Palash Basak's Blog

Online photo editor - pixlr.com

2011-12-17T21:15:00.000+06:00

Have you ever tried an online photo editor? I have just used one today and I had great experience with pixlr.com. It is just like the online version of Adobe Photoshop! No sigh-up or anything is required!

Here is the link to the editor.
http://pixlr.com/editor/

If yo uare interested about any other online photo editors, try this link!

Bangla Translation with "Google translate"

2011-06-24T18:51:00.002+06:00

So exiting! Now it is possible to translate any language in Bangla or vice-versa using "Google translate"!!!

Here is the link to Google translate http://translate.google.com/.

FrictioNRG: Another Form of Renewable Energy

2010-10-04T00:47:00.001+06:00

Background
Someday in early 2008, I was traveling in an SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) from Dhaka to Moulavi Bazar (in Bangladesh) for a field visit. One of my colleagues, who was a Geophysicist, was also accompanying me in the trip. It was about 7-8 hours journey and we were talking most of the times. Discussion topics were diverse and one of the topics was alternative energy. At that point of time oil price was in its pick, probably about 150 US$ per barrel.

All of the windows of the car were closed as because the AC was on. However, for some reason, the driver opened an window while the car was moving at about 80 km per hour. So, a huge blow of fresh air entered in to the car and splashed in to my face. Suddenly I realized that our car is generating huge amount of friction with the air! In other words, if I was out of the car and sitting or standing somewhere in the same spot of the road, I might not feel that much of air speed. But while the car was moving at a certain speed it was creating a friction with the air and that’s why the wind speed was much higher around the moving car. I also discovered that every single car running on the road is creating frictional energy but that is fully untapped!

Another example came to my mind. In our childhood, we used to play with pinwheel (locally known as “Chorki”, a paper made flower like small fan attached to a bamboo stick, kind of small wind mill). We just hold the pinwheel against wind and it rotated. That was fun! But sometime, wind was too slow. And then we had to run to rotate the pinwheel! That means we created frictional energy just by running and used it!

Basically, from that day I was thinking about frictional energy and realized that frictional energy is being generated all over the world while we are running any vehicle and still now it is quite untapped. But, we used it to power pinwheel in our childhood! Can we use it to run a vehicle? Well, probably yes!

From now onward, I would like to call this energy as “FrictioNRG” – here “NRG” should be pronounced as “Energy”.

Tapping FrictioNRG to run a car
A car generates FrictioNRG all the times while it is moving at any speed. Now if there is a pinwheel on top of a car, it will be rotating! The rotating pinwheel or turbine could be attached to a dynamo to generate electricity. And then the electricity could be used directly or indirectly (by storing it in battery) to run the car. There might be number of micro turbine on top of a car so that more electricity could be produced.

The car will generate more electricity if it is running at higher speed. At certain speed, probably the car will be running just using its FrictioNRG. To start and run the car at lower speed, stored energy (from previous run) or a traditional fuel source could be used. If it is possible to install solar panel on the top, the car could probably be run without any traditional sources.

So, what I’m proposing is that a car can run by using its own FrictioNRG, given that it is obtaining certain speed using another source of energy.

FrictioNRG could be used to run any vehicle
If it is possible to tap FrictioNRG for a car, the technology then could be used to run any type of vehicle. All forms of transportation, i.e., train, bus, truck, aircraft, ship and even spacecraft, can use the same technique.

Energy saved is energy found
I’m not a scientist by profession. But, as a rational individual, my understanding is that it would not be too difficult to realize the idea of tapping frictional energy for a car. And if it is possible to invent the technology, a significant amount of petroleum could be saved. As it is being said that “energy saved in energy found”, I believe it would be a good area to explore as a source of another alternative energy for the future.

The challenges ahead
There are number of challenges to realize the idea. First of all, further study is required to understand how much FrictioNRG could be tapped using micro turbines installed at the top of a car considering the variation of car speed and battery capacity. Secondly, the vehicle should have an energy switching and controlling option. Thirdly, the technology should have to be cost effective and easy to install. If it is possible to integrate the technology for existing vehicles, that would also be a great achievement.

Opportunity for collaboration
I have already shared the idea informally with some of my friends and colleagues and received some positive feedback. Now, if any individual or company would like to initiate a project on FrictioNRG, I would be happy to be involved in that project.

For further questions or comments please contact me directly by sending an email to Palash.Basak@gmail.com or info@frictioNRG.com or FrictioNRG@gmail.com.

Correlation

2010-06-11T22:43:00.000+06:00

Few days back my wife taught our daughter, who is about 25 months old by now, that “PET” (a Bangla word) in English is “belly”. Today my wife questioned our daughter again to understand whether she can still remember the English term for “PET”. Unfortunately my daughter forgot the exact English word but she replied promptly that it is “SHAPLA”! (Probably because, she was taught earlier that the English term for “SHAPLA” is “lilly”!) What a correlation!

APA Formatting and Style Guide

2009-10-27T12:39:00.000+07:00

APA (stands for American Psychologocal Association) is one of the most commonly used to cite references, particularly in social sciences. A comprehensive APA formatting and style guide could be found in the following link.

APA Formatting and Style Guide

The guide has been published by Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). In this guide I have found good examples of the general format of APA research papers, in text citations, endnotes/footnotes and the reference page. This guide has been revised according to the 6th edition of the APA manual.

To learn more about APA style you can visit it's website at http://www.apastyle.org/

Google Chrome Operating System

2009-07-08T21:21:00.002+07:00

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Finally Google is going to through the biggest challenge to Microsoft! Yes, Google is introducing a new Operating System (OS) which will be available at free of cost! Although we have to wait about a year from now for it.

As promised, the OS will be speedy, simple and secure!

Follow the above link for details about announcement.

vYew - live WEB CONFERENCING at free of cost

2009-07-06T11:59:00.003+07:00

vYew - the name is quite unusual (sounds line view) but this is a cool site which provides live web conferencing service at free of cost! Although, you can’t have more than 20 collaborators at a time with the free subscription. I have found this site quite interesting and useful.

You can watch an introductory video of the service in YouTube…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGXDG8q51vI&feature=related

To learn more about the service and registration process, visit its website …

http://vyew.com/

My Handheld GPS

2009-04-19T15:30:00.005+06:00

I got questions from some of my friends about GPS. Then I thought it would be good to share some information about my own GPS to all of you.

I have a Garmin handheld GPS which I have been using for about four years. I found it quite useful during my personal and official trips in home and abroad. During my trip in Durham, UK, the GPS helped me to find out my hotel (a small cottage) in a very windy, cold and dark night. The area was basically out side the main town and less densely populated. Without the help of my GPS it would be very difficult for me to find the place at that night!

For those who are not familiar with the term - GPS stands for Global Positioning System. GPS can help you to understand your location anywhere in the world using signal from number of satellites. Now a days GPS is being used for variety of purposes, including personal and vehicle navigation, mapping, fishing, trekking, etc.

Garmin is the pioneer in handheld GPS. The model I have got is eTrex Legend HCx. It has a color monitor. This is little better than the basic models. So far I remember, the price tag was about 290 USD but I bought it from Jakarta, Indonesia. If you want to buy this product from Bangladesh, I believe, the cost will be higher than that.

Click here to find our more information about this GPS model. If you are interested to learn more about other products of Garmin, click here.

As I'm aware of, there are only few organization who sell GPS. Several models of Garmin GPS is available at Haroon Enterprises Ltd. (62, Purana Paltan(Opposite to Doinik Bangla), 1st floor, Dhaka 1000, Tel: 9560577). Overseas Marketing Corporation (Pvt.) Ltd. (Unique Trade Center ( UTC ), 15th level, 8 Panthapath, Dhaka - 1215, Tel : 8154510-11, 8156837) also have some handheld GPS but those are from Magellan. Click here to visit Overseas Marketing Corporation's website.

Do you have any other specific question about handheld GPS? Let me know. I can try to answer.

How to download a YouTube Video

2009-04-02T13:40:00.006+06:00

One of my friends once asked me about how to download video from YouTube. At that point, I didn't know the answer. But I have learnt it recently and thought it would be good to share that with you!

To download a video from YouTube , what you have to do is to visit the following website. Then select "Download Videos" option, put the link of the YouTube Video, choose an output format. You will also need to provide your email address. A link of the converted will be delivered to your email address and you can then download the file!

http://www.zamzar.com/

Hope it will work for you!

Electricity from Pathar-Kuchi

2009-02-04T11:51:00.005+06:00

I was amazed to read an article in Jugantor on 2nd February 2009. According to the article, electricity could be generated from Pathar-Kuchi, an indigenous plant of Bangladesh. I don't know the scientific name of the plant.

It was claimed that substantial amount of electricity could be generated with the technology proposed by Dr. Kamrul Amal Khan, Chairman of the Department of Physics of Jagannath University and three of his associates. They explained in a seminar in Dhaka that 60-100 megawatt electricity could be generated from Pathar-Kuchi produced only from one acre of land.

Click here to view the full article.

Bangla Speaking Community is in every part of the world

2009-01-11T11:46:00.000+06:00

While I was visiting the website of OmicronLab to download a Bangla Typing Software, Avro Keyboard, I have found an interesting map showing the visitors of the site. The map clearly shows that Bangla Speaking community (both from Bangladesh and India) is present in every part of the world!

Throughout 2008, there were over 1.6 lakh (0.16 million) visitors in the site. People from 172 countries visited the site. About half of the visitors came from outside Bangladesh or India.

If you consider visitors by country then India is the top (about 48,000). More than 34,000 visitors were from Bangladesh. United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Australia, Italy, Japan, Germany, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia are in the top list of the visitors.

You can find details about the visitors in the following link

http://www2.clustrmaps.com/counter/maps.php?url=http://omicronlab.com

Neel Shaluk

2009-01-06T17:44:00.000+06:00

In the last page of Prothom Alo today (6 Jan 2009), an article has been published on "Neel Shaluk". The author (Sourav Mahmud) wrote a nice introduction of the flower and put a picture which was captured from Boga Lake, Bandarban.

While traveling to Kuakata in September 2008, I took a picture of the same flower from a road side water-body somewhere in between Mohipur and Kuakata.

The flower is really beatiful.

Dhaka-12 Constituency Map

2009-01-05T17:04:00.001+06:00

I'm a voter of Dhaka-12 Constituency. As a geographer, I was looking the physical boundary of the Constituency. Finally, I found it in the website of Bangladesh Election Commission.

If you are interested to see your constituency map, see the following blog...

Constituency Maps of Bangladesh

Bangla, not Bengali

2009-01-05T11:37:00.000+06:00

An interesting article has been published in The Daily Star about why we should use "Bangla" instead of "Bengali" as the name of our mother language.

To read the article, click the following link...

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=69990

Happy New Year 2009!

2009-01-02T15:49:00.000+06:00

Wish you and your family a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2009!

In conversation with Alam Khan

2008-12-24T15:52:00.000+06:00

Do you know who tuned the famous song "Orey neel doriya..............."? This is one of my most favorite Bangla song. During my University life I sang the song in all most all of my stage shows! Well, the song was tuned by Alam Khan.

The daily star has published an interview with the legendary musician.

In this interview he recalled his early days in music. You can also find some other interesting information about him.

Click the following link to read the full article.

A passion for notes and sounds: In conversation with Alam Khan

New Website on Liberation War of Bangladesh

2008-12-19T09:50:00.000+06:00

A new website, Muktijuddho.org, on liberation war of Bangladesh, is scheduled to be launched on 26 December.

The site is supposed to be used to store glorious memories and stories of the liberation war of the country.

All are requested to provide their collected information to enrich the website. You can contact for that by sending email to mukti@muktijuddho.org.