Monday, April 19, 2010

Patent Absurdity - My two cents

Just watched this film, Patent Absurdity. Well, let me brief you a little bit about it.


Every week, more than 3000 patents are granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Of these, more than 50% are software patents. And this has been going on for a good few years now. The point here is, after the patent is granted, the company/person/owner of the patent has full rights to sue any other person/company if it tries to infringe on the patent. All well and good so far.


Now, here's the problem with the system. Imagine the tech scenario 10 years later when the patents are everywhere and everything. Imagine how much the programmer has to go through to write the software just to make sure that he doesn't infringe any patent in the process. Even if someone has a genuinely good idea, he would be wary of introducing it because of the fear of getting sued because he has infringed on a patent without any intention to do so.


All this does is make money for the patent lawyers and other companies who are only looking to sue other people/company to make a quick buck.


Imagine the impact it will have on the true innovations that are made at the grassroots level by the programmers.


And this is what the movie is trying to convey. Patent system has been a failure and it will do more harm than good in the future.


Just my two cents.



Tuesday, March 23, 2010

My computer shuts down reaaally fast!!

Everybody sort of keeps on discussing the bootup time of their PCs in the forums. The technical tests are conducted thoroughly to find exactly how much time (in micro-seconds) it takes to boot the system.


According to a relevant source, Windows 7 boots up in about almost a minute from the start time, when you assume that you take approx 5 secs to login as the relevant user. Now, if you check the article, it is soo bloody full of facts and results and the type of PCs they have used and what not.


Well, I do not see any such study conducted about the shutdown time. Well, why not I ask? I like to sit at my computer until the laaast minute and then rush out the door to do the other chores. And when I leave, I want my computer to shutdown FAST.


Now, I had XP installed in my computer, and then I had Vista and then Windows 7. All of them take a loong time to shutdown and I am there staring at the BLUE screen (I hope it would be blue screen of death, then I can just press the power button and turn it off for good ) waiting for it to shutdown. I want my shutdowns fast.


Well, now that I have switched to Linux Mint 8 – Helena, I find my bootups as well as shutdowns to be exceedingly fast. My boot up time has gone down to almost 30 secs while shutdown is 5 secs. I think this is acceptable for me. Linux Rocks!


Anyway, on my same machine, Windows 7 dragged and dragged me with it shutting down and I am here drooling and waiting and *&^”%”*.


Anyway, I noticed that Windows 7 also slowed down a bit after the initial month (exactly like XP and Vista) and once I had a few apps running in my taskbar, opening a Word doc took me more than 10 secs, which is really unacceptable, right?


On this same machine, in Mint, I have more than 6 apps running (opera, firefox, twitter app for opera, multiple pidgin windows, rhythmbox and this openoffice writer on which I write my blogs) and I open up Thunderbird to check my emails, and Viola!, it only takes 2 secs to load, if even that!!!


I used to love Windows, used Linux from time to time but then eventually came back to Windows due to drivers and functionality and other issues. But now, I must say, everything I can do in Windows I can do it in Linux with more customizations and faster! I love my desktop right now (it has a cool Orange fire theme that I created myself, its that easy ! And the best part, it is ALL FREE!!!


Opensource is the way of the future, and sooner the people adopt it, the better.


GO LINUX!!! PENGUIN RULES!


Saturday, March 20, 2010

Ricoh webcam on HP Pavilion dv6000 series laptops work with Linux!!

I have been trying to setup my Linux system to recognise my webcam for a long time now, but somehow, was never successful. And this one time when I was successful, I rejoiced and removed my Windows completely and installed Kubuntu alone to test if I can survive without Windows altogether.

However, after the re-installation, the webcam never did come up in Kubuntu again (after some very rigorous efforts). And I ended up installing Windows again only because of the webcam (I need the webcam. I talk to my family regularly from Skype.).

Then, I tried out LinuxMint 8, which is bloody awesome! Below is a screenshot of my Mint OS:


I know ! It does look awesome, doesn't it? ;)

Anyway, coming to the point. Well, I looked at a lot of forums and but could not get my webcam to work. And then, I found this website


I was able to download the Deb package for my webcam and installed XAWTV (sudo apt-get install xawtv) and voila! , it worked!!

Doesn't work with Cheese though (dunno why!!??). Anyway, here are my specs:

HP Pavilion dv6000 series laptop

Webcam: Ricoh 1.3M Webcam

Specific model: dv6244eu

Installation Procedure:-

The procedure is simple:-


  1. Download the firmware first from here for x86 architechture or here for amd64 architechture.

  2. Next, download the modules here. For x86, click here, and for amd64, click here.

  3. Now, since it is a Deb package, your Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Mint should automatically recognise it. Install the firmware first and then install the module.

  4. To verify, use the command below to check if the module shows up fine in the lsmod.


oem@Abhi-laptop ~ $ lsmod |grep r5u
r5u870 24132 0
usbcam 41212 1 r5u870
oem@Abhi-laptop ~ $ ^C
oem@Abhi-laptop ~ $


  1. You should see the above two entries in your output. Once you have verified this, install XAWTV: 'sudo apt-get install xawtv'

  2. Once done, run XAWTV and you should see your webcam recognised. If it still doesn't work, try 'xawtv /dev/video0' and check.

If the above steps do not work, let me know here.

Thanks for reading and hth.





Saturday, March 13, 2010

CHEVRON/TEXACO – The great oily mess of the Amazonian Ecuador

I was just watching an amazing documentary in regards to the Amazon forest. Now, to watch the whole documentary and the full story, you will need to watch the documentary “CRUDE” (trailer below).

Here’s the brief about what the documentary is about. In 1970’s, TEXACO setup a crude oil plant in Amazonian part of Ecuador. Now, an oil plant can generate a LOT of dump and waste. Now, this being a third world country and a poor country and TEXACO being all BIG, american company and all, this has what it has come down to. TEXACO dumped all its wastes and other things into the jungles of Amazon, without so much as a consideration to the local, indigenous people already living there. After about 20 years, the local people who washed and bathed in the local river where the waste was dumped, started to develop skin diseases and cancer.

And this is a mere sauce on the whole muddled pudding. TEXACO  created pits where they dumped this waste (the number almost made me cry, more than 900) and when it rained, they also created pipes where the excess water collected in these pits would go straight in the river, polluting the core river sources.

In 1993, this cause was taken up by a local, recently graduated lawyer (Pablo Fajardo) and the case ran on for 17 years and still no decision is expected for another few years. The case was filed in the US on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorians by this lawyer in co-ordination the local US lawyer (see video below). However, the case was then moved to Ecuador by the US court. Also, in 2000 (or around that time, I forgot the exact year), CHEVRON took over TEXACO, and in turn, this case. Once in the Ecuadorian court, and after more than 15 years of fighting for justice, the Ecuador court appointed an independent surveyor to take samples, conduct the study and assess damages that CHEVRON needs to pay. And the study conducted by the independent surveyor appointed by the Ecuadorian court put the damages that is to be paid by CHEVRON to 27 Billion.

The clip below shows the other lawyer talking about the lawsuit.

As for the CHEVRON’s stance on this, see the video below where Sylvia (CHEVRON manager) talks about how this is all BS and there is nothing CHEVRON can do and ladidahdidah…

Here’s her video below:-

Well, she’s a bitch for sure. I cannot fathom how she can go home and sleep or even face her family after lying so publicly and openly.

The litigation will go on there is nothing that is to be gained from it by the local people. In the end, the BIG company will keep on buying the judiciary process and delay the justice system. The game is now to wait-and-watch, as it has been for the last 17 years.

All the best and good luck to the lawyers fighting for justice in this case. And my heartfelt prayers to the people of Ecuadorian Amazon.

www.crudethemovie.com

If you care about the environment, please do visit the site below and sign the petition to do something about the litigation and help the people of Ecuadorian Amazon.

http://chevrontoxico.com/

Your little effort and help will go miles in winning the justice they have been long bereaved of.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Deleted all your emails from your Hotmail web account when enabled POP3?

Did you delete all your emails when you decided to try the POP3 service of the hotmail account? Did Windows Live support tell you that once the messages have been deleted from their servers, there is no way to recover them?

Well, fear not. I have a way to recover the emails. Just follow this link and check out my reply to recover your emails :)

http://windowslivehelp.com/community/p/18055/726713.aspx#726713

Happy email-ing!!!

Friday, January 29, 2010

Like Outlook, have your Thunderbird replies sent out in Blue (or any other colour you choose)!

Many of us love Thunderbird for its functionality and flexibility. But for a while now, I have been looking to change my reply to be of a different colour, just like Microsoft Outlook does. I looked around a lot, but was not able to find it. However, now I have the solution J

Note: This is applicable for Thunderbird 3.0 or later.

To do this, you will need the following add-on, SmartTemplate. This nice, little add-on allows you to set customised templates for New messages, replies as well as forwards, and all of this in HTML or normal plain text format.

Once the add-on is installed, open up the editor for the add-on by going to “Tools->Addons->SmartTemplate->Options” as shown below.

clip_image002

A new window opens up as below.

clip_image004

This is the magic window where you can do WHATEVER you want with your messages. Let me start by explaining the options we have on each tab. The text box window is where you type the plain-text or HTML code that you wish to. If you need HTML code, select the “Apply following template for the new message” and then select “Use HTML” check boxes. De-select the “replace new-line with </br>” option, unless you know how to use it.

The Reply tab also has the same options, with one additional option. This option “Use instead of standard quote header” when selected replaces the “XXX wrote…” quote which is placed in the replies by default. These are the same options on the “Forward” tab as well.

Now, the template for the New message is below:

<body>

<div>

</br>

</br>

<span style='color:#000000'>

Regards,</br>

-- </br>

<b>John Smith </b></br>

Marketing Manager </br>

Flowers Consulting</br>

Cell: (+91) 540 781 </br>

Web: <a href=http://kharvadi.blogspot.com> http://kharvadi.blogspot.com <a>

</div>

The signature above will look something like below when starting a new message:-
Regards,
--
John Smith
Marketing Manager
Flowers Consulting
Cell: (+91) 540 781
Web:
http://kharvadi.blogspot.com

You can change the colour of your new message by changing the color field in the code #000000 with any other color you wish. This is a simple signature and you can make complex signatures to suit your needs.

Now, coming to the Replies, the following code will be required:

<body lang=EN-IN style='tab-interval:36.0pt'>

<div class=WordSection1>

<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#1F49A9;mso-themecolor:accent1;

mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<span style='color:#1F49A9'>

Regards,</br>

-- </br>

<b> John Smith </b></br>

Marketing Manager </br>

Flowers Consulting </br>

Cell: (+91) 540 781 </br>

Web: <a href="http://kharvadi.blogspot.com">http://kharvadi.blogspot.com</a>

</div>

</body>

</br>

</br>

<span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>--------Original Message-----------<o:p></o:p></span></p> </br>

<b> From: </b> %fromname% [%frommail%] </br>

<b> To: </b> %toname% [%tomail%] </br>

{

<b> Cc: </b> %ccmail% </br>

}

<b> Date: </b> %date% </br>

<b> Subject: </b> %subject%

Here, the first part is where you change the reply colour to blue. The colour code is :#1F49A9. The next part is the signature for your outgoing mails. I have kept the colour of my signature to be the same as the colour of my email body, blue (:#1F49A9). But you can change this colour to your liking by change the color field in the line just above “Regards”.

The next part is to modify the header of the email to which you are replying. The final output of the template we have just created should look something like this:

Regards,
--
John Smith
Marketing Manager
Flowers Consulting
Cell: (+91) 540 781
Web:
http://kharvadi.blogspot.com

--------Original Message-----------
From: Movies [apps+a09tztz9@facebookappmail.com]
To: John Smith [john.smith@hotmail.com]
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:52:33 -0800
Subject: Opening Movies: Gibson as Detective, Kristen Bell on a Quest For Love, and More...

You may also modify the Forward tab accordingly to make it the way you wish. Well, that’s all folks! Have fun modifying it the way you like. And you may use the templates above as you want.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Science & Religion

Science and Religion seldom go hand in hand. There is a long history of Religious heads seeing science as something taking one away from the Divine. As someone said, "Science and Religion seldom look each other eye in eye." And the major reason for this comes from the fact that science has significantly eased our materialistic life. On the other hand, religion believes these materialistic gains to be secondary in nature and therefore tries to undermine the significance of science from our daily lives.

But the significance of science cannot be undermined. For one thing, everything science has done is for the sole purpose of knowing the "Truth". If you dig a bit deeper into the philosophy that science follows, it would seem that religion and science are just two sides of the same coin. One is trying to find the truth, the other is trying to take us to the truth. Just the paths are different.

Many of the world's greatest scientists have been believers in the almighty, a higher force which have guided them their entire lifetime. The most famous example is Albert Einstein. He once famously said, "The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness." – Merging of Science & Spirit.

And how true it is can only be comprehended by someone who has experienced this feeling. This feeling of awe, of wonder, of a higher presence that resides somewhere in this world and inside us at the same time.