Upcoming exciting news from Tech World

1. Steve Ballmer throws a car at Eric Schmidt.
2. Ubuntu L***** L**** just works without any goof-ups.
3. Apple makes iPhone un-pwnable.
4. Windows 8 removes administrative privileges from default user. In short, now onwards viruses will run with non-administrative privileges.
5. Opera re-invents the web again. Bundles an Operating System in it’s upcoming “Opera Fright”.
6. Flash 11 needs 4 CPU cores to render basic animations.
7. Internet Explorer becomes the safest browser. Reminds “Connecting to the Internet might expose you to viruses, do you want to go offline?” and shows an OK button.
8. Sun re-writes Solaris in Java. Amen!
9. Windows 8 requires just 8GB of RAM to run properly.
10. Script kiddies write malware for Linux and Mac and affect them badly.
11. FreeBSD gets fool-proof secure. Asks for password when opening Firefox.
12. Ballmer boasts “Windows has maximum number of applications” (considering viruses as apps too)

Dousing the Mono Flames

The Free Software community is up in the arms and split into two factions on whether Mono is polluting the ecosystem? The discussions are endless and there is no hope that it will ever subside. I have been following ubuntu-devel-discuss and the topic “shameful censoring of mono opposition” has got the attention of nearly everyone on the list. I think save me, everyone has answered to that discussion. Heck! I am still getting mails now.

I find all these discussions to be getting out of control. Check boycottnovell.com and a tons of other sites. Mono supporters and mono haters are busy discussing whose stand is holier.

Threat

Let me be impartial. There is a threat that Microsoft may one day sue the FOSS companies on the use of it’s IP. Is it true? I don’t find Microsoft can do much as the bigger question is that can they sue each and every single user? They should sue Novell since they are leading the project. Will they sue each and every user out there using Mono?

The threats are more of speculations. Probably Ballmer can tell us what he thinks of Mono exactly, but for that he needs to find time from his busy schedule of dancing and throwing chairs.

Reality

Whatever Mono haters say, the reality is that there is no at par substitute for for GNOME applications like F-Spot, Tomboy and GNOME Do. I would be happy if GNOME is made mono free, but what about these three applications? When it comes to media player, I find Banshee much better than Rhythmbox. Amarok is much better but it is for KDE. I am talking about GNOME apps which don’t need KDE libs to be installed.

I don’t use Tomboy and F-Spot, but GNOME Do is really good. It saves a lot of time. The keybinding saves a lot of time. Everything need not be geek-oriented, but should be such that everyone can be use it. This is in accordance with GNOME Human Interface Guidelines

If anyone wants that GNOME should forget Mono we first need to find good substitutes of the above softwares. An alternative for Tomboy is Gnote. I agree it is lighter, but still it has a long way to go. If Gnote really kicks ass one fine day, that is a day for celebration for anti-mono campaigners.

Middle Ground

Time is money. Let us not waste time by just fighting who is correct and who is wrong. Mono lovers find the other camp stupid and vice-versa. Will the flame ever end? Mailing-lists are too busy these days discussing whether Microsoft can kill Linux by just issuing threats! So what can we do next?

Solution #1

Make it easy to remove Mono stack from GNOME. Probably make it dead easy to do so by including it in Synaptics.

Try issuing this command on the terminal

sudo apt-get remove –purge mono-common

and you get

The following packages will be REMOVED
banshee f-spot libart2.0-cil libavahi1.0-cil libboo2.0-cil libflickrnet2.1.5-cil libgconf2.0-cil libglade2.0-cil
libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.2-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil libgnome2.0-cil libgtk2.0-cil libgtkhtml3.16-cil
libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo1.0-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib1.0-cil
libmono-corlib2.0-cil libmono-data-tds1.0-cil libmono-data-tds2.0-cil libmono-security1.0-cil libmono-security2.0-cil
libmono-sharpzip0.84-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil libmono-sqlite2.0-cil libmono-system-data1.0-cil
libmono-system-data2.0-cil libmono-system-web1.0-cil libmono-system-web2.0-cil libmono-system1.0-cil libmono-system2.0-cil
libmono-zeroconf1.0-cil libmono1.0-cil libmono2.0-cil libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libtaglib2.0-cil
mono-common mono-gac mono-jit mono-runtime tomboy

Which is enough to scare the shit out of you. Such a long list! Is the system going to break?

To solve the above problem Mark Packages By Task can be a good place to place Mono. Just Uncheck and Voila!

Mono should also find a place here

Solution #2

Accelerate Gnote development! Gnote is lighter, faster by still behind Tomboy when it comes to features. I personally prefer physical sticky notes at my workplace or at home. I am not here to discuss which one if better, the above is just my persona views and I hope many people agree with me.

I think Tomboy is like a flagbearer of Mono community. Like Linux is for FOSS. Of all my friends who know something about Mono know about Tomboy. Probably it us the other way round – due to Tomboy they came to know that something called mono exists.

Concluding

I have worked on .NET on windows, but prefer Python on Linux. I also think that we can do without mono, but not at this situation when we don’t have better options to Tomboy, F-Spot and GNOME-Do. I always feel that discussing on the cleanliness of mono is required, but it should end somewhere or the other. Why keep it discussing it over ages? Whenever I read a mono v/s anti-mono thread, two thoughts come to my mind which I summarised above.

Indian Technical Education System needs an overhaul

I had my own rant for Indian Education system, but kept mum most of the time. I have read Sayamindu’s post when he posted it on his blog, but had nothing more to add that time.

I would suggest you to just read the following links.

• Why should I bother? – Sayamindu Dasgupta
• A letter for Sayamindu – Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay
• How companies shoot themselves in the foot while recruiting – Atul Chitnis
• A hypothetical interview – Sujith H
• Sorry, you are giving the wrong lessons – Vivek B
• Liberalise the Indian Education Sector – Atanu Dey
• Computer Science is Java – Pramode C.E.
• Computer Science FAIL – Higher Education in India – Ankur Sethi

I wanted to write more on these, but resisted that time, was just waiting for my engineering to be over. I felt that it would be better if I provide links to those people’s experience whom I know or have come across.

Speeding up Internet Surfing (Squid + BIND)

I am not writing something very much ground-breaking, but since friends do ask me how to use their slow internet lines, here is the solution: Web Proxy with Cache and DNS Caching.

You might find exhaustive articles all over the net, this one is which I made from my experience. Getting them to work is so so simple. It isn’t a rocket science as you might be thinking.

You basically need Squid to act as Web Server Proxy and Bind9 as DNS Caching.  The work of Bind9 and squid is not limited just for caching, but you might want to know that Bind powers much of world’s DNS servers. Let’s start

You first need squid and squid-common packages for squid and bind9 and dnsutils for bind.

sudo apt-get install squid bind9

squid-common and dnsutils are dependencies of the the two, so you don’t need to specify

BIND

Just open the file named.conf.options in the folder /etc/bind and change the following section

// forwarders {
// 0.0.0.0;
// }

to

forwarders {
208.67.222.222;
208.67.220.220;
};

Here the two IP addresses are those of the DNS servers (OpenDNS in this case). You can even use the IP address of your router if the latter is configured for DNS.

Now restart bind daemon

sudo /etc/init.d/bind9 restart

Bind can also be used for more than just DNS caching. It can be used for Primary Master Server, Secondary Master Server or mix of all of them. The slightly geekish HOWTO is here. It is written for  Ubuntu, but nearly same for all other distros.

Squid

When you installed squid, it has been auto-configured as a caching proxy server. You just need to point your browser’s proxy settings to it. The best way is to set up Network Proxy so that every application can use it.

System > Preferences > Network Proxy

GNOME Proxy Settings

forwarders {
208.67.222.222;

Squid uses port no 3128 as default. You can change it later.

If you want Squid just to surf the internet, then can just change the proxy settings of Firefox.

Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Network

Choose the Settings Button, set up the proxy settings similar to that shown inthe above figure.

You can check the official docs at squid for configuring squid or use this simplified doc at Ubuntu Wiki. Again, it works on all the distros.

Using squid you can customized error pages, shut down network for specified duration of time, block websites and many more.

Suggested Reading:

• BIND for Small LAN
• BIND on Wikipedia
• Squid Tutorial
• Squid Configuration Example
• Squid User’s Guide

Disgusting App Store

Looks like I would again invite the wrath of fanbois on this post. Let’s see, but truth is truth and I cant’ resist from quoting it. Let’ start.

If you are missing some WTF news of late, have some of them here and here.

Let’s take the first example. Tweetie got rejected because Apple found some indecent words in the Twitter profile of Tweetie. Heck! There is no indecent words in the app itself. Now if the app developer says that the girl sitting next to her is sexy, get ready to face the wrath of Apple on your application.

Moving to second example, which would also make you scratch your head a hundred times.  They rejected a Bittorrent control app! Read it again you idiot. It’s not a Bittorrent app, but an app which can be used to control Transmission running on your desktop. Now it means that you aren’t downloading any illegal stuffs on your iPhone. You are just controlling it! Now even if that is illegal, the case is too weak!

Keeping up with the moral policing,  tomorrow Safari should be banned since it can also be used to download illegal content, that too on your holy iPhone, that too not remotely. The iPhone approval process sucks balls and how-so-ever you give excuses of legal and ethical and tons of other shit loads excuses, the fact is that App Store is a nightmare. It is under a Nazi’s rule and you got no right to speak. Admit it that Apple is God. If not, get out of here.

I am not a Microsoft fan, nor I was ever impressed with their ethics. Now I need to weight Apple and Microsoft. Speaking frankly, Microsoft respects developers even though they dis-respect the law. Apple considers developers  as second class citizen who are just here for bowing their heads. The reason why devs are still probably here is that Apple users pay for the app and due to the steady revenue stream.

I had written back about the screwed up App Store’s approval process when Opera got rejected and when they had a sucking NDA in place. If you want to judge the freedom you have at your disposal when you buy,think twice!

Jaunty Notifications, but why did Ted Dzuiba bash it?

I have been a great admirer of Ted Dzuiba, his writing are really thought provocative and humorous as much as possible. Being a critic, he writes to make a issue out of the smallest possible thing espcially Web 2.0 . Though I agree with most of his writings, some of them really fail to amuse me. I felt that being a critic, he sometimes takes a technology and tries to bash it just for no use. I even know I am not as qualified as he is to assess any technology, but still his latest post about Jaunty Notification is really hard to digest. Whatever be the case, he is expert in taking a dig at TechCrunch and making Micheal Arrington’s pants wet.

He says in his blog post:

The old notifier used to stay out of your way.  Get a little message or whatnot when you got a new e-mail.  It was unobtrusive and didn’t distract you

The older notification was really a headache, same like that in Windows and it never went away when I wanted. I always had to click on that retarded close button everytime I wanted that shit to go away from my screen. I have even written a post how to use the old libnotify library, still I was never much amazed at it. When I came to know about some new notification system in Jaunty, I just hoped that it would be a improvement over the existing, but to my surprise it was much of an overhaul.

The Reasons

The new notification system is passive in nature. Even though it pops up, it goes away without my interference. Agree, it doesn’t have a close button. After all, who needs that big fuckin close button when it can go away by itself?

Another big advantage this new notification system is that, when you hover the mouse over it, it changes the opacity and you can click through. It is somewhat slightly visible to make sure that it hasn’t gone away. Then how come is it obtrusive? It comes and goes away, when you need to access the are where it appeared, it hides itself and allows click-through.

Thirdly for all those designers, the new notification looks better. It’s just like Mac OSX Growl. Maybe some looks-feel loving souls would be happy.

Fourthly, the notifications doesn’t show up randomly all over the screen. All such candidates are queued and shown one below the other instead of popping up and showing up at the same time. Successive notifications from same application are appended on each other. Take an example, someone is talking to you, he keeps on typing and hitting enter which keep up showing up as notifications. Instead of showing a new notification box for each message, they are appended in the original one.

Concluding

If you don’t believe that there is lot of hard work behind this new notification system, then you can simply check out the wiki page of Ubuntu and the Developer’s Guidelines for the same. Even though their work would be below par, still labour has its value.

Adopting newcomers to FOSS/Linux

Just remember the time when you started off with Linux or FOSS. You felt that you can’t find out a solution to your problem. What next? You tried asking for help on forums or any other help channels. Since you were noob, you didn’t even know how to ask questions or what exactly went wrong. You just knew that what you expected to happen, didn’t work. Just have a look at the following conversations:

n00bjoe: I have problems with totem. it cant play music. I am opening it and it refuses to play my media files

geekady: FFS,  Can you please STFW or RTFM?

n00bjoe: ???

There is no dearth of such conversations all over the net, now look at this one below:

n00bjoe: I have problems with totem. it cant play music. I am opening it and it refuses to play my media files

geekfam: You should get the codec pack. Install the gstreamer based ones.  Maybe this <insert link here>  can help you. I got this by 1-min googling and I advise you to do so in the future. I saves time and you can get quicker results.

n00bjoe: Thanks, it works

geekfam: Welcome. Remember always to google before asking questions. Google is your friend.

Did you find any difference between the two conversations? In the first, even though the geek is highly knowledgeable, there is hardly any throughput and in the second one, being a bit polite does magic.

If I come across such posts on forums where some first-timer has asked a question which is not deemed-fit as per the rules, I refrain from replying to it if I cant solve his problem. If I can solve his problem, I do add the small notice at the end citing what rules and regulations he should follow while posting.

The Bottom Line

I can never expect a first-timer to know all those complex geeky terms like gstreamer, licensing, Xorg, restricted etc etc. Everyone is not a techie and technology is not a toy just for the tech-evangelists. A little politeness doesn’t harm. I can’t argue with those people who have made and forum or IRC channel an excellent place for discussions. Even if they do use harsh words, they aren’t at fault, though I just request them to be a bit patient. In such cases let the other people handle those newcomers. After all its a social place

Case Study

Let’s take an example of a discussion forum: Ubuntuforums Absolute Beginner Talk . Go and have a look. The place looks like a mess. Each question is asked many times a day, sms lingo are used abruptly sometimes. Why was this category created? To save the whole forum from the newbies who don’t know how to post, how to answer and the special rules of the forum. It’s like a training ground, the person who qualifies and learns the rules comes out and uses the other sections.

I hardly see any harsh words used over here. This is the place where even newbies who have learnt sometimes post the solution of the problem asked by others. Whenever I went to that place, I answered the question and added that small notice at the end of the post. “Please use google before asking a question, you can save ours and your time too“.

Conclusion

I am an advocate for making FOSS/Linux go mainstream and now just remain in the hands of the the geeks. Some people say that they would prefer Linux being less famous, but they can’t stand those stupid people using Linux. Well, they look stupid just because they don’t know what they should be knowing. It’s our duty to tell them.

I have seen many people(including friends) get pissed off just because they asked the question for the first time and got a harsh reply. They didn’t even knew what are the rules. I even had a hard-time explaining that it’s not that people are harsh, they just want everyone to stick to the basic rules.

The post isn’t rant, but probably a feedback from the newcomers coupled my suggestions for the solution. Don’t get me wrong. I just want the guests to feel like home.

P.S: Don’t bash me for making a reference to Ubuntu(forums). There is actually lots of “Ubuntu Hate” all around.

Shifted to FeedBurner

This is a pretty off-topic post, but still relevant.

The feeds of this blog would now be burned via FeedBurner. I should have done this pretty earlier.

I would request all of my feed readers to please change the feed settings, the new Feed URI is http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ManishTechBlog

Thanks for all the encouragement, I get a lot of hits and comments for each post. I salute you, the FOSS and related communities are awesome.

My two cents on improving GNOME

Note: This is not bashing, but constructive criticism. This post is based on my personal experiences.

I have been a GNOME user since I have jumped into Linux bandwagon. Even though trying out KDE and XFCE, I always had to fall back to GNOME even though people are said never to be happy with it. As I feel, just jumping here and there, changing DE’s won’t help. If I feel something is lacking or some feature is buggy, I would surely poiny it out. The criticism would be constructive. Just have a look.

Nautilus

Even though Nautilus is not like Konqueror, its still far from perfect. I have always faced problems using this file explorer. It crashes, freezes and sometimes doesn’t generate thumbnails when it should. In my last hardy installation I installed apport just to report bugs more properly. To my surprise, it always came up once or twice a day with “nautilus crashed” report. Nautilus suddenly dies or when I click Quit, apport shows up a bug report. Even though it is tolerable, one day I met this error report which made me go mad. I didn’t try deciphering what went wrong, just clicked on Close and slept

Now what to do next?

Maybe I should shift to Dolphin for the time being, but Konquerer is no no for me.

Gnome Power Management

This is a place which can be improved a lot. Let’s have a look at the interface.

Want to change the minimum time

“Put display to sleep when inactive for” shows a minimum of 11 minutes.  Sometimes when I go to sleep and set a torrent on download, I would like to screen to go off immediately, say 2 mins. The minimum time should not be so high. I know a simple workaround would be to hack the source code and re-compile. Here is an example of the geekery.

Update: Anon pointed out in the comments that the minimum time is greater than the minimum time the screensaver comes in action. So, what I wanted to say exactly is here , maybe it’s stupid in the first sense, but this is what I look for every night. This won’t drastically change GNOME, but can surely give me what I want (or maybe others too)

Let’s imagine I want my display to turn off instantly? Is there anything which allows he to do so? The workaround is to type this command in the terminal

xset dpms force off

Will every tom, dick and harry would be able to do this? I too figure it our googling here and there.

GNOME System Monitor

This is one application I love a lot since it shows everything I need. The biggest problem is the amount of CPU it sucks while running. If you don’t believe, then check this Bug Report on GNOME Bugzilla and on Launchpad bugs

This problem would seem hardly of any relevance, but it defeats the purpose of having this app in the first place. The advise of using “top” isn’t so handy. Everyone doesn’t know about “top”.

Gnome System Monitor going crazy

GNOME Configuration Editor

Please add some sense to gconf-editor. It is no better than Windows Registry. GNOME doesn’t have much configuration options available via GUI and for advanced hacks, we need to fall back to this place. Initially I was taken aback by such confusing interface. The only thing which is better than windows registry is that the key names are a bit sensible. I can understand that gconf-editor allows fine tuning the advanced settings, but still it is hardly of any use when you need it badly.

Sometimes you might face a problem that the background isn’t being able to set howsoever I try. The fix was in this app. You need to move to /desktop/background/ and check the draw_background checkbox. The sensible names of the keys save us or else it would be just another nightmare

Which Programmer are you?

It’s written just for humour, no offence meant to any language

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You know you are a Python programmer……. when one of your finger is always on the Tab key

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You know you are a PHP Programmer…….. when you always have an urge to type $_FOO['BLAH'] every now and then

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You know you are a Java Programmer……  when you have a fetish for looong looong identifier names like ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException

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You know you are a C programmer…………. when you think pointers is the only true thing that exists on this world.

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You know you are a VB programmer……….. when you think it is the only real programming language which exists and you recommend it to a lot of newbie who are fresh into programming

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You know you are a JavaScript programmer…………. when you think that JavaScript is the future of programming languages and you eat, sleep and dream of DOM.

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You know you are a VC++ programmer………. if you don’t hate VC++

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You know you are a Perl programmer…………    if half of your code contains only regex

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By Ankur Sethi:

You know you are a Cocoa/ObjC programmer……… when you have this in mind: [anExtremelyLongIdentifier someRandomArgument:foo anotherRandomArgument:bar];