e-Grumble

Cloud Computing Demystified

2009-05-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

Off late i've been hearing a lot about the cloud computing and a lot of confusing thoughts too about it while everyone was naming it as

Application software provider
Software as a service
Grid computing
Utility coputing
Platform as a serive

But later did i realize its not one of them but its just a conglomerate of all of the above. But the problem with the cloud computing is that every tech company now wants to be associated with the bandwagon called "cloud computing", no matter if their products and services meet the basic criteria. So i thought i should write about it in a simplified way and hence this piece of article.

what is cloud computing ??
Its actually a Convergence of following three main trends which were prominent in the recent past.

Virtualization : Its one of the hottest trend in recent past in where there is a serious attempt on separating Applications from the infrastructure and their dependence on the infrastructure.

Utility Computing: Its one of the computer service where server capacity is accessed across a grid as a variably priced shared service

Software as a service : In this service applications are available on demand on a subscription basis

As time passed people wanted to extract the best of all these trends and a cheaper alternative hence it lead to development of Cloud computing.

In layman's terms its a computing service which shrinks and grows in accordance to the demand and does the transition with no glitch unlike the traditional Dedicated computing services.

What led to the developments of Cloud computing ??
It all began when Broadband prices went cheaper and cheaper which made people realize that people don't need to have a data center in their house all that mattered was just a fast internet connection that would connect to the closest Data center or any data center in the world. This lead to the development of Software as a Service which was when people started selling accounts for accessing their softwares which few vendors try to provide. All that one does is just access the application through their browsers while the application is actually running in the data center for the user who has logged in and all this was done for a fixed subscription fees.

So..This looks like a win-win situation for all isn't it ??

Well when Someone else owns the applications and we pay a part of the price involved as a subscription and use it, it almost nullifies the thought about the hardware and machines running the applications because it no longer belongs to you and we don't have to devote time on developing and maintaining an application that we are not expert in. But this approach of a standard size for all will not match the requirements of all the people. As every single guy has his own requirement ( which varies from being simple to complex).

Privacy was yet another major issue to some of the users cause the actual data was outside their Firewall and which they thought is a big security issue.

Subscription cost was not feasible for "Cost Vs Usage" to the service provider.

Every enterprise which wanted to use this Service always was in lookout for:

convenience and simplicity of Saas
Flexibility of Traditional Computing

So On the whole they needed a hybrid that would run any product as a serivce in a data centre that some one else owns and manages it. But the only obstacle was that the applications were difficult to deploy in new environment.. but the concept of virtualization simplified things..

In Virtualization Applications and infrastructures are different, which allows servers to be shared easily by many applications and many applications to be run virtually anywhere one wants them to run as long as the applications is virtualized

Virtualization of an application in short means that its a portable version of the applications which simply means that one has to package the application with virtually everything that it needs to function and run independently which include the database, the various middleware and operating system, this self contained unit of virtualized application can run anywhere. There is no need for it to work in a data centre or in application provider's data centre. It could even run in a cloud.

The cloud is computing service which charges only on the amount of computing service that one uses . Its similar to pay as you go option which is the most economic option available at this point of time which sets it apart from software as a service (SaaS)

Why should one adopt Cloud computing ???
This thing would be better explained is an analogous fashion, If the service that you need is like a house then in case of Using Traditional Licensed Software is like buying a top end car for a fixed price with all the features, service and warantty whether you use it or not and one is expected to pay cash upfront on delivery.

With Software as a Service (SaaS) is like renting a car you get the expected vehicle but you can't customize it to your needs cause its not under your ownership. One is expected to pay a standard fee on a monthly basis and is guaranteed a certain amount of service on the car

With Cloud computing its like having a personalised top end racing car as a taxi for your disposal, all that you are made to pay for is the distance that you travel with the functionality of the top end car on the demand basis. Well one doesn't even have to pay for the maintenance, and other costs associated with the cab. Its the most economical option when compared to others.

Metaphorically speaking if the Cloud computing is considered as a car then its core engine is Virtualization, without the virtualization the cloud would be impossible. The car never runs without the engine and one can't install the applications to the cloud without virtualization involved in it.

So the first step to the cloud computing is to adapt the application for virtualization and then its moved into the cloud (quiet literally )

Why cloud Computing ??

Its the most Elastic options thats available and take in any kinda load that is entrusted on it.
Scalabilty .
Instant gratification.
The very way it switches between clouds of servers makes it very Flexible.
Its way too Inexpensive when compared to dedicated servers option.
Its Reliable as far as its functionality as concerned

It really levels the playing field for all kinds of business regardless of its size and ensures that every business is provided the required impetus when required to prosper. I guess these should be good enough option for anyone to think of switching overto cloud computing.

Is this one really practical ?? Did anyone deploy it ??
There are many who have deployed it and are using it in a very successful way, some of which are : Amazon and Google's app Engine which are the obvious ones to have embraced the technology.

Is Netbook grabbing notebook's market ?

2009-05-17T04:17:00.000-07:00

I've seen some of the netbooks and even checked out some of the leaptops that are available here in India. Although there is a lotta difference between functionality of those two, but the netbooks have recently shaken the markets despite their lack of functionality. This market has been capitalized by few who took it as a chance for them to flourish in times of recession and of all the players Acer seems to have hit the bull's eye.

Acer has been in the laptop market for long and has strived long to be a top player among others in the Laptop and the Netbook market off late. But in the times of Economic slowdown acer has developed its own niche in the netbook market. Acer's goal to become the number one netbook manufacturer in the world along with predictions that these low cost portables will take up a big chunk of the market seem to be coming true. According to preliminary data released by market research firm DisplaySearch, last quarter netbooks managed to take up a smooth one-fifth of the market. Out of all laptops sold last quarter, roughly 6 million were netbooks ? a substantial amount, and a strong indicator that they will continue to do well which is predominantly in Latin America and the Europe, Middle East, and Asia (EMEA) region.

Out of those 6 million that was sold, Acer was the single largest manufacturer among them, being responsible for more than 30% of the market. They are well on their way to achieving their goal of a 50% share and the netbook market itself is well on its way to being one of the most substantial portions of the mobile sector. This seems to be the case despite the fact that the demarcation line between notebook and netbook has blurred subsequently over a period of time and has come close to being crossed completely on occasions. That may be only a temporary issue, as netbooks continue to mature we may see more of a price/performance wall between the two classes.

Malware found in counterfeit copies of Windows 7 RC

2009-05-15T04:57:00.000-07:00

Been testing out the release candidate version of Windows 7? Well, if you grabbed yourself a copy of the operating system through BitTorrent rather than Microsoft?s official servers then you might be in for a surprise. Several news outlets are reporting that a new piece of malware embedded into counterfeit copies of Windows 7 is being used to build out a botnet of compromised PCs.

According to researchers at security firm Damballa, the infected software which is rigged with a Trojan downloader first appeared on April 24, and spread to thousands of zombie computers by the time they managed to shut down the network?s command and control server on May 10. At its peak, the malware was causing more than 550 new infections per hour, which are reportedly still occurring at a rate of about 1,600 per day with broad geographic distribution. However, since Damballa?s intervention, any new installs of this pirated Windows 7 RC distribution are outside the control of the botmaster hackers running the attack.

Needless to say, not all copies on torrent sites are necessarily infected but those interested in testing the release candidate are obviously advised to get it from Microsoft's official website here. This is not the first case of a botnet being built with pirated software distributed on the Internet. Earlier this year, researchers at Intego intercepted a Mac OS X malware threat circulating in pirated copies of Apple?s iWork 09 software.

EU to find Intel anti-competitive: Unknown sources

2009-05-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

Unknown sources have said that European Union has decided to find Intel anti-competitive. The finding will be announced in coming days.
The unanimous decision on the part of EU commission states that

"The Commission will say Intel paid PC makers to delay or scrap the launch of products containing AMD chips. The Commission will characterize the payments as 'naked restrictions' to competition, the sources said. Intel set percentages of its own chips that it wanted PC makers to use, the sources said. For example, NEC Corp was told that 20 percent of its desktop and notebook machines could have AMD chips, the sources said. All Lenovo notebooks had to use Intel chips, as did relevant Dell products. The figure was 95 percent for Hewlett-Packard's business desktops, they said."

Previous infractions by Intel include giving illegal rebates to computer makers back in 2007 and paying retailers not to sell AMD-based computer systems.

DLF IPL 2009 - whats lacking in it ??

2009-05-11T13:34:00.001-07:00

Last Year's IPL was the most glittering ones with the Bollywood's glam gals all supporting for each of the franchise, but cometh the 2009 IPL most of the glam-gals are off it.

One interesting thing to note was there is no kaif's in this year's edition of IPL.
what really happened to the Kaif's ??

Kat: She being the most active lady in the bollywood was busy with the Shooting and hence choose not to come down to South Africa to support the franchise that she was supporting last time around.

Mohd Kaif: This guy was much more promising than his counterpart in the 1999 world cup winning team-mate Yuvraj sing in his early days. His heroics in the Natwest-series final alongside Yuvi was the best moment but things have changed a lot since then and has only gone the other way for the heroes of that match.
Currently this Kaif is in his hometown, he was one of the costliest picks that the Rajasthan Royals team has picked last time around who were really thrifty in picking the expensive players and looked for the most valued money and even succeeded in getting the IPL 2008 despite not having the team filled with star players which the other teams had. Kaif was sent back to India after the team's inital warm up games owing to his lacklusture form.

I went berserk when i heard this info of sending back the non-performing players back to India. But when i closely looked for the Sponsors that were sponsoring the Rajasthan Royals Team I wasn't worried anymore. It was Sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services, which makes the point clear.

I'm a true fan of both of these Kaif's and would be missing them in this years IPL and hope that they have the time to attend the event and have the form to feature in the team in the next years IPL.

D-Day when i started it ALL

2008-09-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Someday in april of 1993,Sky looked clear as i got up and saw both my brother and sister studying very seriously for their exams,although my sister was almost half asleep and since it was the last day of exams ,i was thinking "why do these people read so much when they are gonna write answers for just few questions, moreover i was thinking more about the kothikamachi game i played the previous day rather than studying for the exam.
I got up from the bed and went straight to kitchen to have something since i was very hungry while getting up. On my mom's insistence i brushed my teeth and went and picked the cream biscuit pack and went and sat close to my brother who was looking like some spoky guy which he isn't, he just shunned me away from his table. which made me go towards my sister seeing her inviting eyes with her mouth watering at the biscuit packet i moved towards the bed and started to eat and went to sleep again after eating it.

Out of a sudden i heard a violent jerk on me and my brother woke me ..

Bro: Enthiri da nayeee(Get up you dawg).. you have your science exam today.
Moi: dei nayee.. athu ellan simple than .. (You dawg.. everythings simple only) chinta mat kar.. (dont worry )
Bro: Eppo eluda porai ?? next year ah ?? School time aachi.. (When are you gonna write it ?? next year eh ?? its time for the school )
Moi: ok ok nanum kelamburain.. (i'm getting ready)

Mom helped me get ready and i started from home with a gait which my brother always used to mock at home. Since both my Bro and sis were kinda tensed for their exams i was at my usual best trying to catch butterflies at the road side.. its usual thing for my brother to drag me to the school everyday. After the morning prayer we had this exam since i never was in any kinda situation so were people around me. We had a nice conversation about the previous days TV show which was getting thrilling day by day. I had my competitor( swetha) sitting behind just across me and was like praying .She was one cute gal who looked gorgeous everytime one sees her.

Moi: kaisi ho ?? ( how are you?)
SW:achhi huun. Pura pad liya kya ?? (i'm fine .. did you completely study?? )
Moi: nahi re.. final exam hai na.. kam-o-kham hollidays ke bare mein soch raha tha.. (nope. since its the final exam was thinking more about the hollidays )
SW: Oh.. kitna be padho phir bhi nervous.. ( oh.. whatever i read i still feel nervous)
Suddenly the teacher appears in the class and the usual calmness creeps into the class.
Moi: All the best. (with a wicked smile )

After that the teacher waits for the bell to ring and hands over the question paper. Since it was Science paper i hardly had any trouble answering any of them and suddenly there was one question about drawing a diagram about the solar system. I was like perplexed with the question . you know why ?? I didn't have anything to make the circles. I stood up and asked the stupid teacher for my water bottle cap but she refused to give it to me.. i resorted to my bench mate but he hardly cared to listen to me..There were already guys outside the hall playing in the ground and i was almost done with the paper except for the drawing. Those cardboard that one plays after the exams was already on my head, Moreover i even thought its better to draw it with hand but i wanted perfection that time , i resorted to asking Swetha hesitantly twisting myself and asked her in mumbling sound

Moi: sh.. shhh..
SW: what ?? (in gestures)
Moi: i showed her the bangles.
SW : kyon ?? (why ?? )
Moi: solar system

Teacher shouts "Silence "

Moi: Solar system ka diagram karna hai.. ( i need to draw the solar system's diagram)
SW: Toh.. mai kya karoon ?? (So.. what should i do then ?? )
Moi: (in gestures)Give me the Bangles..
SW: muje help kar.. (help me then..)
Moi: kya karoon ?? (what to do ??)
SW: Question no 6.. plejje.. (please)
Moi: dekh leh.. par jaldi kar bahar jana hai.. sab khel rahen hai.. match start ho jayega ( See it.. but do it fast, everyones playing.. the match is about to begin)
SW:Yeh leh bangles... dikha jaldi.. (here are your bangles and show me fast..)

Within minutes i completed the exam and ran to the teacher and handed over the paper and raced out of the classroom and jumped in excitement that i have completed my 1st std.
After a 2 hrs of playing and loitering in the streets on my way back home i was almost dead tired, Reached home and threw my writting pad .. when my brother inquired about the exam.

Bro: eppudi da irundadhu ?? (how was it ??)
Moi: Easy na.. chappa paper na.. 100% kedaikkum ( Easy bro.. waste paper will get 100% for sure. )
Bro: Then what did you do for the past 2 hrs then ??
Since we share everything among us..i thought it would be better to tell him about this incident to my bro
Moi: annna.. (Bro)
Bro: Yenna ??(what??) almost instantly (since we were watching an india Vs NZ match that day very seriously)
Moi:Anna exam romba seekrama complete kar diya re.. (Bro completed the exam too early)
Bro: how ??
Moi: late he hota lekin one girl helped .. ( it would have been late except for one girl's help. )
Bro: yennada ?? girlfriend kitta kaapi ah ? (what ?? copied from your girlfriend ?? )
Moi : No no.. she helped .. i helped
Bro : Dei vahi copy hai.. (Hey thats only called copying..)
Moi:kya anna.. ? i was just helping her.. (What bro.. i was just helping her)
Bro: tell me what did you copy ??
Moi: Copy nahi i helped her..
Bro: kaun oh swetha va ??
Moi: haan vahi.. but just helped her..
Bro: dey nayee sollu yenna pannen ??
Moi: i asked for bangles.. and she asked me to help her with question 6
Bro: dey athu than copy. kutta.. thu hi help kiya but she copied you.. anyway you are gonna lose your rank just for this.. you are one big loser.
Moi: che poda kutta.. :(
Bro:dey no bad words main bada hoon..
Moi: poda panni ... i punched at this ass and ran off since i hardly could reach this face :)

I wept for sometime, complained to my mom and then started thinking about it again.. i was feeling really guilty about the whole thing for about half an hour and then i went to my bro again and reconciled with him again and started asking

Moi: dey copy panna pudipangala ??
Bro: Onum illai.. ne etho 1s class athan vittu tange.. illai na pudipange..

The guilt feeling was there for the whole night, i even had a nightmare that night of my teacher coming home and catching me and scolding me as if there was no tomorrow. 6 yrs down the lane i was such a pro in copying that i hardly had the guilt feeling after doing this, which only improved in my college days to be called a pro in this regard.

P.S: This was actually due to a post made on copying in a lab which made me whack my mind to narrow down when i started doing it. Never mind my Hin-tam-glish since i used to speak about 4 languages at home it was kinda usual for us at home to talk is 4 different languages at home still people understood.

The Big Bang Machine

2008-09-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

When i came across lotsa blogs and newspaper articles about the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) and lots of skepticism about its modus operandi. I was really eager to pen my opinion about it, owing to my travel last week couldn't manage to write about it even after watching a BBC documentary about the LHC. After coming back when i checked my feeds i realized that quiet a lotta people have posted about it. One blogger even talked about science and its reasoning and human curiosity behind this lab.
Since i have a lotta connections with my seniors one of them who is doing his Doctorate in theoretical physics helped me get acquainted with this regard, the usual chats helped me know more about what a theoretical physicist does?? They do nothing in the lab rather than doing it in the papers, they are the trouble creaters for the students with all the equations . So when i watched the BBC documentary about the LHC then i realized that this is the only Lab that could bring most of these theoretical physicist out to a Lab who weren't provided an opportunity to work in a lab to experiment earlier. My mind started recollecting whatever i knew about theoretical physics, and few things which came to my mind was the various theories which i usually google about after watching intresting documentaries...

Aeinstein's Theory of everything

Stephen Hawkin's theory of everything

Higg's mechanism & Higg's particle

Why Gravity is weak ??

Don't be surprised at all these links, i did a thorough search for these back in my college when i wanted an innovative idea to be presented for the college paper presentation. These thoughts flew across my mind when i thought about the theoretical physics, so when i went ahead and watched the Documentary, It was mind blowing for me to see how many countries had contributed towards the building of this big bang machine and still the whole world cries foul about its side-effects. The only inference that i got from the documentary was that it is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, meant basically to collide opposing beams of protons with very high kinetic energy i.e. close to the speed of light. If it works as expected this would create a nuclear fusion reaction which is hard to create in any other lab's so this would help in creating this nuclear reaction. This would ofcourse give a glimpse of what would happen when a nuclear fusion reaction would happen, this would even create some black holes of low intensity which would last just micro seconds which in turn could be utilized to study and analyse the actions and thus give a conclusive evidence for the various theories which were proven only through mathematical equations which was kinda hard to grapple with.

On a Whole this would be One Big laboratory for the theoretical physicist to test their theories at the same time prove the already existing theories and analyse the new particles which would be formed as by-products. Hope this experiment would happen successfully and give us quite a good insight into the creation of universe and a conclusive Theory of everything.

*update: Torrent for the BBC Documentary

Tanjore trip this past week

2008-09-15T01:35:00.000-07:00

Days were getting hazier and never seemed to get right, which prompted me to do something unusual so i accompanied my parents to a marriage which i usually dont do, i opted it more so cause this would give me a break from the current sedate life. Since the trip involved lotsa travel to the temples i picked up the iPOD which i normally hate to carry around with me, i picked it up just cause i dont have an alternative to it at this point of time.

Day 1: Sep 9 got up early by 5 and prepared my travel bag and hopped into the calltaxi and got into a Bus which would take me to Tanjore. I had the pleasure of an empty bus which was quieter than the usual crowdy busses. Having a company of a 1yr 8 months old nephew made the journey priceless. After reaching Tanjore went over to meet my cousin sister who is gonna be wedlocked and spoke to her, which was the only thing that i did usefull that day on a Busy house with regards to the marriage work.

Day 2: It was the marriage day with all the people moving around you and the fact that i was sitting there with hardly anyone other than the close relatives taking notice of my presence, made me think that the trip was worthless. But as the marriage progressed i really felt happy that i was "socially fucked up" which made me totally neglect the annoying people and start listening to my stupid iPOD, which made me finally realize that i had a really good set of mp3s and videos on my iPOD. Caught up with few relatives who just like me never appear in such social congregation :). Day passed on with the close relatives and i was glad that there were here to help me kill time.

Day 3: It was the day when i took out the fiesta of my cousin out for a ride. He took me to a ground which was looking like a barren place unlike ground. I was really nervous to start driving it and later on i played with it. I'm sure i couldn't have driven it that way back here in Chennai.Took a Nap after the driving and then went for another temple in Swamimalai which is like 4 floors high temple. It was one of the temples which made me wonder how did people make such temples back then when there was hardly anything called cranes. Then went to some relative's houses nearby. I started realizing the fact that being socially fucked is good only when you stay in chennai. People tend to keep on pestering you and you most probably try hard to recall how he/she relates to you. After returning back to tanjore went to the Big Brihadeeswarar temple in the evening which looks really good at night especially with the lighting arrangements .

Day 4: Its when i started thinking about getting back and having the luxury of Broadband back. Still my mom persisted me with the temple visits. She made me to go to a temple in some remote village which is considered to be auspicious and returned late that night

Day 5: Got up late and went to my Uncles house and had a wonderful food and went again to a temple which was constructed only this year and as it is manadatory for a pooja called kumbabhishekam to be done before the hackneyed poojas to be done at the temple. So it was my mom who was in the forefront bringing all the requisite materials for the pooja and again had to sit through that pooja. Again got back home really late and had to get up early next morning. I was really hoping i get back to chennai as early as possible after having to go through all these trouble of travelling and having to sit through all those yagya's and poojas.

Day 6: As expected got up late and had to rush to the Bus stop to catch the bus to the village where the pooja work was done as most of the family left in the only car. The whole kernel of the pooja was to do abhishegam of the kumbh. While waiting for this to happen, and the fact that one of my uncle is just like me really helped me. We both were mocking at the happenings around and the fact that there were quiet a lotta mallu settlers amongs our relatives and the fact that they had really cute girls helped me a lot ;).Just when me and my uncle were talking about the sight of eagles at the instance of sprinkling religious water at the kumbha, we made about it not happening since a timeframe was set for the pooja to be completed and the sky seemed to be really clear and there was hardly a glimpse of the ubiquitous crows leave alone the eagles. I raised the bet to Rs.100 and told the eagle might not appear and we were anxiously waiting for the sight of any bird circling in sky. Just when were eagerly waiting a sight of a crow made us just LMAO which compelled us to change positions since most of the people around us started thinking about us being sacrilegious which really showed in their questioning faces. Right then out of nowhere eagle appeared and that too very close to the temple and it was gliding through the air very closely and it seemed as if it was having a close look at us. We were totally dumbstruck and never said a thing about it again. I picked up my betting amount and gave it to my uncle, this incident really kindled the atheist part of my brain about the incidence. Right after that there was quiet a lotta instances for us to laugh at firstly there was this instance of God coming into people since it was a village and there were hardly any people like me reasoning the happenings there were kinda lotsa instances where people were dancing and acting weird as if God was into them. I even thought of stabbing one of them. There was even a Dancing couple which made me LMAO and have stomach ache, i ran away for cover just to hide my laughter since most of those around me started doubting me being sacrilegious again. After all these dramas happening we went back to our house and were talking about the happenings, i even had the opportunity to talk to only of those weirdly dancing people thankfully this time the whole family was with me laughing and rolling about the whole incident. After having a small lunch boarded a bus and started feeling that this day was really good.

The worst part of the whole trip was that i took a camcorder with me and left out the batteries behind cause of my rush to board the bus, if at all i had carried it would have created a rage amoung the youtube people wat say ? ;) . The only thing i realized during this past 6 days is that Socially fucked people and marriages don't click together. The only thing i think i missed was my granny's stories, its been long time having heard anyone of them. I hope i do listen to them while she comes back here for my bro's marriage :)

Nostalgia Hits Me

2008-09-05T10:07:00.000-07:00

This evening when there was this power cut (which sucks to the core), i was playing with my nephew when i overheard the neighbourhood kids talking about an event that occured, they were so excited about it that they were literally shouting considering the fact that there was no power at home, since i was damn curious about it, I went ahead and enquired them about
their excited talk, i was shell shocked when i heard the reply. "HOW COULD I EVER FORGET THIS DAY ???Its September 5th". Right after hearing those words, i felt that all the sounds around me faded away especially my nephew who always screems for my iPOD. It always feels quiet different when you think about the past. You seem to enjoy the sweet memories.

I really felt as if i was sitting in my classroom with my best-buddy "baby" close to me, and all the the rest of kuttali around me and i was experiencing the way we used to discuss about the various teachers and few inspirational ones too

Although i flaunt of having a better memory, this feeling was dented when i thought of remembering all the teachers who taught me in school days. Poor me i hardly remember of any teachers who taught me before i came to chennai i.e. prior to 4th std. the few that i remember are the ones that inspired me, tickled me a lot and i still laugh out laud when i think about the funny events that occured during school days. Although there are a lotta teachers but the
funniest ones are the ones that i still think about on every instance which makes me think about school days.

The few who came to my instantly were ...

Mr.Giridhar : He was the one who screwed my name a lotta times, he used to butcher my name right in the prayer session, which was the most embarassing thing ever. How could i forget someone who used to make me my first period at school at time for others to mock at me :(.

Mr.Gopalakrishnan "pulavar": He is hardly 4.5ft with a pot belly and he always tries hard to Bully his students to learn sanskrit his way which is always reciting something or the other. He used to bully a guy in our class who totally disliked both sanskrit and him to the same extent. The funniest part of the whole thing is whenever the class was free and he happened to pass by he used to come into the class and enquire for that particular guy and go hit him and punish him almost everytime. Although most of us feel for this guy, but the way the whole thing happens is one of the funniest thing in my school days. Although a bunch of guys including me hated his class the events that occur during his class makes us urge for a sanskrit class despite having to go through the torture. There used to be countdown timer running right from the starting of the class for the end of it. And the worst thing is that he used to take classes beyond it :(.

Mrs.Mohanakumari "Mike mammi": This is one of the best teachers i have ever met, she is the ever supportive, ever green personality of my school days. Even though my stint with her was a short period of around 8 months, but i hope i had spent more time with her. Inspiring character in a fat structure, and to add it all she used to speak as if she is using a mike almost everytime :P . Funniest thing is she always asks the mikes to be switched off before she speaks at the prayer.

Robin "curt angle": he was the one who verbally bashed me right on the first day of my 11th. The standard punch line delivered by him was "You suck your parents money" and there was no doubt among the whole school why his name was Curt angle. The whole class used to hum the track of curt angle and chorus shout of You Suck follows whenever someone catches a glimpse of him close to the class .

Ruby "Simon Commission" : Although her real name is simon we called her the simon commission just cause she was the one who used to do the moral policing and counselling session and teach chemistry as well. A combination of such a character and chemistry makes her the deadliest teacher. The funniest thing in her is that she used to call home and tell my mom what i did with one particular gal or the other in the school as some kinda reporter, although i hated her initially just for this nature of her in some respect she helped me tell my mom that his son has grown up :P which was hard to share with Mom.

Mr.Pandiraja : The biology teacher who sleeps, walks and talks the same way the filmy Pandiraja does. He hardly taught me anything but was one funny thing to notice in the school when we were free.

RHP : The english teacher who used to teach either an empty class or a class which used to be on the back row as a punishment which exclude the gals as usual. She was too biased and we used to kill her with our comments just for that . I still beleive that she became pregnant just to avoid teaching our batch halfway through our 11th and we went on to her house every now and then to remind her of us, which obviously brought her back to the school which she admitted openly in the class . We too showered our love for her the same way we did before :P.

Mr.Rudrapa: He is one greatest Rajni fan who used to teach physics for us in the 11th and 12th. He would be better as a Hardcore RajniKanth fan rather than a Physics Teacher. The moment he enters our class half the class gets empty or else most of them start their lunch or start drooling at the gals. He used to be our favourite invigilator during tests and exams.He was such an ardent fan of rajni , that he starts speaking about him even at exam halls which was used aptly by us. He is a principal right now, god knows how good that school would be managed :)

Alba : He is one maths teacher everyone would say no to, he never ever teaches, he just reads the book in the class , although the whole class hates him in this regards at the same time makes fun of him at every instance of his speaking in the class. The very name would tell you the extent to which he butchers English.

One always has a Stomach Ache by the end of English,Maths and Physics class. I was really unlucky that I missed out on the fun at the Biology class. Life was really funny @ school days and the very thought of these teachers makes me LMAO.

p.s: I really feel that i'm getting philosophical these days, thinking about my past and regretting my present which i hate to the core. I'm really expecting to move out of this cobweb of distress. Hope I dont turn into a mad guy venting out all the anger in various blogs.

Nanum Namma Chennai yum

2008-09-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

Sunday July 23, 1995 6:A.M, i reached Madras Central station from calcutta . I never really wanted to move into a city which i thought was "FEEDING " literally on idly dosa and typical sambar. I have been to chennai on my way to calicut for a brief time, but not longer than an hour to board other connecting train, but this time it was different when my father guided me outside the station holding my hand it was the hot sun which made me worry, i never expected it to be this hot even @ 6 a.m in the morning while it would be cold in WB(West Bengal) and even some fogs appearing in summer at times.

The first few hours into chennai was horrible, first was the foul smelling couvam, i had never felt such a worse smell previously in my life other than those on train travel, i was sobbing of thinking about my life in a city which stinks and much worse was the roads that i thought it would be better to ask my dad to take me with him just to avoid this city. After taking a nap after a long journey i ventured out to have a look, the first thing that caught me was the heat, prior to that i was never exposed to such an intense heat, getting used it was the most difficult part of it especially when one moves from a city which has hail storms during summer. I really regretted my decision to come with my brother and sister for their professional education.

I had previously shifted into 3 new cities but this was different since on the previous occasions i was too young and moreover this city was tooo hot and too dirsty especially the time when we were in the city.I was totally reluctanct to get accustomed with this city. The first few years were pathetic especially when i struggled with the language.There are hardly few people who know Hindi other than those in the parrys locality.I struggled to grapple with the surroundings and especially in the class where i couldn't figure out what was going on between friends, its totally embarassing when your friends laugh at a joke and you have no clue about what they are talking about, the first few years were too frustrating for me.

I really had a lotsa reasons to say no to chennai but all those faded away on the course of time. It would be really hard for me to tell when i started to like this city, but this wasn't on the very first occassion.

It took me years to get accustomed to lingos and the shows, but i'm sure the love for the city grew when i started enjoying its Harmony, awesome temples, beaches,Filter Kaapi,Thayir Sadham,Masala Vada,Grand Sweets & Snacks,murugan idly shop,SuperStar IStyle,A.R.Rahman,ManiRathnam Movies, Prabhu Deva,Goundamani & Senthil, conservative pattis, Cute girls and Omnipresent Crows especially in our locality.

P.S: Although the girls are cute i still feel they too are conservative

Darkest Knight

2008-07-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

This is the best superhero movie i have ever watched . It has a really a gripping plot, really great action sequence and an amazing performance by heath ledger. He really rocked the Movie more than the christian bale , batman looked norman when you compare their performance .

You will definitely watch it again for sure !!

Dasavataram sucks !!

2008-07-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

Yeah you heard it right. This movie is a mere piece of crap and it totally sucks.
The rational thinking of the story and the science around the story is very admirable but other than that its a serious letdown.

The make-up artists have done a crappy job, himesh reshmaiya can go screw himself, and the stunt and CG crew should rather go out of business for such a sub-standard movie.

I regret having spent my precious 3 Hrs watching this movie.

Jaane Tu ya Jane Na Re-viewed !!!

2008-07-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

12:20 AM: It was time for me to take a nap but i had downloaded a copy of this movie which i really wanted to watch off late.

12:40 AM: I had a Blue screen issue with my PC.. i Had to correct it so was trying to resort to restoring my drives.

1:30 AM: Finally i did restore the drives and was about to watch movies when my Mom woke up and we were talking , its been unusual thing of late .. trying to woo up my boredom.. right in the middle of the their sleep.

2:00 AM: Since i was totally bored and had no mood to watch another Hollywood flick, i Resorted to watching this bollywood movie name Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

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4:00 AM: My mom woke up and was like scolding me like anything since i was watching the movie till then.

4:30 AM: The movie was over, I was feeling low.. was thinking about my college life . damn its over.:(

When the movie completed i thought i was being part of a fun loving group of friends.Only one thing struck in my mind.. damn!! Aamir khan is a mind reader man .. He knew what i needed to kill my time :)

I'm definitely not gonna tell you the storyline which is really fresh and would be good if you are served fresh. If you are still intrested in it you could rather follow the link of the title in the wiki page. I started watching this movie thinking that i would sleep by an hour of this movie.. and it made me sit through the night and watch the movie completely.Take this thing seriously since i was really tired this time around.

I loved the characters the rotlu, the jiggy with the gujju slang and rats and meow.. i dont exactly remember the other girls name in the gang. I waited for a long time to watch this movie in a theatre .. but non of my friends made it possible, this movie would be far too better with a popcorn and few close friends by you.

I personally would recommend this movie for any fun loving guy to watch it with friend ofcourse..Its finally time for me to wind up and catch up with some sleep..

P.S: Never mind my estyle of writting

Breakdance right from the basics..

2008-06-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

Awesome Dance ..

2008-06-25T00:29:00.000-07:00

Check this amazing thing out.. I loved it to the core :)

Can Roger Federer be Best Ever Without Winning @ Roland Garros??

2008-06-11T03:58:00.000-07:00

I had a great debate with my cousin sister regarding the dominance ofr Roger Federer over nadal. The whole conversation started because Rafael Nadal kicked Roger Federer’s ass in the French Open finals, only giving up four games in three sets for his 4th straight title at Roland Garros. With a performance like that coupled with Roger’s inability to win the French made her say that she can’t consider Federer the best tennis player of all-time. On an absolutely basic level, it is hard to fight this argument, but I think it’s faulty. Here were some of the several points to refute this notion.

First off, Roger’s dominance on all other surfaces is unprecedented. From ‘04-’07, Roger won nearly every tournament he entered, including 11 of the 16 Grand Slam events. In four of the five he didn’t win, he either made the finals or semifinals. Federer was 315-24 over those four years, good for a cool 93% winning percentage. That type of dominance is just silly. The counterargument would say Federer isn’t playing in a competitive era. Well, before he came into his own, there were guys like Roddick, Safin, Hewitt, and Nalbandian reaching finals and still doing so. You telling me these guys wouldn’t have more wins if Federer weren’t around? If that were the case, what would you say about the competition then?

Secondly, Roger Federer is not a bad clay court player. He’s the second best clay court player in the world, inferior only to what could wind up being the best clay court player of all-time — Rafael Nadal. What’s the shame in being the second best on clay to the guy who could be the best ever on the surface? The dominance Federer portrays on all surfaces, the fact that he’s so much better than anyone else at Wimbledon and U.S. Open, puts him on a different level. To me, it’s not about whether or not Federer gets over the hump at the French Open against Rafael Nadal, it the way he plays in all types of courts

I grew up watching pete sampras overpower his fellow players during his hayday.And i stopped watching tennis seriously after he left the international arena, after a long hiatus the panache of Roger federer lured me back to watch the various grand slams, where he was having a dream run. The very way he plays would inspire a lot of kids to start playing tennis. He is one of the coolest player one would have every seen play on a tennis court for sure.Regardless of the fact that Nadal is king of clay, i personally feel he is the greatest tennis player to have ever player..

RajniKanth in CBSE Standard 6th Text Books

2008-06-06T05:25:00.000-07:00

I recently bumped into this news which is no longer a news for sure.This year Rajnikanth was given the Best Entertainer award from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and a few months later, his biography, My name is Rajinikanth, was released.

And to add to it all.. CBSE has included Rajnikanth's real life story in its Std VI English Course material published by Oxford University Press containing a lesson about our superstar Rajinikanth. Rajini’s life from conductor to Superstar has been briefly described along with excerpts from his friend Raja Bahadur who was working as bus driver when Rajini was conductor in Bangalore.

After the lesson, there is a short evaluation too about the lesson. The lesson was under the section: Dignity of Work. Rajinikanth struggled a lot during his early age because of poverty. He began his career doing various jobs in Bangalore. Before starting his career in the film industry, he worked as a bus conductor for the Bangalore Transport Service in Bangalore. His journey from conductor to Superstar status is the part of the lesson.

I'm an ardent fan of Rajni but still i feel that this step by CBSE just indicates the lack of ideas among the course content makers, There are quiet a lot of other things which has to concentrated in our education system but still they tend to move away from it..

Rajni Rocks .. but there is lot more rocking the education system than just Rajni for sure ..

Michael Jackson and Bhangra

2008-05-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

This is one of the best videos i have seen on youtube off late.. :)

Movie review :21

2008-05-18T02:09:00.000-07:00

Tagline:They proved Vegas blackjack was beatable...by beating the hell out of it.

Yesterday i found some time to catch up with this movie. When is started watching it i had the ocean's series in mind but knew that its a fact based movies inspired by a true story of the MIT Blackjact Team.

Since i was starved of movies for quiet a long time, i was perplexed by this movie to begin with when it has visuals of aerial view of MIT's campus, but withing 15 minutes i came to terms with the story, to be more precise its a flashy adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s compelling New York Times bestseller.

The narration of the movie majorly revolvs around "Ben Campbell who is a student @ MIT and has an admit from the Harvard Med school(yeah its the same damn expensive university). The movie start with the guy going to the harvard med school and is talking to a man about the Robinson scholarship for his study at harvard Med, as usual the consellor ask for an essay with a dazzle that would make him stand out of the herd who have applied for the scholarship. After this he tries to collect the amount required for his study @ harvard at the same time tries to write essay for the scholarship application. In the meantime his professor micky rosa spots him
for his extrodinary ability to count and his ability to stay calm and composed nature and tries to lure him into his team which has learnt the art of card reading.. he accepts the invite and rest is the story ...

The movie recount how a team of math nerds from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made millions counting cards at Las Vegas blackjack tables. Under the guidance of former card counter Mickey Rosa, the MIT geniuses milked Vegas, Atlantic City and a slew of riverboat casinos east and west of the Mississippi River until sophisticated facial-recognition software made it impossible for them to complete their elaborate scams and rest is the story

Overall i liked the story but i personally feel some justice could have been made to this story, there wasn't a standout performance by any of the cast. I liked the movie, but i wouldn't say everybody who would watch it would love it..

Anyway i would like you guys to watch this movie only if you like movies about gambling & casinos. Don't be tempted about the casino's its a kinda nerds viewpoint of gambling. On the whole i wouldn't rate it the best but would say a kinda classic movie since its fact based would try to keep it in my huge collection of movies. Do pour in your views about this movie.

Trailer:YouTube, Apple
Genre: Drama/Casino Film
IMDB rating: 7.0 (12,756 votes)
Links: IMDB, RT(31%),Goofs
Directed by: Robert Luketic
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Aaron Yoo
Runtime: 1:57:40
HighRezPosters:#1[510 x 755], #2[429 x 600]

Fedora 9 Released (Sulphur)

2008-05-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

Red Hat's Fedora Project released Fedora 9 yesterday May 13th, the newest version of its open source operating system.

Fedora 9 adds key new features to the Linux OS including the addition of the KDE 4 desktop environment that defines the look and feel of this OS. Another key feature added is the ability to run the Fedora 9 OS from a USB drive. You can not only boot the OS from a USB drive, but can also add applications and store data to the drive (a true portable OS).

This is the first major release of Fedora to include the KDE 4.x desktop environment and with it comes new features such as desktop panels that integrate desktop search.

Fedora is one of several Linux flavors currently available, with other well known ones including Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fedora being the core project for testing applications to be added into a more stable RHEL, it paves to be the testing ground for upcoming applications in the RHEL and totaly free to use, unlike RHEL which comes with the technical support

Fedora 9 is newest evolution of the Fedora distribution
Some of the new features of Fedora 9(Sulphur) include :

GNOME 2.22
KDE 4 : which is not among the stable version and i'd personally prefer for 4.1 version which is expected to be more stable than the 4.0 version
OpenJDK 6 has replaced IcedTea.: For known reasons the sun's Java development kit is being replaced with redhats icedtea
ext4 is now supported.
PackageKit is included as a front-end to yum, and as the default package manager (Pup and Pirut are available as alternatives).
One Second X allows the X to go from exec to ready to accept clients in nearly one second
Many improvements to the Anaconda installer;[45] among these features, it now supports resizing ext2, ext3 and NTFS file systems, and can create and install Fedora to encrypted file systems.
Firefox 3.0 beta 5 is included in this release.
Perl 5.10.0, which features a smaller memory footprint and other improvements.
The swfdec package, which decodes and renders Flash animations and videos, is now installed by default.
It is said that Fedora 9 has kernel based mode setting hope someone tests this out as soon as possible
Perl 5.10.0 is one that will make a difference.(Especially if your code uses regular expressions heavily.)
A new code base for TeTex.
A new version of OCAML.
Fedora 9 features a new artwork entitled Waves which, like Infinity in Fedora 8, changes the wallpaper during the day to reflect the time of day.

Many things have been upgraded here, not just the unstable bits.

Some of the Drawbacks which would prevent you to from installing Fedora 9 are :

KDE 4.0 which isn't that stable,i'd personally wait for the stabler 4.1 version before checking out KDE for sure
NVidia doesn't have drivers ready, it only has beta drivers available at this point of time
available at http://sulphur.freshrpms.net/rpm.html?id=238
there has been problems on installing in Samsung hard drives which shouldn't be a problem for most of us, but is a hitch when you consider the Hardware Compatibility of previous fedora releases.

On the funny side of it :
The codename Sulphur for the project was actually elected to be called this way.
[1] [2] [3]

No matter what you do, some major component will always be not ready. If it is not KDE, it is Gnome or xorg or Apache or Firefox or whatever.Every release has this problem, not just Fedora 9.

I'll wait for a better Seed to leech ratio for it to be downloaded and wouldn't wait for a long time to get my hands dirty on this release

You can read more about the full release here and download it from the Fedora Project.

Will OLPC Dump Open Source ??

2008-05-14T04:59:00.000-07:00

Remember the $100 laptop?? That was the original description of Nicholas Negroponte's dream for a dirt cheap computer that would be distributed by governments to millions of students in dozens of developing countries. A combination of open source software, low-power hardware, and some of the leading educational researchers in the world made for a great headline , and for a seemingly unstoppable force fighting against illiteracy and poverty.

The "One Laptop Per Child," or OLPC, project started with a bang, and has gotten a lot of press attention. Unfortunately, this great story has been plagued by many practical problems, starting with

the price of the systems, which has risen to about $180.
Commercial software and hardware companies, such as Microsoft and Intel, have publicly ridiculed the OLPC, saying that it is underpowered and (not surprisingly) incompatible with their current systems.
As if that weren't enough, many of the governments that had originally pledged to buy one million or more computers ended up backing out of the project, or pledging to buy many fewer.
Seymour Papert, the researcher who was providing much of the educational vision for the project, was critically injured in a traffic accident.
Just a few months ago, Mary Lou Jepsen, who designed the high-resolution, low-powered screens that are essential to OLPC's success, resigned from the project.
And an effort to jumpstart the project by selling OLPC computers to Americans seems to have encountered some hardware problems.

The latest blow occurred earlier this month, when Walter Bender resigned from the presidency of OLPC, announced via an e-mail message released earlier. Bender didn't point to any problems with the project, but indicated that his interest is in creating a "community of developers, educators, and learners dedicated to advancing the quality of free and open source software for learning."

The OLPC news site said that Bender's resignation might be because Negroponte is warming up to the idea of using Microsoft's proprietary software on the OLPC, making it more marketable, by bringing in Microsoft's name, money, and compatibility. This would obviously be a terrible blow to the open source community which has encouraged the OLPC project, and to Red Hat, which has dedicated resources to it.

David Pogue reviewed the OLPC back in October, indicating that the OLPC does not compete with regular business laptops -- but it is not designed to do so. Rather, it is designed to be an educational tool for children. If you consider it in that context, the OLPC is a terrific success, Pogue declared.

There has been a great deal of criticism of the OLPC project, from its inception until now. But the project's many internal problems, including the loss of key staff, might prove even more deadly than any attacks that external forces might have waged.

I personally thought that bringing in a OLPC which is about $100 with the open source would kill the market for the propreitary softwares, but i never knew that they had the potential to ruin the whole project by influencing the people key in the project moving out of it. Those who were keen on implementing it sheer away from it. I'd personally love it to be with the open source.

What do you think about OLPC? Will it make a difference if the project switches to proprietary software? Do you still believe it would be better with the open source ?

Doom 4 in the making

2008-05-08T10:36:00.000-07:00

The id Software site has announced that work has begun on the next sequel to their most famous game, Doom. Will they be able to resurrect the series after what many considered to be a serious misstep with Doom 3..?

Oh... and they're hiring for the team, so maybe you can steer them in the right direction?"
Their webpage states that..

We are looking for talented, ambitious and passionate individuals eager to join our accomplished team of developers working on the industry’s most innovative and anticipated games. For a complete listing of available positions, visit our id Careers page. Resumes can be submitted via email to jobs@idsoftware.com. All applicants must be authorized to work in the United States.

I hope this time around they build it to the expectation they create around the Quake 4

Back from a Slumber

2008-05-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since i have posted. Don't know why i was in slumber for so long. So i though i should make my way back to blogging.

Last time i was seriously blogging was when i was seriously preparing
for the G.R.E examination, but this time around i have no shackles to be restricted so look forward to a better range of posts varying from vocabulary drills ,games,movies, music and occasional technical posts and lots of gyaan of Linux .

Hope you pals enjoy this and keep those comments coming in, that really keeps me going.