{ post: post ∈ me, post ∈ random(thought) }

Setting up PYTHONPATH in unix like platforms

2011-04-29T11:13:00.003+05:30

Edit the .profile file inside your home directory and add a line somewhere to export your PYTHONPATH. A sample .profile file my mac is as shown below;

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
export PYTHONPATH="/Users/kailash/pythonworks/"

After saving the .profile file, the commands just added must be read and executed by the system. For that source command comes handy.

$ source .profile

That's it, hopefully you will be able to import modules inside your python path permanently.

Journey to Annapurna Base Camp

2010-11-04T22:43:00.007+05:30

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 1st
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We started the first day from Sanjib's house. We took a taxi for the Baglung bus park. And then we headed towards Nayapul boarding a local bus. It is the last road side area in our trek route. We then packed few things for our trek and moved forward towards Ghandruk. We decided to stay on Komrong Danda in the first day. That place was really beautiful, on top of the Hill. So was Machhapuchre Guest House where we stayed. I enjoyed staying there rather than walking past Ghandruk actually. Komrong Danda was on 2300 meters height. We enjoyed the warmth of our jacket amid the chilling cold and wind and had a good stay there.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 2nd
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One of my friends decided to return back to home owing to his weakness and feable state of mind. We had no other choice but to let him return with a known tourist guide. This day was going to be hard, as we had to go 400 meters down in a steeper trail and then climb up 600 meters in a steeper trail. Now that we were only three; Bijay, Umesh and me :), we all were so determined to reach in our destination. All of us showed courage in this hard time and walked past Chomrong and then to Sinuwa, Bamboo and finally to Dovan, our shelter place for second night. We stayed on Dovan Guest House, which at last came out to be the most expensive place we ever stayed by vitue of its location and price. I couldn't resist the odour of sweat in my body and took a hot shower worth Rs. 150/- which the guest house owner forgot to add on our bill luckily tomorrow morning :D.

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Day 3rd
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We saw the view of Machhapuchre clearly from Dovan in the early morning. With the sheer joy of being closer to our destination, ABC, we then headed towards it. With each coming days, we walked faster than previous days. I loved walking faster, which my friends resisted mostly. However, with the grace from the holy God, i enjoyed company from an Australian woman while walking from Dovan to MBC. We reached Machhapuchre Base Camp (MBC) at around 12:30 PM and took our lunch there. We sticked with our typical Nepali food; Dal-Bhat and me with the spoon because of my long and dirty nails :D. We slowly moved up towards Annapurna Base Camp after taking rest at MBC. All of us were tired by MBC. I, in the meanwhile, got depressed and took the medicine of altitude sickness. However, the company of three girls in the way made our walk easy. We couldn't sleep until midnight because of the altitude and cold.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 4th
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We all woked up at 5:30 AM early in the morning in order to have the panoramic view of mountains. The luscious scene couldn't last long because of the fog. We waited until 8:30 AM, when finally the peaks started to glitter and the thick fog in the surrounding began to part. Our paitence paid us back. Wonderful, snowy mountains just infront of us everywhere! Few lines from an Australian couple still echoes within me "We are in the middle of the Universe"-"We are in the paradise" and Yes! She was absolutely true in her words. It feels like you are on your own, washing your thoughts, and all that you think is Nature's precious gifts. It was the real joy … a painless moment that shall cherish deep into my heart for as long as i live. I was in the middle of another dream come true moment. I forgot every inch of pain and difficulties on the way up. We then marched fast like a horse and reached Chhomrong for the night stay. This day, i met a British Boy, a Londoner, named Louie and shared our experiences and cultures which i enjoyed a lot. This boy wished to be a film maker and may his wish come true. But the night was too noisy because of the Spanish family staying next room next to my bed.
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Day 5th
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The most frustating walk in my entire trek was on this day. Tired legs, mind and long way to go to make it upto Nayapool was dragging me to lengthen our trek. Hot spring bath at Jhinu Danda was really worth getting once. It felt like i was washing all my pains in the hot water. Almost 1 hour of bath couldn't make us feel like leaving. What a rendezvous it was? Hot Spring on the bank of Modi river!!! We then started walking through the New Bridge following the easier route to Syauli Bazar. But since we were already tired, each step seemed too hard to take then. We were running short of water and starving badly until we got to kilyu and had a lunch there. Finally we made it upto Nayapol around 4:00 PM. Now then we were in jolly mood because of being back after finishing such a hectic yet memorable journey.

PICASA WEB ALBUM: http://picasaweb.google.com/Kailash.buki/TrekToAnnapurnaBaseCamp#

Genetic Algorithm example: Displaying text 'python' on the console

2010-07-04T16:15:00.028+05:30

There's one quote by the great Chinese philosopher Confucius;

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

I was running through the same period while learning genetic algorithm. I must admit that I really am not that good in biology, being a physical group student from the early college time. However Genetic Algorithm is one of the interesting topics, i have ever encountered. I heard about this term in the AI class, saw the relevant topics in internet, went through some books. Excited by the topic, i finally came up with this idea of demonstrating a simple example powered by genetic algorithm. Make sure you have gone through the genetic algorithm chapter at least once because i am not going to explain the entire detail of genetic algorithm but i will rather focus on the example i am going to demonstrate. This program is very much simple, which displays a text 'python' in console, and is coded implementing genetic algorithm.

Pseudo Code
Source Code

Description of the above code:-
We encode the so called genes directly using characters. The first step in problem solving using genetic algorithm is generating a random population of any size, preferably large. This task is accomplished by the generate_population() function. The second step is to find the fitness associated with each member of the population and sort the population according to the fitness. I have calculated the ASCII value difference between the target string and the member of the population to find the fitness. Therefore fit members have less fitness value and are on the top of the population list contrary to the fact that fit members will have large fitness value. However, both are meant to sort the creatures of the population. We have achieved it the other way. We then randomly select two parents and perform the sexual reproduction. This random selection is carried out by selecting random members from the top of the population, indicated by ELITISMSIZE. This kind of selection strategy is called Truncation Selection. Random single crossover point is chosen for reproduction. The child thus reproduced is put under the probable condition of mutation rate. Once children equal to the size of the population is produced, they are placed in the population, in addition to calculating their fitness. This process is carried out for large generations, here 100.
Things are not as complicated as it seems. The code is lengthy because i have put the member along with its fitness value in a list in the list of population.
P.S. It is better to opt for Biased Roulette Wheel Selection for selecting parents. The proposed program still lacks optimization thereby converging on the local optima.

Installing Boot Camp in Mac OSX Tiger & Running Windows 7

2010-06-13T13:36:00.005+05:30

Some people, like me, can get tired of using Mac OS X and searching for scarce free and open source software in Mac box. Sometimes complexity can go beyond this. Installing new software can be huge headache too. Well, i am writing this so that if only i could help a single person like me wondering what/how to do.

Newer versions of Mac OS X like Snow Leopard has Boot Camp installed in it by default. And apple has stopped distributing the free installer of Boot Camp from their official website for their own reasons. Unfortunately for the users of Mac OS X Tiger, manual installation is required. The Boot Camp installer can be found on third party websites. For the one, you can go here. Now all you need to do is download and install it. This doesn't solve your problem yet. In order to run the Boot Camp you just installed, you need to set your date in Mac to some earlier date(around 2004/2005). Then you can see your Boot Camp ready to work.

Now that I suppose you have installed Windows 7, i surely am doubtful with your smooth experience with Windows 7 in Macbook. You might get crazy with all your control keys like brightness, volume, etc not working. The Mac driver CD, you just burnt using Boot Camp says it just works for Windows XP or Vista. Actually sound doesn't work either. So things get complicated here. Even i was tired looking around for the solution. So i thought why don't i share what i was able to find out.

I used two things for that. First the Mac Driver CD burnt using Boot Camp and then the Orca MSI Editor(for editing the installer file), which can be downloaded from here. Make sure you have these things beforehand.

Assuming you are already on Windows 7, insert the Mac driver CD burnt using Boot Camp. Without a bit of hesitation, do copy all the files inside the CD and put it inside a folder easily accessible to you. In my case, i made a folder named test on the Desktop and copied the entire content of CD to that. You cannot edit files while they are on CD, so this hassle has to be undergone.

Then Open up Orca and go to File -> Open. Browse to the folder where you kept the copied files. And then go to Drivers->Apple. You can finally see two installers; select the one named Boot Camp. On the left column of Orca under the heading Tables, you will see lots of things, not necessary to know about all. But we will need to know about only one. Go ahead and click on LaunchCondition. You will see five lines on the right side: most of them are explained on their description column. Here's a glimpse.

We just need to edit the first three lines starting with "(VersionNT". Double click on the row and you will be able to edit the line. Put a > in front of every = sign encountered on each of those three lines. Your final three lines should look like;
(VersionNT>=501 AND ServicePackLevel>=2) OR (VersionNT>=600)
(VersionNT>=501) Imp (AdminUser)
(VersionNT>=600) Imp (MsiRunningElevated)
This basically tells the installer, if the version of Windows you’re using IS, or is ABOVE Windows XP(501) or Vista(600), continue the installer and don’t give any errors. Make sure you save the modification on the installer file by Ctrl+s.

Happily everything works fine now by just clicking the setup file inside the folder where you copied the content of the CD. In order for sound to work go to the folder where you have kept the driver and then to Drivers->IDT Sigma Tel and then extract the SigmaTelSetup.rar file. Go ahead and click the setup file thus extracted. With a reboot, you can see that everything working as expected.

Feel free to comment.
Thanks

Mounting Hard Disk Partitions in Linux

2010-02-28T19:48:00.004+05:30

Don't know how to access your hard disk partitions in linux? or may be for every restart, you might have been forced to enter your password. Mounting Hard Disk Partitions in Linux is very simple only if you follow the right procedures.
First you need to find out your partiions and preferably with their labels. Tools like gParted can be used to observe the hard disk partitions.

Now that you know which partition to mount, it's time to do some typing. Open up your terminal and edit /etc/fstab file with your favourite editor. As specified in the file, while mounting a partition, you need to provide the file system, mount point, type, options, dump and pass [commented in the file with <>]. Mount point is the absolute address of the directory in linux where you want to view your partitions. Without bothering into the details, dump and pass options are normally provided a 0 value.

You could observe the mounted partitions after restarting the computer. Open up your terminal and type dmesg, you could see your mounted drives. :)

lil bit of fun with eSpeak in ubuntu

2010-02-11T23:36:00.002+05:30

Until today, i had never used eSpeak. Nor did i get the opportunity to hear about it. Well now that i have used it, i thought i could share my experience with this speech synthesizer tool. No more worries about your eyes now. You can call eSpeak from the terminal without any hassle and enjoy the somewhat machine sounding voice pronouncing the text. Good news for ubuntu users! it's installed by default. For others, here's where you should look at.
As just a simple demonstration of this tool, you can try this at terminal;
kailash@kailash-desktop:~/Desktop$ espeak "hello world!"

In order to read a text file, all you need to do is insert an extra parameter;
kailash@kailash-desktop:~/Desktop$ espeak -f filename

Though the sound seems quite unclear, you can still enjoy the way he speaks. There are whole bunch of other features. For more details, here's the documentation.

Create an offline backup of installed packages in linux

2010-01-24T20:37:00.011+05:30

All i wanted was to be able to backup all the installed packages in my linux machine. So that i could use it in future. Obviously my intention was to create a removable repository which could be used on other computers(including mine in case i have to format my machine). Frankly, i was tired of downloading each packages, even codes, after fresh installation of ubuntu every time. I came across this handy tool called APTonCD. This tool allows to create CDs/DVDs with all of the packages that you have downloaded with apt-get/Synaptic. Here's what i did;

I could see lots of linux users[few days ago i was too] searching for linux packages who often don't have internet connection or have slow connection. This could be of great help for them.
There are still more things you can do with it! Explore!! Better try it once :)

Gtalk Account Connection in Pidgin in Proxy Controlled Internet Connection

2010-01-23T19:28:00.005+05:30

Pidgin is a popular chat client. However, it sometimes could be problematic. I faced the problem i stated in this post's title & all i did was;

Thanks

Installing a Shockwave Flash Plugin for Mozilla Firefox in Ubuntu

2009-12-02T10:51:00.026+05:30

Most of the content rich sites use flash. It is very much true that browsing becomes lame without Shockwave Flash Plugin. In addition to this, installing a Shockwave Flash Plugin sometimes become very much problematic. Here is a small trick, i used in order to install the Plugin.

First Download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player from the Adobe's site

Then extract the .deb file. You will get a file named libflashplayer.so.

All you need to do is, move the libflashplayer.so file to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ directory.

sudo mv location_of_libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

After restarting the browser, put about:config on your URL bar. You should see Shockwave Flash installed. :)

Editing mySQL Databases through terminal in Xampp in Linux

2009-11-17T22:52:00.011+05:30

You have put an effort to view this page because you might be desparate to find out the solution for editing mySQL databases through terminal in Xampp in linux, esp. Ubuntu & its clone. I was doing the same before i knew how to do so :). Okay!
For the command line way, i considered the following steps;
Presuming you have installed lampp in /opt directory, start the XAMPP server

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start

Then login from console into mySQL using

/opt/lampp/bin/mysql -u root -p;

You will be prompted for the password then. Don't panic just because you don't know it. By default, no password is set for the user "root" in mysql. So press the return key.
Now you are finally on the track. Play around with sql queries!!! Have fun :)

Funny

2009-06-22T22:32:00.005+05:30

Pictures speak much more than words do!

How to change MAC address in Linux(Debian Based Distros)

2009-03-02T17:26:00.010+05:30

Media Access Control(MAC) address is a unique identifier assigned to most network adapters or network interface cards (NICs) by the manufacturer for identification.
Although physical MAC address is supposed to be permanent and globally unique identification, it is possible to change the MAC address on most of today's hardware, an action often referred to as MAC spoofing.
The MAC address of a NIC can be changed in Debian Based Linux Distros using following methods;

$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking stop
$ sudo ifconfig <ethernet_interface> hw ether  <new_MAC_address> 
$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking start

The hardware/MAC address assigned this way reverts to its original value after reboot. In order to change the MAC address permanently, add

$ hwaddress ether  <new_MAC_address>

into the appropriate section of /etc/network/interfaces so that the MAC address is set permanently when the network device is started. There is also a tool called macchanger available in linux that changes the MAC address of a NIC.

Wrong permission in configuration file in phpMyAdmin

2009-01-05T23:26:00.012+05:30

Actually I was trying to access phpMyAdmin from firefox. But i was constantly getting the same message
"Wrong permissions on configuration file, should not be world writable!" .
I did lil bit of googling as well but it didn't helped me either. I tried giving all the permissions(rwx) to owner, group & others using

kailash@kailash-desktop:~$ sudo chmod 777 /opt/lampp/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php

which couldn't solve it out either.
Finally , as the warning message suggests-"should not be world writable", i slightly tweaked my previous command to

kailash@kailash-desktop:~$ sudo chmod a-w /opt/lampp/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php

Ah!! it worked then. Thank you.

How to mount an iso image under Linux

2008-12-12T02:10:00.013+05:30

Procedure to Mount ISO images under LINUX

1)Create the directory aka mount point

mkdir -p /path/Directory_Name

2)Using mount command

First move into the directory containing the .iso file and then use the command mentioned below.

sudo mount -o loop file_name.iso /path/Directory_Name

In order to mount files into LINUX file system, one must have administrative priviledge, so we must use sudo(i.e, super user do).

Chill out! Your ISO image file has been mounted.

Being Precise with Google Search Engine

2008-11-13T09:40:00.001+05:30

Google, a popular search engine, is a tool for finding resources on the World Wide Web. Google scans web pages to find instances of the keywords by ranking web pages in a list of hits by giving weight to the links that reference a specific page.

Doing a search on Google is an easy job. Simply type one or more search terms (the words or phrase that best describe the information you want to find) into the search box and hit the 'Enter'. Google search can be can be made even more easier and efficient by using different techniques and kinds of operators available. Advanced operators are query words that have special meaning to Google. Typically these operators modify the search in some way, or even tell Google to do a totally different type of search. My best efforts are to explain as much as operators available and tips that are crucial for efficient Google search.

Basic Tips

Choosing Search Terms

choosing the right search terms is the key to finding the information you need.

Capitalization

Google searches are NOT case sensitive.
Automatic “and” queries

You don't need to include “and” between terms while searching.
Automatic exclusion of common words

Google ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Solution to this problem would be by conducting a phrase search or by putting a + sign before the essential common word.
Word variations(Stemming)

when appropriate, Google will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. Any variants of your terms that were searched for will be highlighted in the snippet of text accompanying each result.
Phrase searches

searches the exact phrase. Effective for searching proper names, lyrics, other famous phrases.
Negative terms

focuses a search so as to avoid the specific meaning of a term that has more than one meanings.
“I'm Feeling Lucky”

After entering the search terms, clicking the “I'm Feeling Lucky” button takes you straight to the most relevant website that Google found for your query

Following these tips will certainly help you develop a systematic habit of searching resources in Google.

Advanced Search Using Google's Advanced Operators

Alternative Query Types

link:

This query [link:] will list the web pages that point to the URL or specified web page. For e.g. link:www.fossnepal.org will list the web pages which links to www.fossnepal.org.

cache:

This query [cache:] will display Google's cached version of a web page. For e.g., cache:www.fossnepal.org will display Google's cache of fossnepal homepage.

info:

The query [info:] will show the information that Google has about the web page. For e.g.,

info:www.fossnepal.org shows the information about the web page www.fossnepal.org.

related:

The syntax [related:] lists the web pages that are similar or related to the URL. For e.g., related: displays the web pages related to www.fossnepal.org.

Specialized Information Queries

Operators	Meaning	Implementation
book/books	Search full text of books	book My side Show book-related information.
define, what is, what are	Show a definition for a word or phrase	define freedom Show a definition for the words freedom.
define:	Provide definitions for words, phrases, and acronyms from the Web.	define:Open find definitions for Open from the Web.
movie:	Find reviews and showtimes	movie: 100 girls Search for information about this movie, including reviews, show times, etc.
stocks:	Given ticker symbols, show stock information	stocks: goog Find Google's current stock price.
weather:	Given a location , show the weather	weather Seattle WA, weather 81612 Show the current weather and forecast.
phonebook:	Show all phonebook listings	phonebook: Disney CA Search for Disney's phone numbers in California-CA
rphonebook:	Show all residential phonebook listings	rphonebook:bill jones NY Search for the phone number of every Bill Jones in New York State-NY.

Query Modifiers

site:

If you include [site:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to those websites in the given domain. Say if you use foss ka kura site:www.fossnepal.org , Google will search for information on foss ka kura gathered by fossnepal.

allintitle:

If you use a syntax [allintitle:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the title. For instance, [allintitle: fossnepal LTSP] will return only documents that have both “fossnepal” and “LTSP” in title.

intitle:

Query [intitle:] will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the title. For instance, [intitle:fossnepal LTSP] will return documents that mention the word”fossnepal” int the title and mention the word “LTSP” anywhere in the document(title or not).

allinurl:

[allinurl:] will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the url. For instance, [allinurl: fossnepal LTSP] will return only documents that have both “fossnepal” and “LTSP” in the URL.

inurl:

[inurl:] will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the URL. For instance [inurl:fossnepal LTSP] will return only documents that have the word fossnepal in the URL and mention the word anywhere in the document(URL or not).

allinanchor:

[allinanchor:] will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in anchor text of links to the page. For instance, [allinanchor:foss LTSP] will search for pages that are called “foss” and “LTSP” by others.

inanchor:

[inanchor:] will restrict the results to those with terms appearing in the anchor text links to the page. For instance, [allinanchor:foss LTSP] will search for pages that are called “foss” or “LTSP” by others.

allintext:

If we use [allintext:] query, Google will show the pages that contains all the query words. For instance, [allintext:News Announcements] willl search for pages that contains both “News” and “Announcements”.

intext:

Using the syntax [intext:], one can find the web pages that contains any of the query words. For instance [intext:foss volunteers] will result into the pages that contains any of “foss” or “volunteers”.

Restrict Search

filetype:(or ext:)

This will result into the documents of specified types which can be downloaded easily by right clicking and saving the target. For instance, LINUX filetype:pdf will show the list of links to pdfs about LINUX.

city1 city2

It means book flights from city1 to city2. For instance, sfo bos will show the web pages containing information about flights from San Fransisco to Boston.

#..#

If this is used, Google will search within a range of numbers. For instance, Richard Stallman 1999..2004 will yield Richard Stallman's article written in between these years.

Google as Dictionary

Google can also be used as a calculator which is summarized below in the table;

Operators	Meaning	Implementation
+,-,*,/	Basic arithmetic operation	12+3-9*8/2
% of	Percentage of	10% of 450
^ or **	Raise to the power	3^5 or 3**5
Old units In new units	Unit conversion	1010 in dec

Restrict Search To Google News

location:

Google will find the news articles from sources in the specified locations. Say, foss location:Nepal syntax will find news articles about foss from Nepal.

Source:

It will find news articles from specified sources. Say, foss source:nepalnews will find news articles about foss from nepalnews.

Conclusion

Even a Layman can use the Google search engine but what makes the difference between a technically skilled person and him/her? The answer should be the way how he/she and a technical person use the search engine. It is easier to protect your feet with the slippers than to cover the earth with carpets. So don't hesitate and from now on, let us change the way we use Google search engine. Google's Advanced Operators have facilitated us with their preciseness. There are still many more operators, which I cannot explain in this brief article.

Last but not least we have to thank Google for what it has provided the world with.

How to kill non responsive program in Linux?

2008-11-13T08:29:00.006+05:30

When a program becomes non responsive most of us may use ps on the command prompt and then use kill to end the process. But here are some ways to kill such non responsive processes;
# When a program gets hung, hit Alt + F2 to bring up the Run dialog.
# Type in xkill and hit enter.
# Your mouse cursor will change into a cross or skull and bones.
# If the unresponsive application is not in focus, use Alt-Tab to switch to it.
Left click anywhere on the application window to kill it.
or
#Simply run a xkill command on the shell.
#now you can proceed similarly as from the third step of the previous tip.