End of Golden Boys' Era..!

Indian Cricket team once again proved themselves as a better touring side in the world cricket completing a eventful series against Australia. Though the series results read 2-1 loss to India, the way India played was exceptional. Indians outplayed Aussies in many aspects of the game.No other team had done this or even strained Australia for a victory. In the last few years Indians did well in all parts of the world Australia, Westindies ,Southafrica, England and Pakistan. Managed either a win or draw in most of these matches. Indians can say they are marching towards No 1 slot. Cheers India!!

At the same time India should worry about losing 4 or 5 top players soon. This tour may be the last australia tour for the Golden Boys of Indian Cricket-Sachin,Kumble,Dravid and Gnaguly who all had done lot to Indian cricket and the world cricket. Though we are having a pool of youngsters in the bench,how they would overcome the lose of these greats is a very big quetion. Its pretty sure that Indian Cricket is going to face a tough period atleast for few years.

I cant even imagine that India will get a player of Sachin's standards. No one will forget the days he defeated the world teams single-handedly. Kumble's determination, aggression, and variations in the bowling will be missed. Rahul Dravid's sound techniques and Ganguly's aggression and great timing will be missed. But for any team in the world cricket its quite common to lose few senior players and only the way they handle their lose will make the difference in their ranking. Aussies are doing good in building new teams and as all other Cricket Fans in India, I too hope India will come out of this tougher phase successfully and the next team will defeat the aussies in Australia in the next tour 2011. All the best team India.

Dialup in Linux-For Newbies

For new Linux users configuring their system for dialup net connection seems tougher if they are having the built in modem. The main reason is most software modems are based on Windows and they dont get detected in Linux. For that, corresponding drivers should be installed. googling will help in finding the corresponding drivers.

For example if your modem in WinXP is Modem-Agere Systems PCI Soft Modem(COM3), the driver agrsm can be used.

Before installing the driver be sure that the kernel headers are installed. The kernel names will be like
linux-headers-2.6.18-4
linux-headers-2.6.18-4-686
kernel-kbuild-2.6-18

The agrsm tar should downloaded from the site. Do the following steps
tar xzvf agrsm-***.tar.gz
cd agrsm
make
make install
The above steps will complete the driver installation. Then load the drivers
1) Next load the drivers
modprobe agrmodem
modprobe agrserial
which should announce creation of /dev/ttyAGS3

2) It is convient to create symbolic links, which dialer utilities will follow,to the real port /dev/ttyAGS3 .
ln -s /dev/ttyAGS3 /dev/ttySAGR
ln -s /dev/ttyAGS3 /dev/modem
Check with:
ls -l /dev/ttyAGS3 /dev/ttySAGR /dev/modem
whose output should include:
/dev/modem --> /dev/ttyAGS3
/dev/ttySAGR --> /dev/ttyAGS3

3) The first critical functial test is:
wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf
which searches through potential ports for modem responses.
A success will end with a section like:
--------
ttySAGR<*1>: Modem Identifier: ATI -- Agere SoftModem Version 2.1.40
ttySAGR<*1>: Speed 4800: AT -- OK
ttySAGR<*1>: Speed 9600: AT -- OK
ttySAGR<*1>: Speed 19200: AT -- OK
ttySAGR<*1>: Speed 38400: AT -- OK
ttySAGR<*1>: Speed 57600: AT -- OK
ttySAGR<*1>: Speed 115200: AT -- OK
ttySAGR<*1>: Max speed is 115200; that should be safe.
ttySAGR<*1>: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0 -- OK

Found a modem on /dev/ttySAGR.
Modem configuration written to /etc/wvdial.conf.
ttySAGR: Speed 115200; init "ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0"

Dialout Procedure
First edit in your dialout information with:

emacs /etc/wvdial.conf

In the sample below, the lines beginning with are informative, not essential.
The line order is not important.

[Dialer defaults]
# Lines begining with # are comments.
# wvdial will look for this file at /etc/wvdial.conf
# or /home/LoginName/.wvdial.rc
Baud = 115200
Modem = /dev/ttySAGR3
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
# Lack of dialtone acquisition can be due to low line voltage
# Try inserting a "dial without waiting": X3
# Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 X3 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
# In case of connection instabilities, specify a lower frequency:
# Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 X3 &C1 &D2 +MS=34

## Outside the USA, a country setting may be needed
# Init3 = AT+CGI=hexadecimal_country_code

ISDN = 0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = Dialout_phone_number
# if going through a switch board, a perhaps necessary pause can produced with a comma:
# Phone = 1,Dialout_phone_number
Username = LoginName
# if Internet Provider is MSN.net, use under Linux: MSN/LoginName
Password = YourPassWord

## If CONNECT is achieved but browsing fails, try activating the following line
# Auto DNS = yes
## To make a logfile wvdial.out
# wvdial 2>&1 | tee wvdial.out
# # For some Internet providers, the following line is necessary
# Stupid Mode = yes
## for other wvdial options, do "man wvdial" or see the documentation in
## /usr/share/doc/wvdial/
## End wvdial.conf

The above procedure will work if you have installed wvdialconf wvstreams and other required packages.
Ok next time meet me through linux;-)

Disabling User Accounts in Linux

In linux the users can be disabled from accessing their shells temporarily by one of these methods

1.The linux store the encrypted passwords of the users in /etc/shadow file.
By replacing the encrypted password (second field) with * or !, the user cannot login.

2.By using the passwd command the super user can lock the account
passwd username -l
This will add a "!" infront of the encrypted password in /etc/shadow file
To unlock the account,
passwd username -u can be used.
This will remove the "!". This can be done manually too

3.By using chpass command the default shell can be changed to /sbin/nologin
chpass -s /sbin/nologin {username}

Bharat Ratna's inspirational address @ TCE

Last week i got an opportunity to listen Dr.Kalam's address in our college.It was the second time i had listened his address. This time i was more attracted by his words. He came to our college golden jubilee celebrations and attracted each and every student by his words.

India's former President started his address in tamil and mentioned his poem he read in the Parliament.

While mentioning the need for imagination he said Inventions and discoveries have emanated from creative minds that have been constantly working and imaging the outcome in the mind. With imaging and constant effort, all the forces of the universe work for that inspired mind, thereby leading to inventions or discoveries.

He said technology as one of the important factors to improve our economy. He compared the India's innovation index which is 23 with the countries ranking high and said india is ranked 48 in global competitiveness.

Dr.Abdul Kalam's words about India's profile in the year 2020 :

1. A Nation where the rural and urban divide has reduced to a thin line.
2. A Nation where there is an equitable distribution and adequate access to energy and quality water.
3. A Nation where agriculture, industry and service sector work together in symphony.
4. A Nation where education with value system is not denied to any meritorious candidates because of societal or economic discrimination.
5. A Nation which is the best destination for the most talented scholars, scientists, and investors.
6. A Nation where the best of health care is available to all.
7. A Nation where the governance is responsive, transparent and corruption free.
8. A Nation where poverty has been totally eradicated, illiteracy removed and crimes against women and children are absent and none in the society feels alienated.
9. A Nation that is prosperous, healthy, secure, peaceful and happy and continues with a sustainable growth path.
10. A Nation that is one of the best places to live in and is proud of its leadership.

He then mentioned 7 challenging research areas where we can focus on. They are increasing the efficiency of photovoltaic cells, nuclear power generation using thorium based reactors, proteomics-the study of all proteins expressed by the genome of a cell, HIV/AIDS vaccine, stem cell research, earth quake forecasting systems, finding a method to find the quantum of rainfall in a particular area for a particular cloud condition within a specified duration.

Then he addressed how our college should grow in the coming decades.

you can read the exact content of his addressfrom his website

Tecuthsav2008-a technical festival at TCE!

Our college,Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai is stepping in to its 50th year of Academic Excellence. We are celebrating our golden jubilee in a grand manner. Adding to our celebrations we are conducting a national level technical festival Tecuthsav2008 spanning 4 days from feb 13,2008 to feb 17,2008. India's best brains are competing for this 1.7 million event. This multi disciplinary event will provide a way to showcase your technical expertise and skills in various fields to this competitive world.For further details about the contests and other informations visit our official Tecuthsav2008 website.

I m back!

I am glad I am back after a long break. This duration has been with many interesting events and colorful moments. I started my final year project last sem and attended a project review last week. My project is to automate the web-hosting in our college. I will talk more on this in coming days. As a General secretary of our department student's association, organized various tecnical events for our juniors. My final year college life is going great, enjoying every moments with my friends.I am having only 9 hours a week for theory papers and the rest for our project. Having more for project helps us learning new technologies for our project. Got a laptop to blog regularly:-).First ride in our new car TATA Indica on Dec 1,my sister's birthday.Driving TATA now:-).Bought my third mobile in 4 years on Diwali day.This time it is sony ericsson K750i.I will share my views on different things from my college life to my project, views on politics and other things. Anyways, keep visiting:-)