Bhaveshnande's Blog

Shobha Yatra 2024 - Gudi Padwa - Vasai Road | शोभा यात्रा २०२४ - गुढी पाडवा - वसई रोड

2024-04-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

Vasai Road - Din Dayal Nagar Shobha Yatra 2024 on the ocassion of Gudi Padwa organized by Pandit Din Dayal Nagar Utsav Mandal and Rajadhiraj Vasai, Maharashtra, India

Shobha Yatra is celebrated on the occassion of Gudi Padwa which was on the 9th of April for 2024 and designates the start of the new year according to Marathi Calendar, with the new year of 1945 started as per the calendar.

Shobha Yatra features various instruments such as dhool, tasha, among others and is a very mesmerising and energizing experience to watch. The performers are of various age groups, most of whom are young, both boys and girls. These performers carry huge dhool(s) (drums) with them, with a group playing small drums. A director can also be seen instructing the group of performers on how to play, and whether to walk or stay at a place. This group also has flag bearers, where the flag is a bhagwa (saffron) flag indicating the rein of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the great warrior king of the Maratha empire who ruled over the entire Indian subcontinent. The Shobha Yatra group of permormers walk across the streets of the entire neighbourhood. The sound also simulates a war cry and fills you with adrenaline.

--- Marathi Translation ---

वसई रोड - पंडित दिन दयाल नगर उत्सव मंडळ आणि राजाधिराज वसई, महाराष्ट्र, भारत यांच्या संयुक्त विद्यमाने आयोजित गुढीपाडव्यानिमित्त दिन दयाल नगर शोभा यात्रा २०२४

शोभा यात्रा ही गुढीपाडव्याच्या निमित्ताने साजरी केली जाते जी 2024 च्या 9 एप्रिल रोजी होती आणि मराठी दिनदर्शिकेनुसार नवीन वर्षाची सुरुवात ठरवते, 1945 चे नवीन वर्ष कॅलेंडरनुसार सुरू होते.

शोभा यात्रेत ढोल, ताशा यांसारखी विविध वाद्ये आहेत आणि पाहणे हा अतिशय मंत्रमुग्ध करणारा आणि उत्साहवर्धक अनुभव आहे. कलाकार विविध वयोगटातील आहेत, त्यापैकी बहुतेक मुले आणि मुली दोन्ही तरुण आहेत. हे कलाकार त्यांच्यासोबत मोठे ढोल (ढोल) घेऊन जातात, एक गट लहान ढोल वाजवतो. एक दिग्दर्शक कलाकारांच्या गटाला कसे वाजवायचे आणि एखाद्या ठिकाणी चालायचे की थांबायचे याबद्दल सूचना देताना देखील पाहिले जाऊ शकते. या गटामध्ये ध्वज वाहक देखील आहेत, जेथे ध्वज हा भगवा (भगवा) ध्वज आहे जो संपूर्ण भारतीय उपखंडावर राज्य करणारा मराठा साम्राज्याचा महान योद्धा राजा छत्रपती शिवाजी महाराज यांचा लगाम दर्शवतो. परमोरमर्सचा शोभा यात्रा गट संपूर्ण परिसराच्या रस्त्यांवर फिरतो. ध्वनी देखील युद्धाच्या आक्रोशाचे अनुकरण करतो आणि तुम्हाला एड्रेनालाईनने भरतो.

#shobhayatra #shobha #gudipadwa #2024 #vasai #vasairoad #maharashtra

Meditation and creativity

2024-04-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

I have observed many people claim that meditation increases creativity, brings calmness and improves productivity, which is great!

Well, I am going to test that from today, 8th April 2024, by meditating for a minimum of 1 hour every single day no matter what for the next 1 month, until 8th May 2024, and observe and note the progress here on this blog.

How do I meditate?

I meditate by:

Sitting with a straight spine, preferably at a quiet calm place
Closing my eyes
Focusing attention on the feeling of air touching my nostrils as I breathe in and out
As my mind wanders away, I realize this, and bring back attention to the breath

Minimum session duration will be 12 minutes, expected to go to 20 minutes every session, forming a total of 1 hour per day.

Am I meditating for the first time? no. I have been an on and off meditator for quite some time, I would say for more than 8 years now, but the frequency varied and it was very occassional.

Time to make it serious now! at least for the test! and whatever is ahead in my life!

I meditated for about 25 minutes today, in 2 sessions, time to do the rest now!

The first was in my room and the second was at a beautiful location, after watching the sunset, in a cool breeze (but with some people and noise around, which I don't care about) and was an amazing experience.

The Mumbai Local Journey

2015-10-15T06:44:00.002-07:00

This is a nightmare for any sane person living on planet Earth.

You sleep at midnight every day, or even later, set up an early morning alarm to get up, at around 5:50AM in the morning, complete all your routine activities as quickly as possible and run.

You run for the train.

Once you reach the platform, you try your best to board the train, but be careful, there's almost always a huge gap in between the platform level and the floor of the train, if you fall in there, consider yourself dead.
Oh, not just that, you need to get across another force, that is, other people. Other people like you who ran for the train from their homes waking up early in the morning just like you. You got to push them, push them like you are in a battlefield, ready to attack an upcoming enemy, use all your energy and push to get inside the metal container.

Congratulations, consider yourself lucky to have boarded the train, now you try your best to be yourself, surrounded by tons of people, packed in a metal container worse than farmed bovine animals. You look around at other people just like you, who are standing there, nose to nose with you. But now, what do you do next? What do you do until you reach your destination, for probably another hour or two? With no space left to even move your hand around, with hot and humid air, breathing in the air exhaled by hundreds of other passengers, with little or no air ventilation, what do you do?

You either stay calm, close your eyes and sleep, get your mobile phone out of your pocket and stare at it, that is, if you are able to reach your pocket to get it out.

Now you need to be careful not to stand at the wrong place. Because if you do, you will be pushed out at a wrong station by people standing behind you, ready to dive out as soon as the train has almost stopped. Or you will get hit by people standing ready on the platform to jump inside the moving train as it is about to stop at the station. More dangerous than standing in for a bull stampede.

And, are people sober and mindful enough to stay calm the entire journey? Are they really so at peace or have already accepted their fate that they would travel without even uttering a single word or not getting into any fights? Well, of course not, you will also come across people fighting, arguing, hitting each other over minuscule matters and serious matters as well. Going to such an extent so as to throw the opponent out of the running train, killing him or her.

You stand there listening to the automatic prior announcements of upcoming station and prepare a virtual progress bar of how far you have reached and how much more is left. You get excited as your destination comes close, ready to get down.

Now you got to get down, which requires you to prepare yourself and stand at the correct position, so that when other passengers forcefully push outside, you are in their stream. Now you breath deeply, self assuring that you reach your destination safely. But wait is the run over? Maybe you will still have to run to your office or college.

Oh, and you got to repeat the entire thing for returning back home, best of luck for that.
In all, you have wasted approximately 3 to 4 hours of your day running, getting stuck with other people, trying to be safe and running more.

I suspect living in a calm village and farming would be better than this.
And congratulate yourself once again for not being part of a dozen people getting killed by these trains every day.
Now get ready to finish up whatever you have to do at home and sleep at midnight again, to do the same thing tomorrow.

This is inhumane, all these humans deserve so much more comfort, safety, peace and freedom.

I got to sleep, and breathe

2014-10-01T08:46:00.002-07:00

In one sentence:

I fail at time (and commitment) management terribly (Promised myself to write a new blog post every day, and this is one after an entire week)

As soon as my mom(and the alarm clock) forcibly wakes me up at 5:50 in the morning on a week day, I am slow at the beginning wasting whole 20 minutes brushing my teeth and then I realize I need to accelerate. Then the picture of missing the daily morning Mumbai local train to college comes in front of my eyes, when I miss it, I have to run (practically run) for the other train, dangerously crossing the tracks on Virar station, with my heart pounding and my lungs demanding more air, still determined to get to the I'st class coach. I start thinking where the time can be saved, even if its a minute, saving it becomes worth a lot. Eating breakfast before leaving has to be completed in less than five minutes, it can be reduced even more if I eat half of it. Reaching for a rikshaw now has to be a sprint run as I cannot afford to run about 200 meters for the train. Something, somewhere is wrong. Not just wrong, but ridiculously wrong.

I got to breathe.

It's not that I don't love going to college, I do, I enjoy the journey, the lectures (YES, I like attending lectures, unlike most others!). The only thing I do not like is giving up my sleep. Because of my poor time management skills, I only get to sleep for around 6 hours a day. I had read somewhere that sleeping less than 7-8 hours per day for long periods of time makes your brain work like that of a drunk person, with above the alcohol limit levels. Which means, every day at college, my brain is of a drunk person, giving worst performance I ever can. I feel like someone gifted me the greatest gift if I get to close my eyes for a mere five minutes at around 2 PM in the classroom.

Others see a walking dead in the classroom, every day.

Not just the morning routine, but the day to day activities like completing assignments, doing my homework, studying for the test, eating, getting back to bed to sleep, all follow a similar pattern. Every day, I try my best to sleep as early as possible, and end up sleeping around midnight.

The above is my daily story and also that of an average office worker who hates his job :(

The only difference with me is that I do not hate my work, I love Computer Science, programming, attending college and the lectures.

I need to plan my daily routine, which tasks to complete, when to complete them, their deadlines, what is to be done when I miss a deadline and make sure that I do not assign more tasks to myself than I can handle.

I do not want to stay a lazy, unorganized, average human anymore!
Someone needs to learn eating the candies completely, and on time.

Knowing a person is not enough

2014-09-24T10:03:00.001-07:00

This is my first post in a series of my personal posts on this blog, giving the blog a more personal side of my life.
This blog has always been a technical one, having technical articles, tutorials etc. From Today, I will share my personal life, my beliefs, thoughts to the world on this medium.

So you think you know a person and you can trust him?
I always felt that you can trust a person if you looked into his/her eyes, dig deeper and get that sense of comfort, understanding, familiarity and trust. But I was wrong. No matter how well you study a person, try to understand his background, his personality inside out, you still don't really understand him, and cannot trust him.
Speaking of trust, your closest friend, colleague can decide to trust you or ignore you completely based on his requirements. Of course that is his decision and he has no obligation when it comes to maintaining the relation. Most of the not-so-real relations are formed on requirements. You make friends based on requirements, and what happens when any one of you or both of you do not need the other? You ignore them?

A real friend, a real relation is no where close to that. A real friend (as they say in movies) would die for you. He would give anything he has for you. But again, finding such a person, a real friend is often a daunting task. You have to take risks and reveal all your secrets to your to-be real friend.

Speaking of me, I've recently had a lot of requirement-based relations. People used me for their benefits, they forgot me when their needs were over. When I talked to some of my friends about this, they suggested that this is how the world works with a kind "Welcome to the World" statement. I refused to accept that, the world is not so bad (I told to myself), I still have some hope left in humanity. It's not that I don't have any real-friends, but they are hard to come by.
I felt extreme negativity, the feeling of someone using you for their needs and benefits is (believe me), extremely saddening. So much so that the person even refuses to recognize me when he/she does not have any needs to fulfill, forget about a greeting.

I need to learn to say no! No to people I know, No to my friends (so-called) in need.
No to sharing candy. :(

Basic tutorial for converting normal photo to passport size with signature

2014-07-21T11:10:00.001-07:00

Step 1:
Corp the original image with an image editing tool like paint.

Select the "Rectangular selection tool" and drag across your photograph so that an area, completely covering your face from top to your shirt is selected.

Step 2:
Press CTRL + C (to copy your selection)
Press CTRL + N (to open a new Paint file) (Click Don't Save when prompted)
Press CTRL + V (to paste the selection)

And you will get something like the following image :

Save this image on your drive.

Step 3:
Convert your background to white.
Most of the times, a passport photograph requires a white background.
To get a white background, open the image in an image editing tool like GIMP or Photoshop.
Select the "Magic Wand Tool", click on your background, if it is plain enough, it will select the entire background.
After your background is selected and bordered with dotted lines, press DEL on your keyboard to delete the selection (i.e to make it white)

GIMP is a free and open source tool, unlike photoshop, and can be downloaded here : http://gimp.org
Later, Export your image from GIMP by : File > Export As. Make sure its in JPG format.

Step 4:
Change the dimensions to a passport size.
A normal passport size is 3.5cm (1.38 inches) in width and 4.5cm(1.8 inches) in height.
The signature is 3.5cm(1.38 inches) in width and 1.5cm (1.59 inches) in height.

To change your image into these dimensions:
Open Microsoft Word
Paste the image with CTRL + V
Double-click on it, and change the dimensions at top right. ( " indicate inches, so be sure to enter everything in inches)

After getting the required size in Microsoft Word, copy the re-sized image by Right Click > Copy
Open a new file in Paint and paste the image with CTRL + V

Step 5:
Perform the same above mentioned steps for your signature, from changing its dimensions to change the background color.
Once you get your photograph and the signature in proper dimensions, its now time to join them together.

To join the photo with signature, simply open both images in paint, copy and paste one at a time in a new paint file and arrange them at proper positions.

Your final passport sized photograph should look like this:

Change Ubuntu 13.10's brightness below minimum

2013-12-01T07:09:00.001-08:00

When your laptop brightness is hurting your eyes when you are in a dark place and you want to lower it but cannot because it is already at minimum, this post will hopefully save you.

To lower your Ubuntu 13.10's (or any other versions) brightness below the minimum level follow the following steps.

Open a terminal (with Ctrl + Alt + T) and type the following commands
Step 1:

cd /sys/class/backlight

Step 2:

ls

ls will show you the folders inside the backlight folder
for me it shows intel_backlight, it can be anything for you, depending upon the video driver.

Step 3:

cd ./intel_brightness

Replace intel_brightness with whatever you got from the ls command above.

Step 4:

cat actual_brightness

This will return the current brightness value

Step 5:

echo X | sudo tee brightness

Replace X is the brightness you want to set. For example echo 50 | sudo tee brightness
Enter your sudo password when asked.

Best download manager for Linux - FlareGet

2013-06-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

If your download works slow when you download from your browsers, download managers are an option. They provide pause/resume option with which you can pause your download, restart your computer and resume it again any time you want. Download managers also provide acceleration, which acts like torrent and allows you to get data from people similar to you downloading he same stuff. Also acceleration is provided through the download manager's own servers. The most famous download manager for Windows is IDM (Internet download Manager) but when it comes to Linux, IDM is not an option. But there's flareGet, a download manager even better than IDM. flareGet works on most Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint etc.

"flareGet is a full featured, advanced, multi-threaded, multi-segment download manager and accelerator for Linux."

Launching flareGet in Ubuntu Unity

Here are some important features of flareGet

1. Segmented File Download

Before downloading a file, you can select the number of segments you want to split the file while downloading, when a file is split while downloading, it increases the download speed as well as saves the file from being damaged in case of a power failure or internet connection problem.

2. Acceleration

flareGet can accelerate a file download with its acceleration servers. So you can always expect better download speeds than while downloading through your web browser.

3. Better File Management

All the downloaded files are separated into different folders according to their type so that finding them won't be a hassle.

4. Multi-Protocol Support

flareGet supports file download through different protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS and FTP

Download flareGet

Ubuntu 12.04+ -

flareGet is available in Ubuntu Software Center

Linux Mint and other Linux -

Has to be downloaded from flareGet's website : http://flareget.com/download

Orbit - Free Alternative to IDM

2012-12-08T05:49:00.002-08:00

Orbit downloader is a good replacement for Internet Download Manager (IDM). It download manager supports all windows versions and is free. It is capable of downloading content directly from the webpage with its grab+ technology and supports a wide range of browsers like Firefox, Opera and Chrome.
It is lightweight and does not slow down your system, while providing high speed download with its server acceleration and peer-to-peer transfer similar to BitTorrent.

Interface:

Orbit interface is easy to use and understand and is quite similar to uTorrent and IDM. It shows a list of Completed, Incomplete, Active downloads on the left pane with download file list on its main window.

Orbit was first released on 8th November 2006 and is updated frequently through the year hence is very stable.
It features a software updater which scans applications installed on your PC and provides a neat list to update all of them at one place.

Features:

Some of the features of Orbit Downloader are
1. Directly download vidoes from social media websites
2. Extreme Acceleration
3. Super Light: micro-sized and resource friendly
4. Support for popular browsers
5. User Friendly GUI
6. Supports Metalink download
7. Supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS, RTSP and RTMP protocols.
8. Supports Proxy server configuration.
9. Pause and resume downloads.

Get Orbit: http://www.orbitdownloader.com

Free Mobile Recharge. Working July 2012. Docomo, Idea, Reliance, BSNL, Aircel, Vodafone and more.

2012-07-26T06:16:00.001-07:00

Get a Free Mobile recharge on your Aircel Vodafone, Reliance, BSNL, Idea, DOCOMO SIM card.

All you have to do is register and send SMS. Sending SMS is free and you earn more as you send SMS.

Steps:

1. Register on the link below:

http://ultoo.com/login.php?refererCode=186413E&flag=hide

2. Send SMS to earn money

3. Invite your friends to earn more.

Tags: Free recharge, mobile recharge for free, docomo, idea, reliance, vodafone, bsnl, aircel, airtel, free, recharge, cell, phone, for free, get for free

Reduce Team Fortress 2 lag. (Windows 7)

2012-02-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

Team Fortress 2 now is now available for free which can be downloaded from steam. But for some running tf2 might be a nightmare because of low end computers. Even some of the new computers aren't able to run tf2 extremely well without lag. Even adjusting the ingame settings to minimum does not increase performance by a lot. The best and the most easy way to increase tf2 performance (increase FPS) is using CHRIS's fps settings,

Chris's new website allows you to configure your settings file yourself. You can use the predefined settings for either MaxFrames which would reduce the graphics quality by a lot but still playable or HighFrames giving you a bit nicer graphics maintaining optimal frame-rate. You can change if you want to use windowed or full screen mode and even select the window size.

Installing these settings is quite easy, installation information is given in the last para of his website :)

Installing Sun Java 6 on Ubuntu 11.10 - Oneiric Oclrot

2011-10-18T05:32:00.000-07:00

There are two Java versions available one is OpenJDK and other is from Sun called Sun Java.

OpenJDK is supported by Ubuntu team and is directly available for download through Software Center.

OpenJDK works with most of applications offline or online, but some applications like Minecraft do not work on OpenJDK (well at least in case of me, it didn't). So here's how to download and install Sun Java 6 for Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocleot.

Step 1: Add an additional repository in your software sources list by

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ maverick partner"

Yes MAVERICK partner even if u have Oneiric running. This is because Canonical still didn't upload the sun-java6-jre and sun-java6-jdk packages to the Oneiric repos. You could later remove the Maverick repository.

Step 2: Update your sources list with

sudo apt-get update

Step 3: Now install whichever package you want, either Java6-JRE which is Java Runtime Environment meant for just running Java apps or Java6-JDK - Java Development Kit meant for programming in Java by.

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre (For Java6-JRE)
OR
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk (For Java6-JDK)

Accept all the license agreements from Java in terminal.

If you aren't able to click the <OK> button, press TAB and enter.

This would install Java6 packages into your Ubuntu.

You could even download and install Java from http://java.com.

Installing Google Chrome on Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocleot & 12.04 64-bit

2011-10-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

Here's how to install Google Chrome (not chromium) in your brand new Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocleot.

Step 1: Download Google Chrome .deb from http://chrome.google.com and place it in your Downloads folder

Step 2: Install the three necessary packages for Google Chrome

In terminal type:

sudo apt-get install libnspr4-0d libnss3-1d libxss1

Step 3: Now to Install Google Chrome type:

sudo dpkg -i ./Downloads/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

(Change the file name according to your downloaded .deb file)

Enjoy surfing on the fastest browser :)

How To install Adobe Flash on Google Chrome - Ubuntu 11.10 - 64-bit

2011-09-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

Here's a quick post involving instructions/steps for installing Adobe Flash Player in Google Chrome for Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Octeot. Google Chrome has inbuilt flash plugin now, but its only for 32-bit version of the browser, for 64-bit Google Chrome you must manually download and install flash into your Chrome.

Download Adobe Flash Player from http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer

Select Operating System - Linux(64 bit)
and version Ubuntu(apt) or (tar.gz)

If you select apt your software center will automatically install Flash Player Plugin for Chrome
But in case if thats not working you can download tar.gz open it and follow the instructions as given below..

Extract the libflashplayer.so file on your desktop

Now open your Terminal and type

sudo cp ./Desktop/libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins/

If the "plugins" folder is absent you can create it by

sudo mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins

Now restart the System, flash player should work now :)

SA:MP Image2Textdraw Converter 0.1 Online

2011-08-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered if you could put images into your SA:MP server? What would you have to do for it? You already know many textdraw editors around which render text on your server, you would probably make hundreds of small textdraws and put them together to make your awesome server logo appear on the screen. But hey that isn't easy as it looks it would take you 40 years of hardwork and painstaking detailing. Absolutely you would put your server name instead and run to snatch your breakfast from the kitchen. So whats other option? tell your dog to do it, when u return after an hour you'll just see your computer keyboard in his stomach.

That's why I planned to make a simple Image to Textdraw Converter for SA:MP which just asks a picture from you and position where you would like to keep it. It features a drag and drop and shows your image preview on position selector which you can move with your mouse clicks. And yes it converts your image into a filterscript in just 1 second! I'm sure you take more time than this to bath everyday.. Next you have to copy the whole output and compile it in pawno, add the filterscript name to your server.cfg and it will load the image when you connect. And yes, its online. and therefore you don't need to download and store any software on your computer or keep searching it when u really want to convert a image, just bookmark the page or the home page and it will be there, waiting for you.

Features
Superfast This app works superfast, however the speed is dependent on the machine you are using, on a normal PC you should get the output in 2-3 seconds.

Drag and drop You can drag and drop images into the box and your image gets selected! But you can also select your file by browsing your hard drive (the ancient way!)

Transparency Detection It detects the pixels in your image which are transparent and skips them

No more 45x45 The 45x45 pixel limit is removed in this version which means you can upload larger images, the tool calculates the transparent and non-transparent pixels, if the number of non-transparent pixels is less than 2048 output is generated or else you get a message saying you should upload images with less number of non-transparent pixels.

Position Selector You can select the position for your image just by clicking on the position selector, your selected image appears where you click.

Screen shots of converted Images

URL: http://bsndesign.webs.com/image2textdraw.htm

Google +1 on Blog - Why is it so Important?

2011-08-07T23:33:00.000-07:00

Google released the "Plus 1" button for webmasters and bloggers, so why is it so important to have one on your page? Google's new Plus button is also called social influence button by many, the more number of hits you get on your plus one button the more your chances are for getting more number of visitors. Plus One buttons basically shares your website link on your Google+ profile and recommends the links to your Google contacts and friends, these +1'd pages are given more priority when your friends or ones in your contacts searches relevant things but soon Google also started to count the number of +1's for your page rank. Google's Plus One should be given greater priority than the facebook's like and twitter button as it will decide your website's page ranking.
As this Google Webmaster Tools page clearly says

"Add the +1 button to let visitors recommend your site on Google"

How to add +1 button to any website?

First go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/
Select necessary size and language
Select and Paste the <g:plusone></g:plusone> to the place where you want you +1 to appear
Copy and paste the settings code after you finish adding all your +1's, preferably just before </body>

How to add +1 button to my Blogger blog?

Blogger now features a set of share buttons which appear after every post automatically. It also includes a +1 button by default. If you don't see the new share bar,

Go to Design > Click "edit" which is inside the main content area

Check "Show Share Buttons"

If you have moded template, these share buttons wont appear even after checking the box, ill write about showing Share Buttons in moded templates in my next post.

Ubuntu File System - Explained

2011-08-06T06:32:00.001-07:00

Here's a short overview for a complete beginner explaining everything about file system in Ubuntu and how to manage files and folders, hide them, see them from terminal, work with them etc in a Linux Ubuntu OS. For this guide I will use Ubuntu 10.10 which I think is the most successful Ubuntu release till date. This guide is aimed for users which are completely new and are unfamiliar with Ubuntu structure i.e Windows users.

Isn't it same as Windows?
Simple answer: yes and no!
The visual part here is quite similar to Windows. But Windows files are arranged inside drives. These drives are alphabetically named like C drive, E drive etc. (where mostly the system files are stored in your C drive) and you store all you files, photos and videos inside these directories. Well, its the same way in Ubuntu all the files are kept inside a single drive called "Filesystem" and no other drives, in case you can create one but its really unnecessary to do so. You can always store it in the basic Ubuntu files system.

First Some Basics
Lets first explore what we already have on a new Ubuntu machine.
Unlike you had My Computer in Windows, here you have to explore your files through the "Places" tab.

Lets take a closer look at the menu, your "Home Folder" is your main working folder, you can store all your music, images, videos or documents as well as you can see your downloaded files in Home Folder. All these pre-created folders are then listed below the Home Folder. By default the files you download with default browser Mozilla Firefox are stored in Downloads folder. The "My Computer" in Windows is similar to "Computer" as you can see above, through which you can manage all your drives. You can see the Drive C and Drive E which are Windows drives because I am duel booting with Windows i.e I have Windows installed with Ubuntu on my computer and can access all my Windows files from here. Next there is Network which is for your LAN and the Connect to Server thingy is for FTP servers if you have any.

Try exploring each one of them and get familiar.
As you now know that you have Desktop, Documents, Music, Images, Videos etc inside your Home Folder lets find where this Home Folder is located. First open up your "Computer" in "Places" tab now you will discover a lot of files, all of these are Ubuntu's system files. Lets not fiddle with them for now. Just to learn where Home Folder comes from open the "Home" folder, it will have another folder with the name of your Username and there you will find your "Home Folder". These are the basic folders you must know.

The Complex Part - Using Terminal
Terminal is the place from where you can give commands to your Ubuntu, by default all the applications you use automatically give commands to the terminal and shows the result which saves your times for typing. But you can still learn to manually give commands to the shell which can always be useful.
You can open the basic terminal (don't do this now) by doing Ctrl + Alt + F3 and return back with Ctrl + Alt + F7 but there is also a terminal window by GNOME which can be opened by Applications > Accessories > Terminal.
On opening the terminal the first thing which you will see is a blank window with your username an @ symbol your computers name and a $ written - this $ means the terminal is ready to accept commands from you.
The default directory for terminal is your Home Folder, you can change this by using "cd" command

The "pwd" command
On opening the terminal the terminal has a working directory - now a working directory is the one which is used whenever you use a command like for opening a script, the terminal will search for that script in a directory which is called as working directory.
To see the current directory or working directory use the pwd command.

This shows my working directory is /home/bhavesh

The "ls" command
ls command lists all the current files and folders inside working directory

The "cd" command
cd stands for Change Directory, it is basically used to change the current working directory for terminal.
Now you know the folders and files inside your working directory. Now lets try to change our working directory by "cd ./Desktop" command.
You will get a ~/Desktop before your $ which means your current working directory is Desktop inside Home folder. You can check this my doing "ls" again.

Now What?
After reading this you now have a basic idea of how are files and folders arranged inside your Ubuntu FileSystem, you can learn more Shell Commands from here http://linuxcommand.org/lts0020.php < This website has all linux commands and explanation for file management.

C++ in Ubuntu (gedit)

2011-08-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hi there,
If you are a C++ programmer or you learn C++ in your school/college and you programmed in Borland C or Turbo C earlier in Windows and thinking it would be so good if I could write my programs in Ubuntu, here's a cookie for you. Unlike downloading compilers and debuggers in Windows, there is an easy way to write and test C++ codes in Ubuntu. This includes using the pre-included text editor (gedit) and two small scripts with some standard libraries which we would download.

Things we will need:

Gedit
Two small scripts (Compile and Run)
Ubuntu Build-essential package

1) Gedit

gedit is the official text editor of the GNOME desktop environment.
While aiming at simplicity and ease of use, gedit is a powerful general purpose text editor.

We can create and add external plugins to this text editor easily.

2) Compile and Run scripts
I have two scripts with me which are supposed to be added into gedit, you can download them from here,

3) Build Essential package
You will need Build Essentials for Ubuntu if you want to program anything, even if you download NetBeans IDE or any such IDE you will always need build-essential which contains all the libraries needed for programming

Download Buil-essential package by typing this in terminal
sudo apt-get install build-essential

Procedure

Do..

cd ~
mkdir -p ~/.gnome2/gedit/tools
nautilus ~/.gnome2/gedit/tools

Copy and Paste the two downloaded scripts inside this newly created folder

chmod +x ~/.gnome2/gedit/tools/*

Now make a new C++ file in gedit by right clicking on desktop > Create Document > Empty File and name it as any_file_name.cpp . In gedit open Preferences (Edit > Preferences) go to Plugins tab and enable External Plugins.

After enabling External tools you would be able to see External Tools menu Tools > External Tools

Now write a simple C++ program and try executing it.

The scripts also add some shortcut keys for compilation and running the program

Press F5 to compile, now click "Shell Output" once and hit F7, this would run your program in a new Terminal window.

Note: The programs you write are not exactly similar to the ones which you did in Turbo/Borland C++. You will have to make some changes..
Some of these changes include
1) Including .h extension to header file does not work try removing it and vice versa
for example: #include won't work, instead use #include
2) There is no conio.h header file to stop the screen from getting closed, you will have to use stdio.h and put getchar(); two times for pausing the screen
3) Always use "using namespace std; " after all your include files.

Always remember to save the file before compiling

Sample C++ program for Ubuntu

Please let me know if you have any problem installing or running the program :)

SA:MP BSN Textdraw Editor 0.3 Online

2011-08-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is a third release in the series of Textdraw Editor's developed by BSN Design, but this time the offline software which was only for windows operating system developed with Visual Studio 2008 has become online. So anyone with a browser and internet connection can use it on any OS. This version has some more amazing features which would surly make building textdraws for GTA SA:MP servers easy as a pie. No downloading, no installation, just go to the website, enter information in fields, select color, position and your textdraw code is ready.

Some of the features of BSN Textdraw Editor 0.3 Online:

New Position selector with textdraw Preview on it
Move textdraw with mouse click and arrow keys
Feature to create Box's for textdraws
New Color Picker
Change Position Selector background image

After you click on position selector, you will instantly get the X and Y co-ordinates for your textdraw.

Once you click Generate Code and get the necessary textdraw code you can simply make changes in the information you entered above and click generate code again to get PAWN code of new textdraw just below it, which means you can create as many textdraws you want and finally copy and paste all the code at once.

Movement of textdraws with arrow keys works only on Google Chrome for now but mouse click works on all the browsers. Its easy to use because you don't have to start your server and SA:MP many times just open a website in any browser with JavaScript support.

Website URL: http://bsndesign.webs.com/tde.htm

Moving Wordpress Blog to Blogger.com

2011-07-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

This is a simple three step guide with illustrative images to completely move your Wordpress Blog to Blogger.com

Why Move?

Wordpress.com and Blogger.com are two leading websites to create a free blog in minutes. But if you don't want to touch the code and earn money through Google Adsense from your Blog, the easiest way to do this is make a blog on Blogger.com. Blogger provides tools to edit your post easily and has tons of gadgets to add into your post as well as sidebar. You are free to add ads to your blog on Blogger whereas Wordpress.com has a lot of restrictions on this (It also takes your 50% revenue LOL). Wordpress.com does not allow adding any external codes, not even JavaScript! Well, that would suck if u are a bit into web development. Blogger has tools to customize the template and theme 100%, you can also add themes from other websites. So if you made a blog on Wordpress earlier, this guide will help you out to move :)

How to Move?

1. First we will export all our posts from Wordpress.com.
i) Sign in into your Wordpress account, go to Dashboard
ii) Browse to 'Tools' in left sidebar and Click 'Export'

iii) In export window click 'Download Export File'

2. Now as you have your .xml export file on your computer, go to http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/ . This tools converts the Wordpress export format to Blogger.
Upload your .xml file to this webpage and click convert

This will automatically download the converted version of original .xml file.

3. Now lets upload this to our Blogger blog
i) Sign in into your Blogger account, go to 'Settings' and click 'Import Blog'

ii) Choose your converted .xml file and click "Import Blog"
iii) Now you will see all the posts which were on your Wordpress, select them all and click Publish.

That's all, you've moved to Blogger.
Now if you want to delete your Wordpress account remember to download all your images and other media content and upload it to Blogger.

Running Windows apps on Ubuntu

2011-07-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

Since you have now tried Ubuntu and now are getting used to it but you still miss some of your Windows apps which you used for years before but don't find them now on Ubuntu? "WINE" which stands for "Wine Is Not An Emulator" is an application for Debian distros which can run most of your Windows application on Ubuntu. This is a life saver and will allow you to completely shift to a new OS. But it does have a drawback i.e you cannot run "all" your apps with wine which you could on Windows. WINE has some limitations and has its own .dll files. It supports most of the applications and needs .dll files for some which don't. WINE has an "Application Database" which lists the currently supported applications by wine and also shows the ones which don't work.
To find out weather your app would work with WINE just Google your app name and add winedb in front of it. It will lead you to a page in wine's application database and you can find out what you need to do to get an app working.
To install wine just Open up your Ubuntu Software Center > enter WINE in its search box and install it.

Installing any Windows application with wine is quite simple, copy the desired .exe windows executable file to Ubuntu partition like your desktop right click on it > Permissions > check Allow Executing File as Program

Note that if you try to check Allow executing file as program option and it gets unchecked again it means your .exe file is not on Ubuntu partition.

There is also winecfg which stands for Wine Configuration Tool. With this tool you can select your desired screen resolution for a particular app or apply a new windows theme, change sound, video settings etc. winecfg can be opened by typing winecfg in terminal or Application > Wine.

Visual Basic in Ubuntu (Gambas)

2011-07-05T21:01:00.000-07:00

Hi there,

Most Windows developers when migrate to Ubuntu miss their hard practiced and well known Visual Basic or Visual Studio where they built apps with easy programming and GUI designing tools. There are many other similar Developing tools for Linux which are free and open source for developing apps on Ubuntu. But for those who don't want to go for a hard way to learn new things from the beginning and continue doing the well mastered way of creating apps, there is a tool called Gambas which I can say is exactly similar to Visual Studio. Gambas website says Gambas almost means Visual Basic but its not a replica, even the language used to develop apps is same.
So if you are a Windows developer developing apps on Windows and want so shift to Ubuntu but cannot because you probably don't want to learn another programming language and learn using a new SDK you will be surprised to see how efficiently Gambas works. You can app PictureBoxes, Text Labels, Color Picker and attach a code to any action performed.
To install Gambas on your Ubuntu simple open Ubuntu Software Center and enter Gambas in the top right search box, you will find a Gambas2 which is 2nd version of Gambas. Install it and launch it through Applications > Programming > Gambas.

There is a Release Candidate Gambas v3 on Gambas website http://gambas.sourceforge.net/en/main.html . But you will have to compile it yourself, rather if you are a newbe just install Gambas v2 from Ubuntu Software Center.

Above pic shows Gambas2 GUI designer.

Place to write code for the application which looks similar to one in Visual Basic 6.

Creating Shortcuts for launching items

2011-07-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

This is a short tutorial covering everything that will help you for adding shortcuts for your GNOME desktop.

This is a absolute Beginner tutorial and is explained in detail with screenshots.

Shortcuts are key combinations which when pressed perform certain tasks like opening an application or giving a particular command to the terminal. Adding shortcuts is quite easy in Ubuntu GNOME 2 as it has a pre-installed GUI application. This Shortcut application has all functions like adding a new shortcut, deleting or editing a current shortcut.

To launch Shortcut manager go to System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts.

This windows shows currently assigned shortcuts list, it has name of shortcut on left and key bindings on right hand side.

To add a shortcut click Add

You can set your shortcut name and add a command to start an application.

Now you may not know what is the command for a particular application, this command can be known in many ways like you can try entering name of an application in terminal to check application command.
Like entering "winecfg" (without quotes) in terminal window opens up wine configuration window if you have wine installed.

The second way to do this to install htop and see the current running system process name, htop is a terminal application which shows the currently opened applications and can close them or perform some other task, htop is similar to "Task Manager" in windows.

To install htop do "sudo apt-get install htop" without quotes in terminal and launch it by going to Application > System Tools > Htop.

As you can see in above screenshot there is a process named "htop" running which is a command for my Htop application. So I can launch Htop by typing "htop" in terminal.

So if I want to add a shortcut for running my Htop application I will first set its name (whichever I want) and a command to launch it.
Then you must a key binding for it by clicking on the key binding space on the right hand side and pressing a desired key combination.
Like if I press "Shift" and "S" while selecting the shortcut I could open my Htop whenever I press Shift and S together.
This makes using Ubuntu faster than ever :)

Installing Java JRE and JDK + Netbeans

2011-06-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

Short information and steps to install Java JRE and JDK with Netbeans.

On ubuntu you don't get Java preinstalled, lets first see what is Java.

Wikipedia says:

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which is now a subsidiary ofOracle Corporation) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode (class file) that can run on any Java Virtual Machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture. Java is a general-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented language that is specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers "write once, run anywhere". Java is currently one of the most popular programming languages in use, and is widely used from application software to web applications.^[9]^[10]

So Java softwares can be used anywhere windows, linux, mac, mobile phones and even your car. A ubuntu user would need Java JRE (Java Runtime Environment) to run Java applications.

To install Java JRE on ubuntu 10.10

Open Applications > Ubuntu Software Center

Now there are two versions of Java available for Ubuntu, one from Sun Microsystems and other Open Java, Sun Java was dropped out and now Ubuntu supports Open Java.

Type "java6" without quotes in your Ubuntu Software Center search box and click "The Java(TM) Runtime Environment(JRE) 6 " > Install.

After installing Java JRE now you would be able to run Java applications.

Installing Java JDK + Netbeans

Java JDK (Java Development Kit) is only necessary if you want to develop Java applications with an external IDE like Netbeans or Eclipse. You can install Java JDK in two ways, one which comes with Netbeans and other in which you have to install Netbeans and Java JDK separately.

You can install Netbeans which comes with JDK directly from Sun Java website (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html)

Alternatively you can also install Netbeans IDE and JDK separately.
First install JDK from Ubuntu Software Center, search "java6" in Ubuntu Software Center search box and install "Sun Java(TM) Development Kit (JDK) 6" then download Netbeans IDE from http://netbeans.com or again from ubuntu software center.

To install Netbeans downloaded from netbeans.com move your file to Home folder and type this in terminal

./name_of_your_file.sh

replace "name_of_your_file" with the name of file in your Home Folder.

This will install Netbeans IDE and Java JDK on your Ubuntu and you can now develop Java apps.

Remember that If you have OpenJDK installed first uninstall it and install Sun Java from Ubuntu software center, Netbeans wont detect OpenJDK.

Data Manager (built with C++)

2011-04-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

At your nearest supermarket did you notice a software that calculates the number of items you purchase and keeps a track of its price, name etc and prints a long list at last? I tried to make the same software with c++ which will ask user to enter item names and their prices and make a list of items with total price at last :) It does not have any GUI still but I think of adding one soon. This app is still in Alpha stage and you can suggest adding things to it and report bugs.

This app is built on Ubuntu 10.10 Meerkat Maverick using gedit. This app works only on ubuntu for now and always will.

Version: 1.0 Alpha 1

Date: 23/4/2011