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:-)

CSEA Inaugural Function...

Yesterday 25.06.2007, we had our Computer Science and Engg Association(CSEA)inaugural function for the academic year 2007-08 presided by our faculty advisor Mr.M.ShivaKumar and with very special Chief Guest Mr.V.RamPrakash, MD, Industrial Electronics. The chief guest is an alumnus of our college and had a great experience in the field of electronics. He delivered a motivating speech and loaded lot of ideas about the current industrial world.
Me and SaiKrishna were officially announced as the GeneralSecretaries of our association(CSEA) and Kokila and SasiSidarth as the JointSecretaries.

"TCENet " - The Most Innovative Project

TCENet,our college intranet portal, got the most innovative IT project award for the year 2007 by the PCQuest, a IT Magazine.
TCENet hits almost all the local news papers. An article about TCENet in The Hindu
I personally feel happy as i am also working in the TCENet team.
This is our TCENet ..

From TCE to TCS...!!!

There were many golden moments for me in TCE. Last week I got another chance to cheer. I got placed in Tata Consultancy Services. I started the Placement training with an unfortune. Got 6th semester results with one mark needed for the next higher grade in 4 out of 6 subjects. Disappointed with the results and my confidence level was also very low at that time. Thanks to my seniors Subramani( special thanks man), Praveen, Senthil who encouraged me a lot during mock interviews. I really worked hard then and acquired TCS:-) . My friends also got good placements. Karthikeyan, Annamalai, Ashok and some others placed in TCS and Vins, ArunPrasaath and others got placed in CTS. We started our placements season with a success and hope this will continue in the coming days also.

My 6th sem at Dusk!!!

Finally i have come to an end of an another edition of my engineering course, my sixth semester working days are over and i have to complete my sem formalities, the final exams:) . This semester brought many things to cheer and few moments to tear.Lot of things started, learnt technically something, disappointed with few failures. This is the first sem i faced few misunderstandings with my friends, some problems from an unknown person, heard some emotional stories among my friends and a lot to remember. Some of the things which left its print in my heart are

* Attended FOSS2007 , a festival on Free and Open Source Software tools in my college
* Participated in Interface07 online events
* Won 3rd prize in GNU/LINUX programming contest in my college
* Attended Plaisir07,an intra dept culturals.Our class team is the overall champion
* Finished 3rd in Poetry writting in Plaisir07
* Got 2nd prize in skit in Plaisir07
* http://alumni.tce.edu released
* Registered for RedHatChallenge competitions with Vins and Balachandran
* My friend's marriage
* Enjoyed Sugirtham07, our hostel day
* I saw my friend crying like a child for his love.. infact i too disappointed after hearing that he had sacrificed many things even his rights as an co-worker for his love
* I was really irritated by a person sending rubbish mails..yet to find his face
* Heard emotional stories among friends and i really felt happy to have such caring persons with me..hope my friendship with such persons come for ever
* My attendance hangs around 75% and i atteneded all the classes on the last working day :-)

DTrace..!!!

As I mentioned earlier I started working in OpenSolaris10..It really rocks like anything..The GUI is amazing and it looks cool..Last week i spent more time with my solaris box trying to learn the things..First i thought of installing GCC and othe GNU tools from outside..Then only i found all those things are available in /usr/sfw/ itself and we need to set path or just copy paste it in /usr/bin and will be fine ..I am compiling in GCC now..The most powerful tool in the world DTrace, anyone can accept this if they started working on it..I spent few days on it and learnt the basics(still need to know many)..It needs more practice to get familiar with and i am working with little action scripts now..it rockzzz.. it will give more knowledge on OS if we practise it properly..Before ending this post i wish to say u "IF U WANT TO KNOW MORE ON OPERATING SYSTEMS, DONT STICK TO UR SYLLABUS ALONE, START WORKING WITH DTRACE"..meet u with my next "Drop!!"..bye

TCE Alumni Portal...

Finally the portal designed by me with my friend is launched to public access today. It is designed using Drupal. In that portal, we have facilities for mailing, groups, forum discussions and blogs for every registered user. I hope the portal will surely make alumni to participate in all college events like placement recruitments, alumni meets,etc.,The link of the portal
http://alumni.tce.edu

finally my prob solved..!!!

In my box i installed OpenSolaris in one hard disk(hd0) and the windows in in another disk(hd1)..
I found difficult in accessing both operating systems from the same grub..Finally i found a solution for this using the grub function map( )
grub> map (hd0,hd1)
grub> map (hd1,hd0)
The map option makes virtual swap between the disks and both the hd0 and hd1 appears virtually as the first disk. Now i can easily enter my windows from the grub without changing the disk every time as i did before..Now i can work in unix environment and see films in windowsXP(what else can we do with windows:-)) without much efforts..meet you with my next "Drop"..bye

FOSS tools-makes programming simple..!!!

Last week i got an opportunity to attend a seminar on FOSS debugging tools by Mr.AnanthShrinivas, an alumnus of our college working in Sun Microsystems.The session was very informative and he showed the demonstration on various debugging tools like GDB-the GNU project debugger, Valgrind, ltrace, mtrace..All the tools are cool to work with. I worked with GDB before the session when my friend introduced it.This session added extra ideas about GDB..The valgrid demonstration was interesting as it pointed errors with memory management in the program with error line numbers.very cool tool..Next i attended a seminar on DBMS and Internet programming tools by Mr.Senthilkumaran,SpikeSource India Limited..He covered various FOSS DBMS tools like MySQL,PostgresSQL,small foot-print databases like SQLite and some informations on the products of SpikeSource..These sessions introduced some interesting tools and i need to work more on it..

See India2006 with me..!!!

India faced lot of important events in 2006. Here i have given some important events in my view

Indo-US Nuclear deal

The Indo-US civilian nuclear deal is the one of the controversial steps faced by India this year. Some people in india supporting the treaty while others are opposing it. The supporters argued that India needs uranium for its energy needs and this treaty is the must for the Indian energy needs. Yeah I accept all these things,but India is the second largest nation in Thorium productions. We can very well use this thorium for the next hundred years and even beyond that for our energy needs. All we need to do is work on our fast breader reactors. In current technology we can meet our energy needs in 3 step process using thorium reactors and it needs uranium in the second step in the process. According to this treaty, we are supplied by US the large amount of uranium for the next 10-15 years. This will affect our investments and serious work in the thorium plants. We will become the permanent customers of Uranium to US. This treaty makes our civil nuclear plants under international study which is not a good sign for India’s security as we are doing research works for our defence in some of these plants.
The India-US deal will bring few benefits but impose high costs, including an inappropriate energy path, which cannot be measured within a purely nationalist matrix. It deserves to be scrapped. However, even more costs lie in what the deal does to the cause of global nuclear disarmament and peace. With what face can India now advocate global disarmament after being admitted to the “Atomic Apartheid” order by the US?
The Americans can dominate the world only by creating unequal alliances and thus eliminating the emergence of the rival. For the past more than half a century, India is one of the major states that is away from the US alliances. Now we too joined the alliance and we now become the US junior ally by this treaty. US treaty with India in another view is to oppose the growth of China as nuclear power in Asia by imposing their ideas in our policies. It is good for Washington but for New Delhi??? –become slaves to the masters.
India would be better off signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), rather than this deal!!! At least the NPT allows a signatory to exit, but the deal will bind India forever to the US, all for a certain quantity of uranium:)

Reservations In Elite Institutions

The another important issue faced by India this year is the strikes and oppose against the OBC reservations. I always support the reservations for the welfare of the nation. For the development of the nation it is essential to develop people of every levels. If we started supporting the creamy layer alone, it will make a wide partition among the people based on the economy which is not good for any of us.
The strikes against this were due to their seniors who had created the wrong assumption among the students. They made them to think that they had lost their oppurtunitues to the lower value students by the reservations. In this issue we should think in a broader sense rather than thinking selfishly.

Industrial Developments

This year showed a good progress in IT industries. Many multinational countries increased their investments in India. Tata started its new car manufacuring plant in west bengal. Many developments were faced in this field other than this.

State Elections

This year, state assembly elections were conducted in Tamilnadu, Assam, Kerala, WestBengal. In Tamilnadu, a dravidian party alliance got the majority to rule the state. In kerala and Wbengal communist parties got the power and in assam,the rule was to congress.

Sports

Indian sports faced different phases in this year. Indians secured nineth place in Asian games medals tally. India dominated in Tennis in the Asian games. Indian hockey showed a bad performance this year. Our national game needs an immediate treatment now to regain our past dominance in this game.meet you with my next "Drop!!"..bye

me and 2006..!!!

2006 leaves with lot of memorable moments. This year’s diary becomes one of the sources of sweet memories.I faced some ups and downs with good experience every time. This year introduced me the OpenSolaris through my senior Mr.AnanthShrinivas. Now I am working in opensolaris environment. I have to learn more in this and working for it. I got an oppurtunity to work with content management systems for my college. In this year we went kodaikkanal for industrial visits. Enjoyed with my friends there. Then I have to say about our symposium Cyber06. Our friends made this a grand success by their dedicated work in all committees. I worked in the paper presentation committee and our team did a good job. Though this year introduced me some technical things, I slipped a bit in my exams compared to my previous years. This may be due to my laziness in the exam halls to write the answers completely:). But I am happy with my results. Though this year bags many sweet memories ,I faced some bitter things towards the end of this year through an unknown friend. He used to mail me frequently without his name and saying some unwanted informations about me and my friend. I did a mistake by replying his mail and he started disturbing my peace in all means. Hello friend,don’t trouble me atleast in the coming year. Come with ur original face. Waiting for u:)

Lee-Hesh,The Great Pair!!!

From Grand Slam glory to Olympic dominance, Leander-Mahesh pair have done it all for India.This pair showed the aggressive side of Indian tennis...they were the best and most charismatic sports persons from India. Anyone can accept this if they have seen the finals at the center court,Doha.After losing the first set to the Thailand twins Ratiwatana,the Indian tigers came back strongly to defend their gold medal. They saved 7 gold medal points against the Thai brothers. Ratiwatana brothers even dont want to forget the way the Indian masters make the gold medals to their packets. Excellent lesson by the two greats. Great commitment by the 'IndianExpress'. But again they expressed their differences in the public.Their relationship has seen many ups and lows. But still, they manage the results. This latest flare-up too, can be resolved..All it will take is two men to sit down and talk. If they don't then it won't be the best ending for a pair who once had the world at their feet.meet u with my next "Drop"!!..bye

Black Hat..!!!

Yesterday my friend's password was cracked and the cracker deleted all the accounts. The password used by friend was very easy to guess as she used a person's name and very weak. The black hats enjoy unethical hacking and they use different techniques to crack the passwords. The Shoulder surfing, Dumpster diving are the common techniques used by the black hats. To avoid the password steal, the passwords should be chosen in such a way that they should be as long as possible, include mixed-case letters if possible, should not be based on any personal information and not be based on dictionary word. Make sure that your passwords are strong and keep your accounts safe. meet you with my next "Drop"!!..bye..

RSVP Friendships and BBB..!!!

I always like to have more friends. Enjoyed a lot with them. Recently i heard from a friend that his friend wanted to talk with him for several hours even during the exams through the cell phone. I am having a doubt whether these persons know what a friendship means!! Do they want to refresh their friendship periodically( once in two seconds so that other can use the other second:) ) by saying "I am your friend" for several hours similar to the RSVP refreshing the soft states:). Yeah i accept that these friends are more possessive towards their friends and I praise them. But they should know that they are spoiling their times unnecessarily during their exams, project times. Dont you believe your friends. Dont you know that your friend is also preparing for the exams. Even the Indo-Pak problems are not discussed more than an hour :). Also using the cell phones continuously will affect the Blood Brain Barrier(BBB), a physiological mechanism that alters the permeability of blood capillaries so that some substances, such as certain drugs are prevented from entering the brain tissue while other substances are entered freely. There are some other physical disorders are also possible. Friends think atleast now and make your presence a valuable one to your friend and dont make them feel bad about you to others..meet you with my next "Drop"!!..bye

Day of Advice...

First day of the last month, my sister celebrated her 22nd birthday today. I thought of wishing her at 12.00 am..got up only at 8.then enrolled my belated wishes through phone.she expected my call from the early morning..In the afternoon, while i was driving my two-wheeler to hotel , I met with a minor road accident. That guy drove his vehicle assuming that he was driving in air. I too didnt notice him as i was busy with my cell messaging my friend in the Theatre. It was fortunate as i landed my foot in a correct place instead of going into their wheels..escaped with only small scratches in my left leg ..but it itself caused pain,loss of blood..again a good experience..as a consequence heard advice from my dad and mom..they used the chance very well :) ..went hospital, again advice from my doctor also..thus today was really a day of advice..:)..meet u with my next "Drop"..bye