Srini Raju's blog

The facts are here.

2010-09-16T18:00:00.001+05:30

Archaeology and Babri Masjid Unalterable Facts of History

Solution for Kashmir problem

2010-09-15T12:19:00.001+05:30

The only solution to the kashmir issue i see now is to give parts of Kashmir excluding Ladakh to China and also ask china to take control of PoK along with Kashmir. In that way we make friend with China and create ruptures between Pak and China. This will also demoralize the Islamic freedom movement in Kashmir and alienate the Pak bureaucracy from its people and create a chaotic situation in Pak. Isn’t it a good solution ? We make friend with the biggest and aggressive nation like China, We save billions of rupees that we are now spending on military. :)

Using lxpanel and tint2 together

2010-09-03T12:58:00.001+05:30

I liked tinit2 by the way for its lightweightedness, flat looks and the reconfigurability methods. But was missing a launcher and the ability to have applets running on it (Only minimal applets are available). I was looking for a way to use nice applets in the tint2 task bar but none methods found. At last i started using lxpanel with tint2 and the results seem to be great. :)

I have divided the total screen space for the taskbar into 10:90 % share. 10% for lxpanel and the rest for tint2. Don't ask me why am i doing this than just using the complete lxpanel. Some habits does not go just like that. :)

Aliens on mother earth

2010-07-30T12:35:00.005+05:30

Ever wondered whether are we the natives of earth ? From my perspective we are not... wondering why do i say that ? Look at the following perspectives.

We do not understand the value of sustainable living and utilizing the natural resources in the way they should be. We do not live naturally, rather we would require unnatural man made scum which is completely spoiling the planet and rotting it.

We always think that mankind is great as he is the only species who grows food according to his need. This is good. But see now, in order reap more profits from the cultivation we are using excessive pesticides which we do not even know what will be the impact on the land and soil in the future. Forget land and soil we do not even care about the health hazards from pesticides.

Every other species on the planet lives from the natural resources and saves them for their further/future generations. But we do not even care about our children and the effect of our living on them. I sometimes feel pathetic that i can't provide a good earth for living for my children. We always equate everything with monetary benefits and we think that if we have money then everything will be good for us and we never look at the side effects of what we are doing. What is the use if we have lots of money and can't live healthy or can't live in a environment where we will be even afraid to take breath.

When we can't take care of the native environment how could we say that we are natives to earth. Every other species is suffering because of the habits that we have habituated from long time. Its time for us to change somethings in our lives. I am not saying that we should go back to the stone age but we could do small things that will really change the way we look and perceive mother earth.

Reinstating windows MBR from Linux

2010-07-22T10:22:00.000+05:30

Its heartening to see Linux going out of my Official laptop :( I have installed Ubuntu Lucid and found that using Linux will not at all help me to be productive at work due to the officially supported tools. As i can't change that i thought i would change myself a bit so i had to remove Linux to reclaim the disk space to Windows and was wondering how to reinstate windows MBR. After some googling, i fould the following.

Boot to the Ubuntu live cd and install ms-sys. ms-sys is not in the repo's of Ubuntu anymore due to some licensing issues. You can download the older version which is based on Dapper and install using dpkg. You can find the appropriate deb at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ms-sys

After the installation, do the following to reinstate Windows MBR:

# ms-sys --mbr /dev/sdX

Where sdX is the disk where windows is installed. And prey to god that sometime you could use Linux without any dependancies :)

Much better than osmo -- gsimplecal

2010-04-30T13:28:00.001+05:30

I somehow missed this calendar application. The tool is listed in the tint2 google code home page and i did not glance it before. You can find the tool at http://code.google.com/p/gsimplecal/. This is a simple and much lighter than osmo and i kind of liking it.

Lighter and more efficient window manager for Linux

2010-03-27T12:12:00.003+05:30

I have always admired the way Linux provides configurable options for anything and everything. In the way i always wanted a much lighter and efficient desktop environment that is not clustered but simple. I have installed and configured openbox on my work thinkpad and i am really loving it. There is no taskbar comes by default with openbox. You can use third party panel/taskbars like gnome-panel, pypanel, tint2 etc... with ease in openbox.

You can install openbox in Karmic and is available in the repos of ubuntu. After installation you would have to select openbox as the default window manager in GDM/KDM (your preference). The configuration of openbox is simple. The configuration files are stored in ~/.config/openbox directory and the files are self explanatory. Primarily there would be three files to configure:

a) autostart.sh: Script which is launched during the login. You can configure or launch any programs to be autostarted when opnbox is loaded. I have put all the programs that i would require to be launched in the script. Programs like, gnome-settings-daemon, gnome-power-manager, nm-applet, gnome-volume-control-applet, xscreensaver etc... into autostart.sh.

b) menu.xml: This is a XML file where in you can configure the openbox menu. You can add or remove programs from the desktop menu. This file is very self explanatory if you understand how to edit or configure XML.

c) rc.xml: This is a XML file where in you can configure keyboard shortcuts for launching programs etc... This file is very handy because once you configure, you don't have to go to start menu to launch programs but launch programs using keyboard shortcuts.

After configuring openbox, you would like to have a panel/taskbar to work on openbox. My favourite taskbar i would say is the tint2 (beware of that it does not have the launch button). You can configure and use tasks, time, system tray, tooltips and battery monitor with tint2. Tint2 can be obtained from google code page code.google.com/p/tint2. Download the latest tar, compile and install. You can have guidelines in the tint2 wiki for installation on ubuntu. Upon installation, configure tint2 to be run on openbox load at autostart.sh. Tint2 can be configured using ~/.config/tint2/tint2rc file. You can some of the example configuration files in tint2 wiki pages.

That's it, you are now ready to enjoy the light weight window manager for Linux.

Some of the programs that would come in handy for openbox are:
You can set the below programs either in rc.xml or autostart.sh accordingly to be run.

a) thunar: File manager
b) feh: Desktop image setting
c) gmrun: run programs
d) xscreensaver: screensaver
e) gpe-screenshot: screenshot application

You may not find your destop icons in openbox because openbox does not have any desktop manager. If you would like to have your desktop icons with a desktop manager you could use pacmanfm. You can use PacmanFM on autostart.sh and use it as a file manager instead of thunar. You could also install obconf (openbox configuration manager) to configure the look and feel of openbox windows.

Osmo with tint2

2010-03-18T21:28:00.004+05:30

If you are using tint2 and want a calendar to be displayed when clicking on the clock then osmo is the one to go for. You will have to install osmo and configure tint2 to display osmo's calendar when clicked on clock of tint2 taskbar.

First install osmo as described in my previous log. Once the installation is over, open your tint2rc and configure clock setting of tint2 as following and restart tint.

clock_lclick_command = osmo -c

OSMO - Personal organizer for Linux

2010-03-18T16:39:00.002+05:30

I found osmo to be a very light weight and handy personal organizer for Linux. It integrated Calander with notes, tasks and contacts at the same time. Osmo is in the Ubuntu repo's and can be installed straight away. :) (# sudo apt-get install osmo).

Laptop stand 4 my Home Office

2010-03-13T13:11:00.003+05:30

I got the following laptop stand for my thinkpad made using the local skill and material.

It took me only 50 bucks (INR) to get this done. First i went to a local hardware shop for ply with my own drawing. According to the dimensions the ply costed me 22 Rupees (bargained to 20). The hardware shop guy told me that he would require the carpenter with the electric saw to cut the ply to the dimensions and the carpenter was not available. I took the ply to the local carpenter who did a very good job in cutting the ply using his hand tools :) and it turned out to be very good. I paid the carpenter the total amount that he asked for the job (30 Bucks) which is decent enough to the hard work.

And here is the product which is in use :) which costed only 50 Ruppes (Approx 1$). The laptop stands start at 300 rupees in the market.

Dumped screen for tmux

2010-02-19T16:25:00.006+05:30

Screen was my productive tool ever since i have come to know about it. I loved screen the way i loved Linux. Screen provided me the way to be more productive than ever before. The more i used screen the more requirements i had to do more with the screen. Especially i wanted Horizontal/Vertical split of screen sessions. There is no problem with the Horizontal split in screen but the vertical split really sucks. I have patched screen with the vertical split ability and i did not like the performance (what's the use when the session really gets dragging). And also when i want to reconnect to the screen session, i have to do the splits again. Splitting in screen is not at all persistent and that's when i googled and got to know about tmux (http://tmux.sourceforge.net).

Tmux is a BSD licensed Terminal Multiplexer (like Terminator) with the ability to detach and attach the sessions like screen. In simple terms Tmux gives the ability to split screens like in Terminator and work disconnected like in Screen and the splitting of session are persistent when attached again :). That's what i was looking for... isn't it. I use Ubuntu and i now see that Tmux is now in included in the Ubuntu repositories. But the version that is in the Ubuntu repo is a older one and does not support the vertical split ability. So, to all those who are having the same problem with the screen and wanted an alternative here is a mini note on setting up Tmux.

Installation:
We have to build Tmux from source to get the vertical split ability. Download latest Tmux from http://tmux.sourceforge.net.
Setup ubuntu with the necessary components to build Tmux. (Enable sources in /etc/apt/sources.list or from Synaptic)
# sudo apt-get build-dep tmux

It is also advisable to install libenv-dev. The latest versions of tmux require this package to build.
# sudo apt-get install libevent-dev

Untar Tmux and build Tmux from source.

# tar -zxvf tmux-*.tar.gz
# cd tmux-*/
# ./configure
# make
# sudo make install

That's it.. you will now have Tmux installed on your system. If Tmux is not in /usr/local/bin, then copy the tmux binary from tmux-1.1 directory.

Setup:
Setup is very simple, you can straight away start off with tmux. But if you want to configure, you need to use .tmux.conf file in your home directory.
Its simple, i have the following in my configuration ~/.tmux.conf

$ cat .tmux.conf
start-server
set-option -g prefix C-a
unbind-key C-b
bind-key C-a send-prefix

set-window-option -g mode-keys vi
set-window-option -g automatic-rename off
set-option -g default-command "exec /bin/bash"

set-option -g status-bg white
set-option -g status-fg black
set-option -g status on
set-window-option -g utf8 on

This basically gets you start off. More information can be found in man page. Its really simple to configure. Below are some of the shortcuts.
The prefix that you have to use by defautl is -b which is a bit cumbersome. Like in screen i want to use -a and i have set that up in my .tmux.conf.

Useful Key bindings:
-a and % >> Split vertically
-a and " >> split horizontally
-a and o >> move between split windows
-a and c >> Create a new session
-a and d >> detach tmux
-a and ? >> display existing key bindings

Commands:
# tmux >> creates a new tmux session
# tmux att >> attach to a existing tmux session

That's the ones to get you start off with. I hope you really would enjoy tmux. :)

Kingdom of Robbers

2009-06-09T17:33:00.001+05:30

Its always been wonderful listening about the progress of my country (INDIA). I hear read and experience a lot about the GDP growth, Per-Capita income, Industrialisation etc. which are growing YoY, from the media that sometimes i think i live in a developed nation. I go to office everyday through huge traffic jams created by added new vehicles which is increasing day-by-day. But the ground reality seems to be so different.

Just going out of the city will open our eyes on the development that we are talking about. Most of India's population live in the rural areas and there is a huge percentage of them who are not even touched by the so called development. Their lifestyle is still the same as twenty or thirty years ago. The misery of farmers can't even be explained. The amount of money we pay for essential commodities, only a fraction is reached to the farmers. The middlemen and bureaucracy eats most of the money. The real producer of the commodity will not have anything to say about the sale of his produce. Take the example of the current rise in prices of essential commodities. The middlemen pay the same amount of money for the farmers produce that they use to pay before the price hike eating up majority of the junk that they do not deserve. Government talks a lot about them but at the end do not do anything concrete to push the advantage of pricing to the farmer.

The essential services like Health, Education, Security, Sanitation and Transport are in the miserable state that can't be explained. There is nothing like a good medical care in rural India. People still travel long distance to get the medical care that i would say pathetic. Nobody trusts the state run hospitals. If by luck, somebody has a little money that they can afford, they do not pay a visit to the state run hospitals. Education has become a commodity that it depends on the money that you have to get the quality of education. All the glory of the state run schools, colleges have gone. Private institutions are eating up the life earnings of the people in the name of education. Meritorious students are deprived of their right to first education in the name of reservation.

I don't have to mention about the security situation. The stage and the central security establishments are so corrupt that people instead of trusting the police they go to illegal elements to get solutions for their problems because with the same amount of money they have to pay to bureaucracy instead if they go through unlawful means they get faster and good service which is a good value for money.

Every year the government says that they are increasing investments in the essential services sector, but don't know who are the beneficiaries of it. There is too much of bureaucracy and corruption in the country that if you have money you can do whatever you want and they call this a democracy. Election after election netas come and go. They are seen only before the elections to beg for votes. After they win they will not be seen in their constituencies because they would be busy minting money that they have spent during the election. Still next time if they come we vote for the same person. Shame on us that in India the majority of the educated do not vote. If we do not vote then we are not much different than the ones who are robbing the country.

System/360 Honoured

2008-09-26T11:30:00.001+05:30

Computer History Museum honors the System/360.

The IBM System/360 Revolution

North korea and the dangers of proliferation.

2006-10-11T23:13:00.000+05:30

When north-korea exploded nuclear weapon it did not shock me and i'm sure it wouldn't have shocked many in the workd as they knew that they are pursueing nuclear weapons from a long time and they are capable of doing it. The world knows the sophestication that they achieved in the missile technology. With no money to feed its people the north korea has no other options other than proliferating weapons for its future needs and they do it by selling the technology to the rouge nations.

When talking about proliferation the first nation that one thinks about is pakistan due to its doubted compliance to the non-proliferation. Pakistan has been keeping close ties with the north korean regime to substitute its incapable missile sytems by aquiring the technology know-how and these ties would have made pakistan support north korea's nuclear programme by exanging its nuclear technology for missile blueprits [source NewYorker].

Even after knowing so many facts about Pakistan, the successive american govenment's have kept close ties with pakistan. America now calls them a close ally in the war on terrorism and i would like to ask the americans "who the hell are you fighting along with pakistan" ?. Its been a known fact about al-qaida's links in pakistan and the support it has been receiving from the successive pakistani regimes. If America does not change its stance and talk hard with pakistan they will keep facing 9/11 like incidents. There will be a day when someone explodes a nuclear device in america made by the north korean's with the technology they received from pakistan and the plan successfully executed by al-qaida.

Islamic terrorism and Pakistani connection

2006-10-08T00:00:00.000+05:30

From a long time the islamic terrorism has ravaged the world with mindless violence and killings. India has been suffering by the same from two decades by the name of kashmiri freedom struggle. The kashmiri terrorists are backed by indian neighbours to achieve and secure their political future. The terrorists who are fighting in india are majority non-kashmiris and non-indians supported by Hijbul Mujahideen, Lashkar etc.. which are headquarted in Pakistan and one can not ignore the involvement of pakistani intelligence agency ISI in giving training and logistical support to the so called freedom fighters.

The pakistani connection in the islamic terrorism is not limited against India. Its connection is evident in most of the terrorist attacks around the world. For example the attackers of 9/11 majorly supported and trained by al-qaida and its supportive organizations based in pakistan. Dawood Ibrahim - the prime accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast is taking a safe shulter in pakistan and this has been proved recently by getting his daughter married to a famous pakistani cricketer's son. India in many ocassions provided evidence of dawood's involvement in '93 blasts and his proof of his residence in lahore and asked for extradition. In all the ocassions pakistan has denied his existence in pakistan.

By American pressure after 9/11 Mr. Musharraf had put a ban on most of the terrorist organizations but they continue to operate from pakistan with new names and new offices. The Hizbul-Mujahideen's chief Syed Salahuddin is freely roaming in pakistan with ISI and pakistani army security. Maulana Massod Azhar who is released in exchange of hijacked IC 814 passengers is also living in pakistan with the ISI support (check this story).

If they are fighting for Kashmiri freedom then why do they forcibly evict the Kashmiri pandits from their home land ? They just wanna make kashmir an islamic state. In this mayhem the native kashmiri has lost his importance. Pakistan just need a reason to be agains't india and this will continue even if whether kashmir gets independence or not. Pakistan started with supporting punjab insurgents in the 80's and when the punjab story was over, they started with kashmir to destabilize india.

Check the web site thereligionofpeace.com where you can get the statistics of the terrorist attacks and lost lives. Its just not the lives of non-muslim's but also thousand's of innocent muslims who lost their lives in the hands of islamic terrorists. Is this the cause you are fighting for ?

Also check Wikipedia on terrorism in kashmir

Angela Booth's Writing Blog

2006-10-03T22:19:00.000+05:30

I found the following blog very useful for writing and ideas to improve writing skills.

Angela Booth's Writing Blog

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Stature of India on the hands of Politicians

2006-10-03T18:53:00.000+05:30

I came through this video by CNN-IBN. All the indians should watch this and be ashamed of our politicians who are running the nation. They do not even know Vande Mataram (our National Song).

Watch the Video at CNN-IBN

We should all be very very ashamed of these guys.

"When they talk about making Vande Mataram compulsory then they should also know to sing Vande Mataram (वन्दे मातरम्)"

Remembering Mohandas

2006-10-03T14:04:00.000+05:30

He was a great leader who led the nation to independence from the British and who still inspires young and the old of India.

Learn more about Father of the Nation at Wikipedia

"A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you." -- Marian Wright Edelman [More Quotes]

Trip to Kemmanagundi

2006-09-28T17:55:00.000+05:30

I have been long waiting for a weekend out of my usual work and it came in the form of team outing by my office colleagues. We planned for a long time and decided to go to Kemmanagundi for a two day (8th to 10th August 2006) by hiring a tempo traveller from Bangalore. At last we got the final go by 9 colleagues who accepted for self funding for the trip. So we started as planned on 8th August at 4:00 PM.

Kemmanagundi is about 240 KM's from bangalore. Kemmanagundi has lot of Forest department's guest houses where you have to book in advance. The rate of the guest house starts from 200+. The route to kemmanagundi which we took is

Bangalore -> Tumkur -> Gubbi -> Tiptur -> Arsikere -> Kadur -> Kemmanagundi

We reached there at around 11:30 PM and went straight to the guest house office for check-in. We took two double rooms and one dormitory. A double room can accomodate two persons and the dormotory can accomodate around 8 people comfortably.

Note: The guest houses are not properly managed. They are very dusty and rusty but i felt that they are OK for a forest trip.

Image 1: Guest house

We had enough of travel and we laid down on the bed to start our trek the next day morning. We woke up the next day at around 6:00 AM and went to the forest department canteen for coffee and early breakfast so that we can go for trek to Hebba water falls.

There are lots of jeep's that commute from the Guest house to the Hella falls. The best way to experience the hills is to go by walk. From the guest house to the Hebba falls it around 8 to 9 kms. We walked for around 5 kilometers and took jeep in the midway. The hills on the way to the falls are very beautiful and a very good treat for photographers.

Image 2: On way to Hebba Falls

Vehicles can't go from a certain distance from the falls so we had to walk for around 1.5 kms to reach the falls. Be prepared here as you encounter lots of leaches on the way. We had a very bad experience as we were not prepared for. We got help from another group of trekers who came with a small bag of salt and limestone powder which they rubbed on the leachs and they are gone.

Finally we reached the waterfall and we are amazed by the extent that it is flowing. We had a dip in the river for some time and headed back to the guest house. The jeep is already waiting for us to take us back. We had lunch at the forest department's canteen and had a small nap at the guest house. In the evening we headed to the places near by the guest house especially near raj bhavan. We spent a lot of time there till it became dark.

We had a nice dinner on 9th evening. Next day morning (10th) we headed back to bangalore. On the way we visited Mullayanagiri which is the highest peak in Karnataka. The road to mullayanagiri is very steep and we enjoyed the ride. We stayed there until afternoon and reached Chikmagalur where we had lunch and started straight to Bangalore.

Image 3: Mullayanagiri

Overall we have enjoyed the trip. I do not know what are the right seasons to visit kemmanagundi but August and september(when i visited) is very lush green and cool.

Just some tips: Carry enough blankets, warm clothes to keep you warn in nights. Torch and Candles which will help you in case there is no power and Some eatables with you.

Justice at last

2006-09-27T23:59:00.000+05:30

Death sentence given to the Mohammed Afzal by the indian court for his involvement in the parliament attack insident is a lesson for the islamist rebels in the country. This showed that india takes terrorism seriously and it can fight on its own. The courts should take necessary steps to speed up the hearings that are pending so that india can avoid another IC814 like incidents.

General's writing twist

2006-09-26T11:40:00.000+05:30

I was watching a news channel yesterday (25th September 2006) and was surprised to see people talking so seriously about general Parvez Musharraf's new book "In the line of fire" which is his self autobiography. But while i was watching that show, i was surprised to see indian TV news channel advertising for the book. In my understanding the pakistani general will hide the facts in his new book to save his face and extend his tenure as general of Pakistan.

I do not have any copy of the book as of now but i do not think there is a need to read a book written by a military general who has come to power by crushing the democratic means of a nation. In the book majorly he might talk about himself (because its his book), India (as he is against) and some praises for himself on the war on terrorism where he says that pakistan is fully with the international community. Wholly the book will be full of lies where he would try to impress the international leaders like Bush and his own citizens. From the news channel i came to know that general blamed India for the 1999 kargil war. But i want to ask the general one thing, if he thinks that india lost the war and the war has to be blamed on india then why was there a need for a coup in pakistan and why the general has to be ousted by then Prime Minister nawaz sharif after the war.

Wholly the book would be a bunch of lies and propaganda tool for Parvez Musharraf.