Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Another Placements party
Vamsi Krishna's at Chutneys this time. Not saying much except that the Chutneys guys ran out of their Rasmalai once we started... And we rightly put it as, we came, they say, and we finished it all.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Successfully placed...
Ok its time to write about my job offer. I have been offered a job at David Sarnoff Research Center or in short Sarnoff, Bangalore. Which is surely one of the best jobs in my college's campus placements this year, not only because of the Company's Name and the work but also in terms of their pay package ;-)
Okay I understand ppl may not know what Sarnoff is. So I have almost got accustomed to tell ppl some facts about the company
The company in all took 4 ppl from the college others are Ranjith, Manikandan, and Natraj.
Okay I understand ppl may not know what Sarnoff is. So I have almost got accustomed to tell ppl some facts about the company
- Formerly known as RCA(Radio Corporation of America).
- Invented the Digital Telivision and HDTV
- Invented the LCD
- Plays important role in various standards, like MPEG2, MPEG4 etc.
- Major Role in development of CMOS technology
- Many more things which I wonder when I read the book given by them to us :)
The company in all took 4 ppl from the college others are Ranjith, Manikandan, and Natraj.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Matrix XP Funny film Must see
Wonderful parody movie made by fans, the last scene specially make you ROFL, Just watch it download from it here
http://www.matrix-xp.com/index2.php?page=downloads&lang=eng
Tag Posting (tagged by Rocky)
Lifted from Paresh's blog, with changes to suit my choices. Shetty tells me what it means so let me tag some more ppl.
Seven Things I want to do in my life
- Earn fame (being Great and therefor famous :))
- Earn sufficient money to be content
- Enjoy as many places in the world as possible
- Give back to society, places etc and make a difference!
- Have a great library (yes both technical and literature books)
- Learn more and more always (specially mathematics and programming better)
- Give the ppl their best time when they are around me
Seven Things I can do
- Yes all the above (except the seventh one may be)
Seven Things I am currently doing (trying to do)
- My Master's degree at IIIT
- Learning Guitar
- Learning French
- Learning Japenese (little bit)
- Blogging and advising the world:)
- browsing, chatting, and searching for old friends & new ones :)
- ...
Seven Things I say the most
- The idea is (Realized it in our last LUG meet ;))
- Its okay (changed to c'est ok! (in french))
- abey yaar
- ...
- ...
Seven Things I can’t do
- Appreciate someone untruly
- Watch insane voilence movies :)
- Stop appreciating beautiful things specially gadgets
- Being critical about hyped things and ppl
- Waste time discussing about some one's failure or despair
- ...
Seven Things that attract me to the opposite sex
- Geekyness (I would Love the You have got mail kind of girls :))
- Straight forwardness
- Dimples
- Sexy hair style (Can't define it more acurately)
- Smile
- Beautiful eyes
- Executive clothing (if that suits on her:))
Seven Celebrity Crushes (In no order :))
- Julia Roberts
- Elisha Cuthbert
- Preity Zinta
- Aishwarya
- Sonali Bendre
- Jeniffer Aniston
- Cameroon Diaz
- Abhishek Dixit
- Ajay Bedi
- Arvind Tiwary
- Sachin Rawat
- Arjun Pandit
- Nirnimesh & Ranjeeth (I hope u continue this tagging)
- Anubhav Agrawal and Vinod Gupta
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Motorola missing the Opportunity?
It has been almost 6 months since I bought Motorola A768i. Great phone it is, I must say. I also have strong respect for the company which delivered such a great phone, namely Motorola (and the ones that have strong components inside, namely MontoVista Linux and QT for Qtopia). They have really impressed me with the existing feature on the phone and some of the ways in which the device work very well(closing the flip pauses the video being played, but keep the audio file play on, isn't it cool ?) but there is something Motorola has been very bad at: promoting the PDA as a programmable device.
When I bought the Linux PDA, I did think that I would at sometime or other port some apps to the phone, and thought by the time I want to do it tools would come through, sadly they have not. Motorola hasn't published a single document about how the phone can be programmed. Okay there are ways to get Java Programs to run on the PDA but thats not sufficient/optimal.
The lack of good softwares for my PDA can only be blamed on Motorola, I donot see any possibility of adding any QT based app or porting any Linux game to my phone. Wouldn't the phone be more usable if we could just port some games like Soltaire or Same Gnome or Gnu Chess (Nir u there? ;)) or some app to upload our photos to some server like flickr.com directly?
Given the GUI is in Qtopia (QT for embedded) it surprizes me why it should be difficult to port some simple programs to the phone. I have earlier worked on a Symbian Series 60 phone (3660) for my camera phone based mosaicing project and have really appreciated the concept of programmability of a cellphone, which is what Nokia has done on its websites like http://forum.nokia.com by providing some documentation for getting started, or for knowing about the system architecture, or some sample code etc.
Now when Nokia eyes PDA on Linux, I really hope to have some good programming IDE for that. The concept is quite simple (at least to speak about :)).
1) You need to call GCC with the architecture specific options,
2) test/debug the code on a software simulator for that architecture and
3) have ways to just send the binary across the wire to the actual device.
Nokia has already done it providing some great Nokia SDK on Windows (Linux version is still not available), which plugs quite well with Borland C++ BuilderX for which I had to use a trial version.
I heard a GTK based engine called is already available for coding applications on Nokia's 770 Table. Anybody has any idea what can be done for developing Qtopia based apps for Motorola A768i phone ?
When I bought the Linux PDA, I did think that I would at sometime or other port some apps to the phone, and thought by the time I want to do it tools would come through, sadly they have not. Motorola hasn't published a single document about how the phone can be programmed. Okay there are ways to get Java Programs to run on the PDA but thats not sufficient/optimal.
The lack of good softwares for my PDA can only be blamed on Motorola, I donot see any possibility of adding any QT based app or porting any Linux game to my phone. Wouldn't the phone be more usable if we could just port some games like Soltaire or Same Gnome or Gnu Chess (Nir u there? ;)) or some app to upload our photos to some server like flickr.com directly?
Given the GUI is in Qtopia (QT for embedded) it surprizes me why it should be difficult to port some simple programs to the phone. I have earlier worked on a Symbian Series 60 phone (3660) for my camera phone based mosaicing project and have really appreciated the concept of programmability of a cellphone, which is what Nokia has done on its websites like http://forum.nokia.com by providing some documentation for getting started, or for knowing about the system architecture, or some sample code etc.
Now when Nokia eyes PDA on Linux, I really hope to have some good programming IDE for that. The concept is quite simple (at least to speak about :)).
1) You need to call GCC with the architecture specific options,
2) test/debug the code on a software simulator for that architecture and
3) have ways to just send the binary across the wire to the actual device.
Nokia has already done it providing some great Nokia SDK on Windows (Linux version is still not available), which plugs quite well with Borland C++ BuilderX for which I had to use a trial version.
I heard a GTK based engine called is already available for coding applications on Nokia's 770 Table. Anybody has any idea what can be done for developing Qtopia based apps for Motorola A768i phone ?
Still bad at reading mails?
I hate to spam the students mailing list, so here I express my frustation. I hope the blogroll is visited by enuf number of ppl to convey the mesg.
Well I wrote a mail to a group saying something like
Is it not very clear what is to be done? Or do the ppl expect me to reply each and every query mail for them? or probably I have to figure out how to write more clearly.
Finally here is the summary "If you'r interested in attending this course in current semester, please come and signup the paper on my desk in CVIT (ask someone where I sit, if I am not here)."
Well I wrote a mail to a group saying something like
> The Dean has asked me to collect the name of students (with theirAnd now I get replies like: "where can I meet you to sign the sheet", "Please tell me where and whom to pay the fees", "Please tell me where to come and sign", "please tell me blah blah".
signatures) who would be willing to take the course in the current
semester.
The course students will need to pay
(i) Advance amount of Rs 150/- per head
(ii) Per month fees upto 100/- per head.
The institute is paying some part of the fees too. The fees paid
by students will probably go in to the cost of material.
> if you are interested and ready to pay the required fees, please
signup on the paper which is available with me (address below in sign). I
will not be collecting any fees now.
--
Vardhman
(My Address)
Is it not very clear what is to be done? Or do the ppl expect me to reply each and every query mail for them? or probably I have to figure out how to write more clearly.
Finally here is the summary "If you'r interested in attending this course in current semester, please come and signup the paper on my desk in CVIT (ask someone where I sit, if I am not here)."
Friday, December 16, 2005
Une Visit à le Google Hyderabad office
I was told by someone that Google Hyderabad office shows their innovativeness from the reception itself. It indeed did. They don't have the normal office signup. They do it digitally, you are given a keyboard and a display LCD you type in your details, and signup on a sign-pad. A print comes out and then they paste it on your shirt as your id.
On the reception itself you have those Colored Balloons and Balls (those in symbol of Google labs). This doesn't stop here. There is more, they have a screen in which there is a globe rotating and some facts etc appearing at the bottom. Somethings like each light in the map mean a google search, and each language is indicated by a different colored light. Blue for French, Red for english etc. One other display shows you some keywords which I guess was the some recently hit search query (but it should be hard to list all isn't it?)
When you get in you can see something like other corporate office until you reach the place where there are lots of choclates, biscuits etc to pick up from. The cafeteria is too good in itself, the lunch we had was good too :), Now I understand when they stress so much on the food part of in their offers (Pre Placement talk).
The next interesting thing was the leisure room where you can see ppl playing guitar, a synthosizer, and some resting and relieving chair etc. At many places you wud see some interesting small note by the employees. What else, the ppl are real cool too.
On the reception itself you have those Colored Balloons and Balls (those in symbol of Google labs). This doesn't stop here. There is more, they have a screen in which there is a globe rotating and some facts etc appearing at the bottom. Somethings like each light in the map mean a google search, and each language is indicated by a different colored light. Blue for French, Red for english etc. One other display shows you some keywords which I guess was the some recently hit search query (but it should be hard to list all isn't it?)
When you get in you can see something like other corporate office until you reach the place where there are lots of choclates, biscuits etc to pick up from. The cafeteria is too good in itself, the lunch we had was good too :), Now I understand when they stress so much on the food part of in their offers (Pre Placement talk).
The next interesting thing was the leisure room where you can see ppl playing guitar, a synthosizer, and some resting and relieving chair etc. At many places you wud see some interesting small note by the employees. What else, the ppl are real cool too.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
News"Reading" in Linux using festival
Our discussion about how TTS on my mobile phone was a good app compared to the Festival thing in Linux, end up being fruitful. Paresh told me that Festival has matured a lot. My previous experience with Festival was of a being a bad program requiring to much of configuration by user. I was wrong.
Festival 1.4.2 version is the one I am talking about, which comes preinstalled in Fedora Core 3. To listen to some file you can simply use the command
festival --tts file.txt
Some computer generated voice will read the file for you. Not knowing how to use system commands through firefox I came up with better idea. Using KDE/Klipper technology.
What is Klipper: Basically klipper is a enhanced copy/paste buffer provided by KDE. You can program it do certain actions when certain kind of text is selected by mouse. For e.g when you select a email address you will be shown a small context menu kinda thing showing option to send email etc. So here is what I did. (Do explore Klipper for knowing more about it)
1) In klipper I added a new action.
2) The regular expression setting is quite trivial, I simply used \b[\w]+\b etc
3) Note that I have the autopopup disable and have setting up some manual invocation command for klipper actions, ( I have set up Alt+R)
4) Now in the command section I wrote this command
echo %s > ~/temp.txt ; festival -tts ~/temp.txt
Which does obvious stuff.
Festival 1.4.2 version is the one I am talking about, which comes preinstalled in Fedora Core 3. To listen to some file you can simply use the command
festival --tts file.txt
Some computer generated voice will read the file for you. Not knowing how to use system commands through firefox I came up with better idea. Using KDE/Klipper technology.
What is Klipper: Basically klipper is a enhanced copy/paste buffer provided by KDE. You can program it do certain actions when certain kind of text is selected by mouse. For e.g when you select a email address you will be shown a small context menu kinda thing showing option to send email etc. So here is what I did. (Do explore Klipper for knowing more about it)
1) In klipper I added a new action.
2) The regular expression setting is quite trivial, I simply used \b[\w]+\b etc
3) Note that I have the autopopup disable and have setting up some manual invocation command for klipper actions, ( I have set up Alt+R)
4) Now in the command section I wrote this command
echo %s > ~/temp.txt ; festival -tts ~/temp.txt
Which does obvious stuff.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
CSIDC 2006, its worth giving it a try
Would like to share some experience of our's from participation in CSIDC 2005 contest. So some juniors might take some interest in this highly paying contest.
Last year, we participated in team of 4, me, Jagmohan, Visesh and Nitin Gupta. The first step is to apply as a team, they get many teams from every region so they somehow randomely select the teams which progress to the next round, We were lucky. Next was the first round, we were quite busy with certain things so the report was sent without much interest and in much hurry, as we learnt that those who don't submit the report might disqualify their college for next year. The idea of the project was basically providing some new infrastructure to support remote education.(The topic for last year was breaking the digital divide or sthg similar).
We struggled a bit to make it to the top 90 teams. We moved on to the next round, the semifinals. Here they would select the 10 teams from the 90, who would participate in finals contest in Washington. But as usual the laziness stuck us and we didn't strive hard enough for the project, we did send a final report but while sending we only regretted not working more on it. (We thought 2-3 days more of work could have made things better).
So here is my word of advice, do go through their website, http://computer.org/csidc
see last years winning entries and analyze possibility of achieving the prize winning positions. Note that reports can always be made to show that work done was great, by putting great figures, graphs tables, once you read the report and you realize the work was quite simple to do. If we can win the Mantra 2006 contest for that auto pilot vehicle, this should be reachable too and don't give up easily, for winning a great prize needs a lot of hardwork.
It might be worthy to mention in CSIDC 2004 also our college team reached the semifinals. So guys lets have our college do better this year. All the best. You can bug us to know some details if you would like.
Last year, we participated in team of 4, me, Jagmohan, Visesh and Nitin Gupta. The first step is to apply as a team, they get many teams from every region so they somehow randomely select the teams which progress to the next round, We were lucky. Next was the first round, we were quite busy with certain things so the report was sent without much interest and in much hurry, as we learnt that those who don't submit the report might disqualify their college for next year. The idea of the project was basically providing some new infrastructure to support remote education.(The topic for last year was breaking the digital divide or sthg similar).
We struggled a bit to make it to the top 90 teams. We moved on to the next round, the semifinals. Here they would select the 10 teams from the 90, who would participate in finals contest in Washington. But as usual the laziness stuck us and we didn't strive hard enough for the project, we did send a final report but while sending we only regretted not working more on it. (We thought 2-3 days more of work could have made things better).
So here is my word of advice, do go through their website, http://computer.org/csidc
see last years winning entries and analyze possibility of achieving the prize winning positions. Note that reports can always be made to show that work done was great, by putting great figures, graphs tables, once you read the report and you realize the work was quite simple to do. If we can win the Mantra 2006 contest for that auto pilot vehicle, this should be reachable too and don't give up easily, for winning a great prize needs a lot of hardwork.
It might be worthy to mention in CSIDC 2004 also our college team reached the semifinals. So guys lets have our college do better this year. All the best. You can bug us to know some details if you would like.
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