five : Now there is one more step. We need to zip the image for making it usable in GRUB. Use the following command to do so:

$ gzip image.xpm

This will create a file namely image.xpm.gz.

Rename that file to splash.xpm.gz. Don't forget to make a backup of original splash image, in case the new image doesn't suits you well.

$ sudo cp /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz ~

Step Six : The last step, using root user privileges, move the file to /boot/grub/ directory.

$ sudo mv splash.xpm.gz /boot/grub/

GRUB image will be changed as shown below.

--Saurav Modak

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Setting Up Mobile GPRS Connection in Linux : Nokia and Samsung Phones

2011-07-18T09:40:00.000+05:30

This tweak will help you to get connected to internet using your GPRS/EDGE enabled mobile phone as a modem in Linux. This tweak can be used in all popular mobile phones such as Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG etc. No command line or coding. Getting connected to internet is as easy as 1-2-3!

Internet has become a necessity of today, and mobile phones are playing a large part in getting connected to Internet. With monthly plans as low as Rs. 48 (< $ 1), they are currently the cheapest method in getting connected. In Windows operating systems, you have a software called PC suite that helps you using your mobile phone to setup an internet connection. However Linux has inbuilt mechanisms to handle GPRS connectivity, and doesn't need PC Suite software. Please note that this tweak will work in most modern distros (released after 2004 or later), like Fedora 14, 15, Ubuntu 10.10, 11.04, OpenSuse 11.04, Linux Mint 10 or above etc. If you have a older distro, have a look at this tweak instead.

To start with, connect your phone (which has a inbuilt modem, or which you use to connect to internet using PC suite) to your computer in PC suite or phone mode. Go to extreme right hand corner of the desktop, and look out something like “Network Connections”. Fedora Gnome 3 users may also type network connections in application search to find it. If clicking on it, you find something like “New Mobile Broadband (GSM) Connection”, congrats, your phone has been successfully detected. Else click on “Edit Connections” from the menu, go to “Mobile Broadband” Tab and hit “New”..

You will find a dialog appear something like this:

Click forward and select your country

Next click to select your service provider. If your service provider is not listed, you need to know the APN (access point) to get connected. Call your service provider for details.

Click on your GPRS plan that you use for internet surfing. Next go forward and click on Apply. If all goes well, you will get connected with internet and start surfing.

Your connection preferences will be saved. Go to "Network Connections" menu and click on disconnect to end the connection. Next time you want to get connected, attach your mobile phone and select the connection from the network connections menu.

--Saurav Modak
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