The Great Indian Road Trip- Thrissur,Kerala to New Delhi, New Delhi Part Zero

Hell yeah!!! What you read is true, every word of it !!

Its been a while since I blogged here. Been on odd errands all these time, and add to it, what can be called a "writer's block" :) . But never did I dream that my return to blogosphere would be with something this joyful, that I can't still contain the sheer thrill of it!

Yes! We are embarking on our dream tour, from GEC, Thrissur, Kerala to Delhi( or New Delhi, New Delhi :) )( An ~2900km journey one way). A 12 day journey which includes about 5-6 days on road and a 2-day trip back home in train(courtesy: Indian Railways). No strings attached( except those budget ones :) ). Here's how it all came about:

I wouldn't disclose the entire details verbatim, but the capsuled data is here:

Rohit's dad has been transferred with promotion( cheers!!) to Delhi.

Problem: Make sure uncle wouldn't have no trouble whilst commuting in the Metro.
Solution: Their KL-08 P XXXX Maruti Zen :D!!

Rohit suggested, got approval and thus took birth the crazy idea of taking car to Delhi, driving the entire stretch from TCR! Not to mention the compulsive, obsessive, certified brain-damaged lunatic what-not-ic Bristow to boost the whole concept, the next thing left was to decide fellow tourers- Denny, Raman and Myself!
To put in simpler words, Drivers- Denny Machan n Brittoli, Tourers- Me :) n Raman, and
Last but the best Moyalali of the Vandi- Rayappan!!!

The trajectory and pit-stops haven't been yet decided but I'll update it soon here. Initial suggestion is Thrissur-Mangalore- Deviation to Goa- Pune- Agra- Delhi.

Return Journey tickets have been booked in Mangla Express on July 13th. Surprisingly, a sleeper class ticket from Delhi to Thrissur costs Rs. 600/- only( I ain't much of a rail gadi yathri hence moi ignorance to be tolerated!)

Rest of the details shall follow soon! Meanwhile, you can keep track of me on twitter as well.

FSUGTSR: A Window to Freedom

Its the time of the year when all that happens, is for good- Its December. And December fourth shall also be remembered by few of us for being the day of FSUGTSR renaissance.

FSUGTSR , i.e, Free Software User Group, Thrissur made its first(citation needed) contribution towards the common goal- A Free and Open Source Software Society, today with the one day event " A Window to Freedom". COSTFORD, CenSE, P G Center and I C Software were the sponsors of the event.The program was held at Sahitya Akademi Hall, Thrissur and was inaugurated by HOD of Computer Sciences and Engg. Dept., Govt. Engineering College, Thrissur, Prof. K.V ManojKumar. Mr. Jayan from COSTFORD, sponsor of the event, presided. K. Venu presented an in-detail description about Politics of free software. Krishnanunni, delivered the vote of thanks.

Audience was a mixed lot, people from different walks of life- students, office-goers, teachers and lot many more. Talks followed the Inaugural session. Hiran spoke on the philosophy behind Free and open Source Software. The session by Mahesh was all about the Gnu/Linux Operating systems. Hussain sir followed with a talk on Malayalam Computing.Aswin, my junior at college, took the session on Compiz fusion and desktop environments( check out his blog to view some interesting visual effects supported by Gnu/Linux). Suresh sir summed up before the break after providing an insight into Malayalam Input Methods.The post-lunch session was initiated by Alex Poovathingal and myself on Installation of Ubuntu 8.04 Ultimate edition.Jain introduced Commonly used GNU/Linux Tools, especially Firefox, GIMP, Stellarium and so on.
The tail was Unni's session on Troubleshooting.Day ended with an open discussion on future proceedings of FSUGTSR. Pramode Sir from I C Software, Renjith Sir from P G centre and others participated in it. The Crowd response was positive and supportive throughout the days' events.

The whole concept of "Free as in Freedom, not Free Beer" registered well in their minds as we were charging Rs.30 towards copies of Ubuntu 8.04, Debian Lenny and Fedora 10 :) . BOSS DVDs were being given free of cost.
Join our mailing list at discuss@lists.fsugtsr.org for being part of FSUGTSR and its future ventures.

The media coverage was excellent as evident from the 400+ crowd which had gathered. All leading news papers had reported prior to and after the event as well. Here's the link to The Hindu’s e-news bit on the event.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/05/stories/2008120550580200.htm

In toto, FSUGTSR has made an impression in the minds of public in Thrissur which needs to be kept up by the works that should(read as would) follow....

National Conference on Free Software and protest against Novell Microsoft tie-ups

The natinal conference on free software was venue for a turmoil today when renowned Free Software activist Anivar Aravind and few other activists were man handled out of the venue by the organisers and police.

Anivar being dragged by the Security personnel

The cause, as I came to know, were the posters made by Anivar and colleagues against the Novell-Microsoft deal, by which Novell pays for distributing copies of GPL-licensed software and Microsoft gives the customers of Novell a limited patent licence which is conditional of them not exercising many of the rights that GPL gives them.


View the following links for more pictures and enhanced details on MICROVELL ( Microsoft-Novell)
Visit following links for more information:

• http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com/
• http://boycottnovell.com/

I Love Dogs!!

Was browsing through the pics I had taken so far since the time got my cell[Sony Ericsson K550i Cybershot], and I stumbled upon this- I have a general liking for dogs!! ( n bitches of course!! :) ). SO this post here is dedicated to all those of you who own/like the most faithful breed of beings on the planet.

well, here are those K9s...
That's my friend Safir with his pet - WILD DOG!! Yup, that's what he's named this poor lil thing.. And interestingly, wildy(nick name :) ) heeds to his owner's call, eager to get something to chew upon and take a lazy nap...

Well, here is someone i met on the road, taking a walk with her owner. Aged three, she is quite an uneasy in the chains and was showing her dislike by runnin n jumpin around her owner!!
somebody tell me her breed!


And now, Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present, Kuttu...

Well, Kuttu here is my friend Rakesh's(he runs a bakery at Mannuthy, Thrissur) Rottweiler. Kuttu is just 6 months old when I took this pic. Though beastly, he is quite playful but make a mental note not to get anywhere near him... His daily diet:? Morning: A litre milk + chicken. Lunch: Pedigree biscuits( don't remember the count!) + Milk(a litre again!) + Protein tonic Dinner: More milk, more pedigree and more chicken!!( or beef!!)

last in the list, and the best, is my dear Puppy.. She is our pet dog. Six years old as of August, '08.. Breed: Pomeranian. No words to describe her love and affection. As my dad says" Puppy comes to me at my first call, where as you people(me and bro) don't! " One thing that she hates-Lightning...
and while I was writing this, here is a website that I stumbled upon:
dogsindia, a site all about dogs, breeders and A-Z of dogs..

and finally, I dedicate this post to Tippu, my Pomernian and Puppy's play-mate, which died last year, of anemia and medicine overdose.

Lost Dreams...

The outcome was expected. He had to make his choice. Two paths. Alike and akin they lay, for the man in him to make the choice. End was never a question, for when the brave set forth, they live today as there is no tomorrow.

Shadows loom overhead, of the predicted evil, seeking vengeance for a crime that was long forgotten. Reprimanding for what had already been sought for cleansing, the man in him lay shaken on the wet floor.

The wind carried with it her fragrance, revoking memories of the days gone, reminding him of the beauty whom he sought for two long years, a lifetime of memories that they were...

At the village opera, on a beautiful moon laden autumn eve, made he the glance at her, glance that changed his life forever. It was not her beauty, it was not her elegance, it was the aura of divinity in her which made best of the men bow their heads in unison as she passed by. The shine in her eyes, the shine that could lighten up the dark sky on a winter night, shan't be his. The smile, the smile that brought dimples of godly perfection, on her soft cheeks, shall always remind his lost treasure, that was her. Agreeing humbly to the will of god, admiring the Almighty's strength and dominance, accepting what he preached, for his creations to follow, was not something he had always done. Set to mark out his trails as footprints in the history of world, he had found his lost passion in her. She bound him to his destiny, and the desperation triggered him to accomplish his mission in earnest, for he thought she awaited, at the gates, for her beloved. But to her, Beloved, he was not!
Crest-fallen he remained, amber in him obliterated, moving from place to place without purpose, joy detached from mind and soul.

Rays of hope haven't left the partner they found in him, and they remain. Hence he lives, waiting for yet another golden moment, when he shall, added the strength of true love, seek out her hand, to be his companion,for the eternal binding called life...

Google Chrome Launched?! For Linux?

Google launched Google Chrome, the new face of Browsers, Today. Adhering to their policies of keeping the most powerful tools look the simplest( eg: Google.com). I downloaded it today evening. And yup, must say, its good!

Google Chrome has a new look with no menu bars on top. All the options condensed to two icons on the top right corner. Chrome has provisions for multiple tabs in the same window, similar to Opera or Mozilla Firefox, but the striking feature is the incognito window- a window that leaves no trace of cookies or history on your system of the sites that you visited. A hitch, however, that I found was that there is no facility for a master password in it. That is, I could see all the saved passwords on my personal computer without any trouble. I guess that was probably because I was logged in as Admin. Anyways its kinda creepy!

The simplicity of appearance and easiness to use is what I felt to be the most adoring aspect of Chrome. Ctrl+T opens new Tab and Ctrl+Shift+N opens the incognito window!

All in all, , Firefox and IE is in for a tough competition with the coming of Chrome,that comes from the workshops of Google, a trusted giant in the Industry!

Click here to download the Windows version here. Linux and Mac Os versions are still under construction! :)

Insignia '08, Hackerdom

...And thus began Insignia '08, Hackerdom.

Day: 28th of August, 2008
Time: 10.45 p.m
Location: Room No. C1, Govt. Engineering College Men's Hostel, Thrissur

Scene1:
The work on video editing progresses as the darker hours of night close in. Midhun, eyes swollen with lack of sleep, continues into what seems to be his eleventh straight hour in front of the system. Sailesh, assisting and intermittently performing the job of waking him up from brief accidental siesta, looked as alert and enthu-filled as ever. The job was getting on my nerves. It was our fourth day with the process of preparing a trailer video for Insignia 08, Hackerdom, yet it was where we had left it last evening. The mixing was taking helluva lot time, what with the format conversion of video files, cutting out clips for back ground music etc.

Scene2:
It was 1a.m. The video files and picture slides have been successfully blended in. BGM yet to be added. Midhun on the verge of calling it a day or calling it quit, two others(Sethu and Arun Rushdie) and me peacefully sleeping at one corner of the room, satisfied that our job of filming scenes for the video was completed in time. Krishnanunni, Convenor, Insignia 08, Hackerdom, walks in to view our progress. Anxiety was evident on his face, as he inquired the sleepy workers about the status.
Seeing that there needs to be another two or three hours of work needed on the video to get it completely done, manipulations happen ( :P) , an offer of Puttu and Kadala from Double-X the only hotel open at night in Thrissur. We ( the words Puttu and Kadala woke me up from the slumber instantaneously!) agreed and a half hour later, there it was, steaming hot Puttu and Kadala. Another two hours and lights off....

Scene3:
around 6.45 a.m, 29th.
I was the first one to rise( quite an unusual thing). Woke up the editors and mixers and blah blah and went about my chores. Two hours of sleep taking its toll, as they moved like zombies to begin where it had been halted.

Scene4:
10.45a.m, Seminar Hall, Govt. Engineering College
The Chief guest and other people presiding over the function- Curtain Raiser of Insignia 08, Hackerdom seated on the podium. The official welcome speech, followed by all the other speeches..


Scene5:
12a.m
Time to launch the theme music for the event, prepared by Jain. That was some music! A melodious mix of keyboard, saxo and drums, and many more that I couldn't comprehend.
Our video followed. Cheers from crowd....

Scene5 re-take:
Time to launch the theme music for the event prepared by Jain. Wait! what's happening? a sudden commotion in the rear end of the hall, and there drifts out a large mass of third years.
Reason: Results of Third semester exams announced. Memories drift back to last March-April, the time when we wrote it. Adam's Apple stuck half-way in my throat. The results couldn't have come at a better time than this. Tense faces all around. People scurrying around, searching for internet access. Dubious emotions settling around temples. Eyes glittering, water in them ready to pour out given the green signal...

I hate results!!