How it all changed !

Phase 1:
I still remember the day I walked the corridors of ‘A’ hostel, here in NITC. Its a beautiful feeling when you realize that you have actually grown up in this college. When I joined NITC, I had a tag of a “high ranker” and obviously people had expectations from me. Many of my friends ask me the reason to opt for Computer Science as my major but I literally had no valid answer. I never knew what was programming or C++ or Command Line or Booting or anything which sounded similar. I got my first computer when I was in 12th standard and all I knew since then was to double click on a “GTA Vice City” icon and play the game. I was fascinated by people who worked on DOS prompt or Linux shell and they were “uber geek” for me. A frequent question to me those days were: “Hey, how would you survive in CS if you don’t have a knowledge of programming”. Thanks to my ignorant nature that I could easily laugh it off.

Phase 2:
Finally after 6 months of college, I decided to learn programming and some of my friends really helped me in it. I used to jump around if it displayed “Hello World” on the screen and I would execute it many times just to feel so proud about it. But soon my interest died out and the so called college life took me away with it. Back then I least cared about my future and stuff so I was the guy who would go to class, come back, watch a movie and sleep peacefully to follow the same routine next day. Boring really, isn’t it. But then I kind of liked it although I gained nothing.

Phase 3:
Two years of study in a reputed college with exceptionally talented people and the fact that I gained nothing from it, killed me within. Success happens only when you accept who you are and learn from your surroundings. I managed to identify myself and make plans to change the hell out of me. I was scared at first and didn’t know where to start. I started with the basics of programming but still I was not able to focus most of the times. Even the simplest programs didn’t work. But then one heavenly godly moment, I got my first “major” program right – [Creating and inserting a node into a linked list]. It was like I achieved the highest honor in Computer Science. It is truly amazing when you see your program work especially when you are only seeing error messages on you terminal window. I began to “formally” learn programming thereafter.

Final Phase:
It is the 5th semester and everything happened with the blink of an eye thereafter. I did a lot of programming and I really liked the way programs work and all the ‘mechanics and dynamics’ of a code. I gradually gained confidence and this was the time I truly started liking Computer Science. There were failures often but then I just forgot it for goodness sake. With time I began to hope for something good to happen. And finally after a lot of downs and struggle, I got placed. The most wonderful thing about this was that whatever I studied in this college came to life on that one day. And fortunately it all went so perfectly.

No matter how much failures you experience, one day you will have success of a greater magnitude and that day you will be truly happy.

Recover files from a media in Linux

Accidently deleting files from your memory card or pen-drive is a common mistake. I searched for a software which could work in linux and I got an awesome one. Its a command line tool.
You can install it by typing:
sudo apt get install testdisk
Now connect the media into your system and run the tool by typing photorec in your terminal.
This will give you a screen like this:

Now select the appropriate media and the directory to save the recovered files. Its done !!

Download entire website using WGET

It is quite often that you find a tutorial website and you get this voice from within that “Yeah, I want this all !!”. I had it too recently but alas, it was horrifying to even think of saving each and every HTML page. A quick search in the Internet gave me a perfect and the most awesome solution. wget does it again !!

You can recirsively download the entire website using wget with a -r option. Here is the code snippet:
wget -r http://www.tutorials.com/
and you get the entire website in a directory inside your system. Now if u have a local server installed in your system, HURRAY, move the directory into /var/www/ and read it in you browser with the same feel of reading the live website. This is so awesome not because it is complicated but because it is bloody damn simple.

 

The First

An autumn evening, an orange sky
Brown leaves decorating the path,
Musical ambience as the birds cry,
Trees emerging from a sunshine bath.

We walked, admiring the beautiful nature,
A big rock was where we chose to pause,
Mother earth and us, without a creature,
Exploring her eyes made the nature applause.

Falling into it as the time stopped,
Watching the cold winds slap her face,
We kissed our first, as the birds popped,
It was a life, waiting for His grace.

We asked the sun not to sleep,
Trust the moon,he will gaurd us,
A word, which he promised to keep,
We thanked him, for what he does.

We walked back with memories in hand,
Nothin at all, but to love and be loved,
Eyes followed her to the farthest land,
To Him i plead, let me love and be loved.

Sakshat – The Indian Tablet PC

Indian Government, amidst of all the Ram(dev)lila and Hazzare hazzards, manages to please its people with this new venture called SAKSHAT. This is a project undertaken by the Government of India to provide quality and hi-tech education to the masses at lower costs. Its an initiative to secure the future of India. In this rapidly changing tech oriented society, a project like this is a boost to both the Indian people and the projection of our country’s advancement in the outer world.

The amount of awesomeness overflows when the tablet will be available in the Indian market for just 35$ that is around Rs 2200 which is totally acceptable. Wait, hold on, for students and teachers, it will be available at half the price, that is around Rs 1100. This is the cost of the cheapest phone from Nokia !! The rest 50% of the cost will be paid by the government. This tablet is developed by IITs and the IISc in collaboration with HCL technologies which is India’s one of the leading PC makers. The same thing, if labelled an international brand  name would definitely cost atleast five times its price.

Another cool thing is that this tablet runs on Linux -the Android OS. Many of the reviews termed this feature as “uncool” but according to me, this is the coolest as the future of all the software industry lies in OPEN SOURCE development. This Android gadget will open the doors for all the Indian hackers out there to explore the gadget without having their pockets empty. As the world is full of Android rooters, India will hold the “Sakshat-Android” rooters !! Well, considering its price, it will be much more satisfying to hack a Sakshat than to hack an Android device and play with it.

This product was scheduled to release in Jan this year but was postponed and now it is expected to be out soon, just a matter of days. This is a commendable leap by the Government of India. Go India, Go !!

A Melodious Renaissance

Beyond the moist width, I stand there,
Of all the daily chores, to sing is here,
A distant melody faint in my ears,
Nature and me is all that hears.

A call for help for the sorrow she bears,
Hail Almighty, if He punishes the liars,
Pain and agony came out loud,
A soothing thunder beating the cloud.

A story told with a tune along,
Felt as if this is where i belong,
Grief touched as an arrow so sharp,
Enlightened me of a long lived crap.

Sparkling diamonds like a Cinderella smile,
Like a princess who sung for a little while,
Marching towards the darkest wild,
Having blessed a lonely little child.

The PLUS era begins

Google + is out, and out in a style. Within hours of its launch, users started using their “next-gen” social activity. Google+ is a sure threat to Facebook if the idea of it and the user interface is concerned. I would like to share a few features, which I noticed since I started using it.

 

• Firstly, the user interface is clearly the thing to speak about. Google managed to blow the users over with the most visually appealing UI ever made on net. The simplicity but its unique style is pleasing to the eyes and feels good to use it. The UI clearly beats Facebook and is a long way ahead. Facebook on the other side, never really gave importance on UI it seems. Surely now they would have started gathering their UI teams to have a thought about it.
• The privacy and security that the + offers is very impressive. The “view profile as” feature is one cool thing to talk about. To disable sharing of particular posts and comments for a certain number of people is like walking on t +. Network visibility and controlling incoming posts is another new idea in social  networking. This can be reframed by saying that it is just way cooler than Facebook.
• Now that it is evident that every internet user in the world has at least one Google service under his belt, the “Data Liberation” thing is just awesomeness. Its just a click away from downloading all your data associated with Picassa, Blogger and other common services offered by Google. With all the Google services linked to each other, it is just another level of social networking that we are experiencing now.
• The groups in Facebook and the follow option in twitter has always won its place in the web. Google+ steps forward with circles. Managing groups of a particular type of people will never be easier. Circles is a revolution, atleast to me for it integrates the useful and the cooler elements of Facebook and Twitter.
• If Google+ is different from Facebook and other social networking sites, it is by and large because of this feature- Hangouts. This new name of group video chatting even beats Skype for a change. This has surely won a place in the users mind.
• “Now you can publicly +1 me”. +1 is Google’s answer to Like in Facebook. But, in a way it is way better than its counterpart in Facebook just because it influences the whole wolrd wide web. +1 me and I will be a little more popular in the web than before. That is what it means in Google +.
• Ability to edit comments is just another feature which slaps Facebook. No more will you need to delete and repost your comment if you have made a mistake.
• Sparks – people can share their wildest interests with others. Sparks also allows you to classify you as a person on the web.

Google has been phenomenal in the world of business for the last few years. It has emerged as the coolest firm on earth. With android and its long range of apps, it is just making “everything” possible. The PLUS era begins and its time we move on to a much forward domain of social networking. Now there is another name added to the world of social networking apart Twitter and Facebook.

Hey, by the way, just PLUS  me and add me in your CIRCLE. Lets see if we have some SPARKS in common. Maybe we could HANGOUT !!!