Random thoughts...

Basic MP3 Player - Sangeeth Player

2013-03-08T06:30:00.004+05:30

Here is a very basic MP3 Player called as "Sangeeth Player". You can download and start using. No installation required.

https://sites.google.com/site/techservicesbiz/upload-file/MyPlayer.zip?attredirects=0&d=1

This was coded longtime back on spare time. I am now trying to improve it. Your feedback will help me move in the right direction.

Why do you pay TAX?

2013-03-03T08:39:00.000+05:30

Yes, TAX !!!!

You pay Income Tax, Service tax, Customs duty, Exise duty on products, Road Tax, Toll Tax and many more which I do not know by name.

My question is why are we doing so? People used to pay tax when we were ruled by XYZ. In today's democratic world we are still paying our hard earned money to government so that they can enjoy the lavish life. Government officials enjoys n number of freebies viz.. free travel, free phone/mobiles, No toll tax etc. etc. etc.....

When some one dares to ask to prove whether he is an electected representative, shows gun.

How is some countries do not have any tax?

Why can't we pay only one tax?

And the big QUESTION

Is it necessary to PAY TAX? Abolish all tax and root cause of all problem is gone.

Government should also sweat and earn money. They are not doing any social work any more.

Visit to Sultanpur Bird sanctuary

2013-03-03T08:08:00.002+05:30

3-Feb-2013

The journey started at 10 a.m. on 3rd Feb. We were 2 families, our and my brother's. I took my own car and was driving. The distance was approximately 25 KM drive from our home. We had our breakfast while travelling. Below are few of the photographs taken by my brother Mantu.

Photographs are copyrighted and should not be used for commercial purpose.

How to force install apps to SD card without ROOT

2013-02-05T04:14:00.000+05:30

Ace has only got 180 MBs of Internal memory. If you install a lot of apps, you are bound to run into low disk space issues. To force your new apps to install on SD card perform the following steps:

First you have to enable USB debugging on your Android device from Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging.
Download and install the latest Android SDK on your computer from http://developer.android.com/sdk/.
Install the latest Java SDK.
Extract the package to the folder of your choice [e.g. C:/android-sdk-windows/], run SDK Manager.exe
In the new window, click on Available Packages to the left. Uncheck all options you are prompted to download except the USB driver option. USB driver option will need an additional packages called Android SDK tools revision x(13 as of this time) & android sdk platform-tools revision x(7 as of this time) at the top of the list.
Do not open Samsung Kies. Connect your phone to your computer with a USB-cable. Your OS will prompt you to install new drivers. Choose to install them from the android-sdk-windows/extras/google/usb_driver folder. Do not mount your device; you only need to plug-in the cable.(If you don’t see this prompt, that means you have USB drivers already installed.
Run command prompt in administrator and execute the following command

cd C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools
adb devices

A list of devices attached should come. Run following command
adb shell
A $ sign should pop up.
pm setInstallLocation 2

And you’re done!! Close everything, disconnect phone, reboot & enjoy!!
Now the phone will be set to install all apps you install onto the SD card. However, already installed apps on phone will have to be manually moved if on phone memory.

Hanged till death - Buddha has smiled again

2012-11-22T00:02:00.003+05:30

21/11/2012 - A date to remember

The only surviving terrorist finally hanged to death. Was he the only surviving terrorist? No, he is just one of the pawn. The actual mastermind behind the attack is freely moving in Pakistan. We should learn lesson from US.

The best part of the execution was that it was done with perfection. This shows GOI can keep secret if required and of course the perfection. It surprised Pakistan.
It reminds me of "When Buddha smiled again". Yes the Nuclear test Pokhram II in 1998.

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister, and Dr. R. Chidambaram, the head of the Department of Atomic Energy, were the chief coordinators of this test. The preparation of the test site was done by the 58th Army Engineering Corps. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research and the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) scientists were involved in the bomb assemble, layout, detonation and obtaining test data.

Work was mostly done during night, and equipment was returned to the original place to give the impression that it was never moved. Bomb shafts were dug under camouflage netting and the dug-out sand was shaped like shaped dunes. Cables for sensors were covered with sand and concealed using native vegetation.

The scientists involved in the operation took steps to ensure the secrecy of their work at Pokhran. Technical staff at the test range wore military uniform, to prevent detection in satellite images.

On the diplomatic front, India adopted a policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Congratulation to Government of India for making us smile again !!!

I switched on the Diwali lights again in celebrations!!!

Compound Interest

2012-11-01T00:45:00.002+05:30

COMPOUND INTEREST FORMULA

If you ever thought that the role of the mathematics subject in our life is over then you could be quite wrong about this thought because of compound interest formula . Today all calculations for mortgages and loans are all done through compound interest formula.

Compound interest is compounded annually, quarterly and monthly. Unlike the simple interest formula where you simply multiply the Principal with the rate of interest and the time span in years and you get the interest value separately. This is then added to the principal to see what the total value is. In case of compound interest formula, the total amount is got is the sum plus the interest. Here if you need to identify the interest component alone then you will have to subtract the principal from the total amount to get this.

The compound interest formula is given by
CI= P (1+(R/100)) t.

CI stands for Compound Interest,
P stands for the principal value on which the interest is being calculated,
R is the rate of interest and
t is the time for which the value is calculated.
In general terminology- we should notice that the R is always taken as Rate of Interest annually and the t is the tenure in years. So if you are calculating this in months or if the rate of interest is monthly then the formula should be modified accordingly.

As discussed before the tenure is always expressed in the form of years so if you are trying to calculate it for say 8 months then you should be using 0.67 instead of 1 for the tenure of the investment or loan. Same applies for the rate of interest as well. If the rate of interest is provided quarterly then the R would be replaced by R/4.

Though you might be thinking that this is a small thing and is not of much importance then it is suggested that you give a peep into the world outside where almost all financial calculations for interest are performed using the Compound Interest formula.

Who is ruling India?

2012-11-01T00:30:00.000+05:30

Arvind Kejriwal has caught the bull by the tail.

"Mukesh Ambani runs the government, not PM"

He has caught the root cause of all problem. You may call him selfish and trying to build political space. But looking at the larger context he is right.

Scam Scam scam.....

2G scam, Coal Bloack allocation scam, and now Natural Gas scam.

Again i want to say, there cannot be any smoke without fire.

Nuclear Catastrophe

2012-10-23T23:51:00.001+05:30

Date: 20/3/2011

At 2.46 pm Japan time, an earthquake measuring 8.9 on rictor scale, Lat:37.68N, Long:143.03E, depth: 20 km below the ocean's surface, off the coast Tohoku Earthquake, destroyed most parts of the Miyagi Prefecture, about 370 km north from Tokyo. The devastation was compounded by the earthquake shaking as well as by the tsunami, and more so with the nuclear power plant disaster.

Earthquake followed by Tsunami was natural calamity. But the Nuclear disaster was man made or more precisely man induced.

The Nuclear disaster which is rated as 5 out of 7 is not as sever as Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in Ukraine 25 years ago. The Ukraine disaster could be attributed to flawed designs and improper operating procedures.y. Fukushima, Japan cannot be. Japan runs the world's third largest fleet of nuclear reactors (55) supplying one third of its electricity and one sixth of the global total of reactors is in Japan. Japan is credited by the global nuclear industry with its best safety standards for nuclear reactors.

But still this is not enough. INDIA should rethink its ambitious Nuclear program. In my opinion we should immediately stop all nuclear program and concentrate on Green energy source like wind, water(hydro) and so on.

In fact India should also abandon its Nuclear weapon plans. I mean all nuclear plan.

India should rethink of some other types of weapons other than Nuclear. The one which does not kill people.

The BYTE weapon.

" When you Dream, dream big, dream impossible. Anything is possible in this world. Even earthquake of magnitude 20..."

The Evil - Corruption

2012-10-23T23:42:00.000+05:30

As off now there are n number of scams involving leaders of major political parties. Some of them might be correct some may be a false allegation. And unless proved they can not be blamed. Everyone knows that it is not possible to prove the mighty especially when they are in power. So the political leaders are never involved in any scams, its the common man. ha ha ha ha.

Arvind accusing Mr. X benefiting by being related to some political leaders, some leaders from both ruling and opposition also blamed for corruption and vice versa.

Who is correct?

No idea but there is a common saying that there can not be smoke without a fire.

So as per my assumption, the allegation might not be 100% correct.

But just blaming the few is not the correct solution. Even if they are punished it is not possible to eradicate corruption from India. These few are among the 100 crore Indian.

And the only solution is to educate the new generation about the evil of corruption. It is the responsibility of the parent and schools to teach. It is only then it can be removed.

Compiling and Installing Custom Linux Kernel

2011-03-10T09:14:00.003+05:30

Compiling and Installing Custom Linux Kernel

The below mentioned steps will work in Ubuntu or debian like systems. I have tested it on Ubuntu 10.10.

Download and unzip(preparing)

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install kernel-package libncurses5-dev fakeroot wget bzip2

Download the kernel sources and unzip as shown below.

sudo tar xjf linux-2.6.18.1.tar.bz2 sudo ln -s linux-2.6.18.1 linux sudo cd /usr/src/linux

Configuring the Kernel

sudo cp /boot/config-`uname -r` ./.config

sudo make menuconfig

Then browse through the kernel configuration menu and make your choices. When you are finished and select Exit, answer the following question (Do you wish to save your new kernel configuration?) with Yes:

Build the Kernel

sudo make-kpkg clean sudo fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-custom_1.0 kernel_image kernel_headers

After --append-to-version= you can write any string that helps you identify the kernel, but it must begin with a minus (-) and must not contain whitespace.

Now be patient, the kernel compilation can take some hours, depending on your kernel configuration and your processor speed.

Install the new Kernel

sudo cd /usr/src sudo ls -l

This will list the kernel files if everything was fine.

Install them like this:

sudo dpkg -i sudo dpkg -i

Now reboot the system

sudo shutdown -r now

If everything goes well, it should come up with the new kernel. You can check if it's really using your new kernel by running

sudo uname -r

Unistalling the Kernel

Remove files

/boot/vmlinuz*KERNEL-VERSION*
/boot/initrd*KERNEL-VERSION*
/boot/System-map*KERNEL-VERSION*
/boot/config-*KERNEL-VERSION*
/lib/modules/*KERNEL-VERSION*/
/var/lib/initramfs-tools/

Run the command

sudo update-initramfs -k all -u

Archive option not visible in Outlook

2010-12-27T13:50:00.002+05:30

Archive option not visible in Outlook

Today when i tried to archive one of my outlook folder, I was unable to locate the Archive option under File menu.
Got confused... is that I have changed some settings and it disappeared.
But after some online research found that the culprit is one of Microsoft's Security (bad) updates release on December 14.

Update (KB2412171) for Microsoft Outlook 2007 has some issues and uninstalling it solved my problem. I can now see the Archive option under file menu.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/outlook/archive/2010/12/17/issues-with-the-recent-update-for-outlook-2007.aspx

No Sound from Ubuntu linux or Mint

2010-09-15T08:19:00.001+05:30

No Sound from Ubuntu linux or Mint

Searched google for possible answer to the problem but solution mentioned was not sufficient to solve my issues. I wasted couple of weekends resolving this issue.

Finally I solved by removing PulseAudio and ALSA packages and installing OSS(Open Sound System)

What is OSS?

OSS provides low -level audio drivers for users and a common API(application program interface) for developers. Unbutu and Mint by default uses ALSA ( Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) to provide audio drivers.

Does OSS support my hardware?

Check the list of supported hardware from the below link.
http://opensound.hg.sourceforge.net/hgweb/opensound/opensound/file/3db750724c2d/devlists/Linux

Preparing to install OSS

1. REMOVE Pulseaudio packages

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio

2. Removing ALSA packages

sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils stop

sudo apt-get remove alsa-base alsa-utils

3. Blacklisting ALSA Kernel Modules

sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-sound-base

4. Installing Prerequisite Packages

The second command contains some recommended packages.

sudo apt-get install -y binutils libgtk2.0-0 sed gcc libc6

sudo apt-get install -y libesd0 libsdl1.2debian-oss

Installing OSS

1. Installing from DEB File

Download the OSS deb file from the 4front website(http://www.opensound.com/download.cgi). Before you install OSS, Reboot your system so that the ALSA modules will not load or interfere with it. When you log back in, use the terminal to install the OSS deb file (GDebi fails to install this .deb for some reason)

sudo dpkg -i oss-linux*.deb

Configuring Applications to Use OSS

Type ossxmix in your terminal to launch the mixer.

YOU ARE DONE

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" --Thomas Edison

Trick to display "OM" Screensaver

2010-05-20T12:08:00.003+05:30

Trick to display "OM" Screensaver

1. On desktop right click go to properties->screen saver
2. Select your screen saver as '3d text'
3. Go to settings of screen saver.
4. In 3d text settings check the custom text and write '\' (without inverted commas),and click on choose font
5. Choose the font as Wingdings and click ok
6. Apply the settings and you are done...

Vista Themes in Windows xp

2007-10-21T18:34:00.001+05:30

Are you getting bored with windows xp themes and tools and cannot afford to upgrade to Vista.
There are some tools which help in transforming your xp themes to vista themes. Most popular is Vista Transformation Pack 7.0.exe by Windows X. I personally tried and is a very good tool.

There are few other tools for windows XP provided by Microsoft - Microsoft Power toys
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

some of them are Power Caculator, Image resizer, Virtual Desktop manager ( like we have in Linux) etc.

Installing Windows 98...

2007-06-30T22:30:00.001+05:30

After a gap of more than 4 years I installed windows 98 on my old system which till now was using as an linux machine for experimenting and exploring may programming skils in C++.
I was so used to using/installing xp that I forgot to install the drivers, thought that it will be installed by os itself. Not only this, I started installing office xp without installing updates for IE. The most frustating part was frequent restart. Ultimatly succeded.