Friday 23 December 2011

What every self Respecting kid needs ?

What does every self Respecting kid needs ?

A Magnetic Accelerator Cannon !!!!!!


Monday 19 December 2011

Reflecting on 2011

Reflecting on 2011 / The year that  2011 was...

 Phew it is that of the year already ,the time all the news channels ,websites and newspapers / magazines put up articles saying "best of year" blah blah blah. Time sure flies fast.The year seemed to have just started,but we are at the threshold of another "new year". This year (2011) is memorable in many ways.There were a lot of things happening!!!! through out the world as well as in India.The most prominent feature of the year  was the unabated rise in price of petrol.This post is essentially about 2011 seen through my sewed eyes :-D.2011 as with each new year , began with a lot of promises / new year resolutions , but it unfolded as follows:-

January , 2011
==>The Arab world literally boiled over and  many countries  in Arab world namely  Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Bahrain faced social unrest. Some governments like the ones in Egypt and Libya even got overthrown in the ensuing protests over the course of the year.Tahrir Square became popular of all over the world.Sounds similar to Tienanmen square in china.Guess all town squares starting with letter "T" are political hotspots.
==>At that point of time before GOVT restored the Tamil New Year Day to the traditional date of April later in the year , Tamils  celebrated Tamil New year on Pongal day ,atleast officially :-).

February , 2011
The country was reeling under the shame of Common Wealth games expose when on  February 2, 2011, Union minister Raja  was arrested and put behind bars.This really opened the flood gates and made way for many other politicians and company CEOS to be arrested under 2G scam.

March , 2011
The year began with a devastating earthquake and ensuing Tsunami which steam rolled many cities on Japan's east coast.The worst affected was Fukushima.The nuclear reactors in the town / city Dai ichi and Dai Ni were breached by the monstrous waves.This event shook the entire world.The insights it brought are:-
==>Japan makes most of the paint pigments for automotive industry and any major event in one part of the world affects the world economy in a big way.
==>Most of coastal cities around the world including Chennai are sitting on a ticking time bomb(ref:-Tsunami) which are just waiting for the right time to go kaboom!!!
==>The inherent danger and threat that nuclear reactors pose to all the countries of the world.Not only are they costly but they are very vulnerable to natural calamities.

April , 2011
==>In a daring pre dawn raid on May 2, 2011Osama Bin Laden was killed. The commandos conducted operations fearlessly on foreign soil.This showed  that America is still a "super power".
==>Tamilnadu opted for change of power on 13 April 2011 in the sate elections.
==>India won the ICC,ODI world cup after 28 years.India won by 6 wickets (with 10 balls remaining) against srilanka
==>It was more than a year I switched to Linux
==>Kalmadi was put behind bars for involvement in CWG scam.

May , 2011
==>More shame was waiting for for the infamous UPA alliance when Kanimozhi was arrested in connection with involvement in 2G scam.She became the third Member Of Parliament of the current government after Raja and kalmadi.
==>On 16 May 2011 Jayalalitha was sworn in chief minister for a third term.
==>Mamata Banerjee in Bengal assumed power on 20 May 2011 after she successfully stopped the Left juggernaut after remaining unbeaten for 34 year.
==>Taliban & co exacted revenge by attacking Mehran base in Pakistan. The audacious attack is nicknamed Mehran attack.
The terrorist were very well trained and were equally well equipped with the latest gear. The amount of ammo that they carried with them was insane and they were using night vision goggles with other ultrasonic radio communication gear.Source:-Link

Terrorists and night vision goggles ? Even Indian army is still not equipped adequately for warfare at night
==>LHC reports creation of quark-gluon plasma.Densest Matter Created in Big-Bang Machine.There has been rising fears that very Large particle accelerators like Hadron Collider could be creating Black Holes within them and that these had the ability to destroy the world.Read more - here
June ,2011
==>Festivities arrived rather early at Ramlila ,Delhi this year. Ramdev showed how the Indian government is ill equipped to handle any kind challenge / emergency .On 27 February 2011 Baba Ramdev held a large rally of over 1 lakh people at the Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi to protest against corruption.Then he started a mass movement called  Bhrashtachar Mitao Satyagrah 4 June 2011 at Ramlila Maidan and this led to "RamLilaBagh" event.The entire episode showed how immature our democracy was.Read more about the incident here:- Ramlila_Maidan_protests 
==>Anna Hazare's anti corruption movement gathers steam.He and other civil society members decided to boycott the meeting of the joint Lokpal Bill drafting committee scheduled on 6 June 2011 in protest against the forcible eviction of Swami Ramdev and his followers by the Delhi Police from Ramlila Maidan on 5 June 2011

July , 2011
India began their disastrous away cricket series against England with a solid drubbing at Lords(Mecca of cricket).In the England v India at Lord's, Jul 21-25, 2011 Pataudi Trophy, 1st Test England won by 196 runs.Many people wondered as to how India which won the world cup couple of months ago could even have receive such a severe drubbing in the Test and ODI series.

August , 2011
==>There was mini rebirth of this blog ;-)I started blogging regularly again.
==>Facebook Overtakes Orkut in India – Another Setback for Google
==>Hazare ended his fast on 28 August 2011,after  starting it on 16 August 2011 after the Indian Government had passed the resolution for the Lokpal Bill unanimously,
==>Thailand faced the worst  Floods in 70 Years 


September , 2011
September 8, 2011 was the 10th anniversary of the twin tower attacks

October , 2011
==>Libya's tyrannical dictator for more than a decade breathed his last on 20 October 2011
==>New Gundam series “Mobile Suit Gundam AGE”  begins airing on October 9, 2011

November , 2011
==> I joined "indiblogger" on 22nd Nov 2011 


December , 2011
==>On 16th I  got my first Indiblogger rank
==>kim Jong II ,the North Korean dictator breathes his last
==>US pulls out of Iraq .The last of the soldiers too have left the country

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Catch the fever: It'll help you fight off infection, evidence shows

    With cold and flu season almost here, the next time you're sick, you may want to think twice before taking something for your fever. That's because scientists have found more evidence that elevated body temperature helps certain types of immune cells to work better. This research is reported in the November 2011 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
Source:- Catch the fever: It'll help you fight off infection, evidence shows

How to Add Your Blogger Post To Search Engines ?

 What should one do after making a post in blogger ? Well,the obvious answer is to promote the blog post in blog aggregation sites ,share it in social sites in facebook and twitter.Finally ,one also needs to submit them to Search Engines  like Goggle and Bing to increase the chances of your posts showing up in the search results. If this is not done then there is likely hood that you posts may not show up in the search results


Add Your Post To Google Index
 You need to navigate to your dashboard in blogger site and then scroll down and look for "Webmaster Tools" under Other Stuff ==> Tools and Resources.
Alternatively your can use the following direct link


  On clicking the webmaster link it will take you t a page where your blogger site would have been automatically added , provided you have logged in into the google account which you are using for maintaining your blog
   Open your blog in the tool and using  the tree menu on the left navigate to "Diagnostics" ==> "Fetch as Googlebot". You can index individual pages / posts and all links in the page.Make sure that you provide the relative URL of post in the text box and hit fetch. The tools will typically take a few seconds to fetch the post and when it shows that fetching is successful hit the link "URL and linked pages submitted to index" which is right next to the fetched post. If tools gives the message "Not found"on submitting the post then you have not provided the right / valid URL.


Submission of a post
Successful submission of a link to the Googlebot.
 There are limited number of submissions  that are available ,per week and you may get and error message if you exceed your limit / quota.


You can also use the following the links in your blogs  in mass under "Site Configuration" ==> "sitemaps" in the webmasters tool. You may need to re-submit the "sitemap" after making new posts.

Feed URLs for your blog:-


feeds/posts/default <== Brings recent posts
feeds/posts/default?alt=rss&max-results=1000
<== Brings up to 1000 recent posts.You can modify the max results parameter in the above link to adjust the number of posts

Sitemap Submission
Re - Submission


Add Your Post To Bing Index

 You need to go the Bing webmaster site and submit the main URL of your blogger site and complete the captcha dialogue and hope for the best.

Bing Webmaster Tools Page
Successful Bing Submission

Add To ASK

You can submit your site to ASK formerly known as AskJeeves search engine by using the pasting the below url in your address bar of your browser and hitting return or enter button.
==>You should first obtain the feed of you blogger site which would be something like:-http://blogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml
==>Then substitute it in the following url:-
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://blogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml
==>If the submission is successful then you will get a successful message as shown below
==>If you need more info ,go here

Ping Like there is no tomorrow

 Yeah ,It is difficult to do all this each time you make a post. If there is no pain,there is no gain . Go to the following sites and submit your blog url and the full rss / atom feeds of your blog.You can instantly double your page rank and search visibility of your posts.


Tiny List Of Active pinging services:-
http://feedshark.brainbliss.com/
http://pingates.com/
http://pingomatic.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
http://www.blogpingtool.com/
http://www.pingoat.com/
http://www.millionping.com/
http://pingler.com/
http://www.pingblognow.com/
http://www.blogpingsite.com/
http://www.seo41.com/blog-ping.php
http://www.blogpingtool.com/

Note:- There is also a downside to doing these optimisations . Your site may actually be targeted by unnecessary referral traffic.


You may also use this link to submit to a entire gamut of search engines

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Facebook,BloggerTrap

Facebook , Blogger Online Trap
This post is about my misadventure on a fake facebook site . The other day i was trying to post an article in my blog when i mis-typed the URL in my browser as "bogger.com" instead of "blogger.com". I hadn't realised it and suddenly the page was mysteriously redirected to another website.


Then a pop up appeared saying that I got a friend request . Those who spend most of their spare time in facebook will definitely fall for it.
After the hit "OK" button on the pop up window,it began to show a page similar to that of facebook .It showed a woman's picture with a "confirm" and "ignore" button.
Suddenly my senses snapped back and realised that this is definitely not facebook :-).The web page looked similar but definitely is not a facebook.Then i began telling myself that i should be more careful while browsing .

Please read this post and take care that you don't get fooled on Internet . There is a real danger that your login credentials and your computer may also get infected by malware ,worms, viruses etc...

==>The first rule of thumb is to be very cautious an alert while browsing Internet
==>The second rule of thumb is not to click any link in your mail or on the net unless it is from a known and trusted source

For brave souls this is the link to fake facebook site / friend request

There is similar facebook related scam that i had written about earlier :- Beware of Fake "Facebook Mails","Friend Request"

Friday 9 December 2011

Sehwag Steals Thunder from Sachin



Sehwag Steals Thunder from Sachin / Sehwag ,The god of records

 Why did Sehwag steal the thunder from Sachin ? Why did he choose to overthrow the Indian cricketing god from the position of highest run scorer in a single innings in ODI cricket? Why did Sehwag choose this day to break Sachin (his mentor's) record

==>He wants to replace Sachin / overthrow because he has had enough hearing about Sachin's 100'th hundred (OR) Dravid's rise in test cricket and hit a purple patch?

==>He wants to claim his rightful place in  hearts of India's cricket obsessed populace by putting together his own enviable set of records?

==>He has suddenly woken up from his English siesta?

==>He wants commentators to again start comparing him to ODI cricketing legends of yesteryears like Desmond Haynes,Richie Richardson?

==>He wanted to be interviewed again by Indian news channels ?

==>He wants to show up at the post match presentation and get the man of the match award from Ravi and co

==>He wants a documentary made out of him in cricinfo?

==>Like always he wants to throw a little surprise to the Indian cricket maniacs?

==>He doesn't want to get dropped from the team for the Australian Tour 2011/2012?

==>He wants to show Ashwin / Ojha their places in the Indian cricket team pecking Order by showing that he is batsmen supreme?

==>All he wanted to do is to play a captain's innings?

==>He wanted to put the West Indians in their place lest they get carried away by their victory at Motera?

==>He was losing a lot of advertisements to Dhoni that he has decided to score some runs and divert the attention of advertisers towards him ?

==>He was on a High?

==>He has just regained his form ?

==>He wanted to get a thunderous applause from the stands which he didn't for a long long time?

==>He was in a very bad mood that he wanted to belt the ball around the park?

==>He was seeing the cricket ball like a football ?

==>Did he have Boost / Bournvita / Horlicks / Complan early in the morning?

==>He wants one of the stands in In Indore, Holkar stadium to be named after him and commemorate this feat

==>He was just rockin to "why this kolaveri" tune?

==>Or he just wanted to surprise / amaze / bamboozle / the cricket fan in me ? and make me write this post (NAY)

Like always Sehwag is as unpredictable as ever.!!!!!!!! He is just being himself.

Stats

Batsmen:V Sehwag
Runs:219
Balls:149
Fours:25
Sixes:7
Strike Rate:146.97
More details here

After reading this post, you want to imitate Sehwag and hit a few fours and sixers ,then go ahead,help yourself here

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Get Weather Updates On Gnome 3.2.1 openSUSE 12.1

Get Weather Updates On Gnome 3.2.1 openSUSE 12.1

 Everyone would like to have an applet or widget on our panel to indicate the that day's weather conditions.What we need is the shell extension gnome-shell-extension-weather - Weather forecast GNOME Shell Extension.The tool I am using gives all sorts or weather related info like temperature , humidity etc:


Download / Get The Package or rpm:-
Since it is still early days for openSUSE 12.1 there is no rpm or software package available in the openSUSE repositories for this extension.Since I am impatient I am getting it from a third party repo.Since it is a noarch rpm I am picking a fedora rpm.Link for rpm download is this
Get the binary after selecting the mirror from that site.The binary / rpm / package should resemble this name:-
"gnome-shell-extension-weather-0.0.0-0.3.14203f05git.fc16.R.noarch.rpm"

Install The Package or rpm:-
After downloading the rpm

Zypper way
==>Open the terminal
==>Navigate to the directory of the download using cd <space><dirname>
==> Execute the command :-
"sudo zypper in gnome-shell-extension-weather-0.0.0-0.3.14203f05git.fc16.R.noarch.rpm"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted

GUI Way
If you you are no too comfortable with command mode and you want  to use a GUI or user interface for installation then you need to look for "YaST/GUI way" of installing the rpms under subtitle Installation here


Setting Up / Configuring and Activating the weather Applet :-

==>You need to find the "Where On Earth Code" first for you city or town.
To get your woeid you need to search for the weather update at weather.com and then copy / extract the code from address address bar of your browser.The following image shows how to do it for a particular city
Alternatively you can also get woeid here
==>Then open "weather-extension-configurator" . You can find the extension configuration tool in Activities(press left Windows key in keyboard) , sub-menu Applications .You can launch it using quick launch window or "Run Application" dialogue of GNOME and then type in "weather-extension-configurator" and hitting return or enter key . In the configuration tool  you can plugin your WOEID of your city you found using above step an configure whether you want temperature display in  metric system (degree Celsius) or degree Fahrenheit.
==>Then activate the extension using "gnome-tweak-tool" or "Advanced Settings". The tweak tool can be launched using command "gnome-tweak-tool" in "Run Application" dialogue or the tool can be launched using Applications menu and the name would be "Advanced Settings". The tweak tool snapshot is shown below.

Image showing weather extension,extension configuration tool and gnome tweak tool.


If you liked this post, you may like check out:-
Things to do after moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)
                       (OR)

Saturday 3 December 2011

Why is corruption Good?

Why is corruption Good ?{parody}

If you think  corruption is bad,think again.Only if there is rampant corruption in the can the following happen in our country(INDIA).

==>People / commoners can get loads of  cash during elections,especially in states like Tamil Nadu.





==>No we have parks with  lots of stone elephants nicknamed hati parks in UP .These must really be a paradise for elephant enthusiasts , maniacs and wild life conservationists.The need of the hour is not splitting of UP into 4 states but splitting UP into two states,one accommodating all the hundreds, thousands  of stone elephants present in the state and the other for humans to live in.




==>Lot of mines and that means more jobs,Karnataka should now resemble moon with all of its huge craters.We can change its name to Craternataka.
If we are creative enough,we can also convert the mines into tourist spots (OR)Water parks(OR) water reservoirs for irrigating fields in summer.

==>Get entertainment Non stop 365 days a year. Nowadays it is amusing to watch news channels showing many politicians running away from police , making scenes at court . This is more exiting than T20 brand of cricket. I found too many amazing ways by which we can hoodwink the law like saying that i have Bad health,by saying that you belong to fairer sex,by saying that you are too old.Long live the game of cat and mouse.

==>New way to learn numbers for young children 1G,2G,3G.This way even parent will definitely enjoy teaching children than lame 1 apple and so on.

==>Delhi police who were getting bored of dealing with terror suspects can now for a change start deal with huge crowds of people flocking to Delhi to protest against corruption led by Anna and the infamous baba Ramdev.

==>You can get decorate your city with hordes of statues of your favourite leaders.Even better, these efforts may get India one more entry into Guinness book of world records.




==>Finally owning and wearing a Gandhi topi is way cooler than a branded  rebook cap or pair of shades.Don't ask me as to why it is called Gandhi topi . Personally I have never seen  Ghandhi wearing it in any pictures / photos depicting him.

==>Breed and export fish using aborted pipeline projects like old veeranam .{Excerpt from article :-The ornamental fish breeding project in the coastal village of Keelamanakudi in Chidambaram district was started last year to supplement the incomes of poor, landless women. The unused hume pipes from the aborted Veeranam water project were used to set up backyard fish breeding enterprises. The project is a big success, and fish is being exported to Singapore. Overseas demand has far exceeded supply. The production cost is less than 8 per cent of the price that the fish fetch; last year each woman earned an income of over Rs.4,000.}

==>Use wads of currency notes as fans in parliament.

Play Angry Anna Online

Friday 2 December 2011

Two Songs i like from Vaagai Sooda Vaa,Lyrics linked

Vaagai Sooda Vaa-Sara Sara Saara Kathu HQ Video Song



Lyrics of Sara Sara Saara Kaathu from Vaagai Sooda Vaa Sung By Chinmayee Lyrics By Vairamuthu Music By M Ghibran humming Pallavi sara sa...

Poraney Poraney HQ Song - Vaagai Sooda Vaa Movie



Lyrics of Poraney Poraney from Vaagai Sooda Vaa Sung By Ranjith & Neha Bhasin Lyrics By Karthink Neha Music By M Ghibran

Add Personal Touch To Blogger By Adding Fav Icon

Add Personal Touch To Blogger By Adding Fav Icon
 After playing around with the various templates and applying them onto my blog an trying out the gadgets i have tried to add  one more piece  customisation to my blog by creating a fav icon.Th favourite icon not only adds a nice touch to the web page but also shows up in the bookmarks whenever you bookmark your web page in your browser.
Step 1:-
Create Icon in Pinta
The first step involves creating the icon file. I have used a tool called pinta which is a light weight image editor for which i am using to creating a simple icon file. Get your 1-click installer for pinta here
==>Open Pinta 
==>Resize Canvas To either 16x16 , 32X32 or 25X25 Pixels

 ==>Ensure that Pixel Pixel rid and Rulers are on.This will help greatly while working with individual pixels as well as aligning your icon
==>To create a simple text based icon use the bucket tool to cover all the pixels with a single colour
==>Type in the required Text in a contrasting colour.
==> You can Apply effects like Sharpen to make the wording crispier.
==>Also note that you can choose the required font for the  text to appear funky or stylish


==>Save the image in ".ico" format
==>Of course if you are good with image creation tools you can create varied patterns and designs and thus create nice icon files
==>Always upload the image and test whether the icon look fine.Though your design might  awesome,one uploading it to site it might not look fabulous.
Step 2:-
Adding icon to Blogger
==>After logging into blogger ,click on "design"  link of your blog
==>In the design page click on the "Edit" link of the "Favicon" gadget.
 ==>Browse your desktop,locate the icon file that you have created  and save the page.
==>After this step i would advise to close  all the browser windows and clear the browser cache and restart the blogger and view the blog.This step is needed because typically browsers cache the fav icons and they will not show new fav icon unless the browser is closed and opened.The below screen shots show the blog before and after the fav icon change


Highlights Your Posts

It will make your posts stand out in the Reading Lists in blogger if one follows you in blogger. If anyone subscribes to your blogs rss feed too your favourite icon  will get displayed.

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Install sun java and plugin on openSUSE 12.1

Install sun java and browser plugin on openSUSE 12.1

 Due to licensing issues openSUSE has dropped sun java from its repositories from openSUSE 12.1 onwards.Read the  release notes here

First you need to determine the OS architecture(32 or 64 bit).
==>To do this you can open terminal(press Alt+F2 and type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter key)
==>In terminal execute the command "arch". It should give you output like "i586" or "i686" [32 bit] (Or) "x86_64" [64 bit]
Based on the architecture the relevant package must be downloaded.

You need  to install
==>jre or Java Run-time Environment is needed for executing jars or running class files on your system.Some application software like openoffice / libreoffice  need this to work properly.
==>Browser plugin is used to run applets on your browser

My Output

The Easy Way
This approach involves downloading the relevant rpms or software packages[Learn about packages] and then installing this using command mode(zypper way) or using YaST or GUI way

==>Get / download the rpms or packages for sun java jre here

==>Get / download the rpms or packages for browser plugin here
Warning : Don't use the one-click installs in above pages,just download the rpms and install them manually.If you use the one-click installs it will mess up your repositories unless you opt for not subscribing to 11.4 repository

JRE download

Browser Plugin download


Installation

Zypper way
==>Open the terminal
==>Navigate to the directory of the download using cd <space><dirname>
==> Execute the command :-
"sudo zypper in java-1_6_0-sun-1.6.0.u29-0.2.1.i586.rpm java-1_6_0-sun-plugin-1.6.0.u29-0.2.1.i586.rpm"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted

YaST/GUI way

==>Press the left windows key on the keyboard and click on "Applications menu"
==>Open Install / Remove Software under "Applications"
Note:- You may need to enter admin passcode when prompted

==>Click on configuration==>repositories
==>Click "+Add" button in the repositories (configured software repositories) window
==>choose "Local Directory" in the "Media Type"(Screenshot below) window and click "Next"
==>In the next window and  give a name to the repository like "rpms" and then choose the path where your downloaded files/rpms are.The  downloaded path should be something like "/home/<User Name>/Downloads", and enable the checkbox "Plain RPM Directory"then click "Next"

==>You should see a new repository or repo by name "rpms" there.
Click "Ok" button
==>You should come back to the main window.Here you need to click a drop down on the left and navigate to repository and choose the new repository "rpms"
==>Check the packages to install i.e."sun java and plugin" and hit the"Apply" button.After the installation finishes you can check the installation. Relevant screenshots are below.

Install/Remove Software
Media Type
Choose Directory
See New Repo "rpms"
Click on "Groups"
Choose rpms repo and Install JRE

If you liked this post then you might be interested in taking a a look at :-

Things to do after moving to openSUSE 12.1 (Asparagus)


The Hard Way

You can us this link to do a manual / geeky install.

Check Installation

If you are looking to test your installation then you need to open the terminal
an execute the command "java -version"



To check browser plugin Navigate here or here

If the installation is successful you must see something like this :-



Run or Execute jar files
If you looking for launching (or) running jar files then ,look here