Author: Haris Ibrahim K. V.

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Open source v/s Free software.

People usually think both are the same. At least I used to. Until recently when I found out that it wasn’t so. Let me try to make it clear for you.

Open source:

Open source is a development methodology where the source code of the product is made available to the public. The ideology behind this is that as more people get to look at the code, better codes will be written and as such better products will be made. As I said, it is an approach to the development of a product.

Free software:

Whereas, free software is a moral code to follow. Under this, a user is granted with four freedoms. Richard Stallman, the founder of the free software movement, puts them down as follows:

  • Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
  • Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
  • Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
  • Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits

Thus free software is just the decision you personally take that “My code is free”.

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Now the very interesting point is that if a closed source product is better than a corresponding open source one, the open source ideology will have failed. But whatever happens, the free software mantra never fails as long as you decide your code is free because the four rules hold always. 🙂

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Motor pump.

Nothing special. It pumps water from our well to our water tank. It used to work really well and did not usually give us trouble. Until that day…

11th of May, night.

My sister’s wedding was the coming day. Suddenly all our pipes went dry. No water in our tank. The motor pump was put on but alas, water did not rise up and reach the tank.

The plumber was called immediately.

He diagnosed the pump as a doctor would a patient and found that the hose that carried water from the pump to the tank had broken at the joint.

FIRST JOINT!

He fixed it right away, lowered the pump back in, put on the  switch and viola! Water rose up the hose! He went.

Not half an hour had passed when the sound of a lot of water splashing was heard. I ran out to our well and what did I see? Water was falling into the well from the pump!! What? How the heck could that happen?? A quick look gave me the answer. The fixed joint was safe there. But the other joint, the joint of the hose (which carries water from the well to the pump through the foot valve) and the pump had come off and the water staying in the hose was flowing back out into the well.

SECOND JOINT!

The plumber was called immediately.

Pump pulled out. Joint fixed. Lowered back in. Switch put on. Water rose up. Five minutes later the water rose no more.

“Now what?”, asked all of us.

Looking into the well, (a lot of heads sticking into the circumference of the well mouth), we were again blessed with the answer. THERE WAS NO MORE WATER IN THE WELL!

Oh great. Fantastic. Absolutely wonderful.

Quick thoughts came from everyone to somehow get water to our tank. Someone even suggested drawing water from the neighboring well and pouring it into our tank. Thanks to some concerned members of our family that it was his last suggestion. Finally a hose was extended from the tank of our neighboring house to ours for a while and we got almost one full tank of water. Thank God! I used the toilet peacefully.

12th of May, morning.

Wedding day. Our neighbors put on the motor pump to pump water into our tank. And much too obviously, not a drop was reaching our tank! And why, you may ask. Now our neighbor’s pump was turning off due to over heating!

The plumber was called immediately.

Diagnosis – done. Problem – overheating. Solution – replace the motor! And guess which motor was going to replace it? Yup. Correct. Good guess.

So the motor pump from our well was lifted and dragged all the way back to our neighbor’s and it was set there. Switched on. Worked fine. Everyone happy. The plumber let go off a sigh of relief and went back home to straighten his back. We all had a nice laugh and the wedding day went by uneventfully.

13th of May, evening.

The ‘our motor in our own house’ policy was put forth by dad.

The plumber was called immediately.

Five of us lugged the darn thing back to our house and the plumber set it up successfully. Switched on. Worked fine. (Water had risen in the well by this time). Everyone happy. We teased the plumber telling him that we’d write a story of him and our motor (Although none of us thought I’d actually have to write it).

5 days later….

19th of May, early morning.

Motor pump was switched on by mom as she does everyday morning. About at 7.30, when dad tried the tap in the bathroom upstairs, it hissed.

“Ahoy there! Turn on the motor pump!”, shouted dad.

“But it IS already on!”, replied mom.

“Mayday! Turn it off. Something is wrong!”, said dad and he went to take a look at the well.

I woke up at 8.30. Went to the toilet. Answered nature’s calls gracefully, brushed and finally had to wet my hair to comb it. Just while thinking of it, the water from the pump slowly drained away and started hissing. I got out, hair all messed up and asked around why nobody had put on the motor pump yet. I soon found out the answer.

The foot valve had dropped off into the well from the edge of the hose!

THIRD JOINT!

The plumber was called immediately.

But this time, unfortunately for us, the plumber did not respond immediately. Suffice to say we had a nice day of drawing water from the well for all our daily needs.

Evening.

Dad grew tired of waiting and went and bought a new foot valve. He was about to fix it on his own when the plumber showed up. Dad made sure that the plumber felt sorry that he couldn’t make it any earlier. He fixed the new foot valve onto the hose. Pump lowered. Switched on. Working fine.

There was a pipe in the car porch that needed fixing too. The motor was switched off for a while for this. He fixed the pipe, got paid and was happily on his way.

The motor was put on again and we were eagerly waiting to feel the joy of seeing water flow from our pipes. And dad went upstairs to bath. He turned the tap and waited for a while. Not even a hissing sound was coming. It was enough for him to know that nothing was reaching the tank. But it wasn’t enough for the rest of us and we told him to wait. Five minutes later we heard a cry.

“STOP THE MOTOR!!!!!!!!!” It was dad. He had climbed onto the terrace and had taken a peek into the tank which revealed that nothing really was reaching it.

The plumber was called immediately.

One look did not reveal the problem this time. The whole thing was lifted up can you even guess what the problem was?

The foot valve actually consists of two halves. One half with the nozzle part to be fixed onto the hose and the other half with the actual valve. The second one is actually screwed onto the first through nine lines of threading.

THIS SECOND HALF OF THE NEWLY FIXED FOOT VALVE HAD SCREWED OFF AND FELL INTO THE WELL! HOW THE HELL IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE???

FOURTH JOINT!

And it took both my brother’s and the plumber’s strength to unscrew the old foot valve. How could a foot valve so tightly screwed together be unscrewed from within the well? We praised our motor.

It was fixed. The motor was put on and we have a full tank of water now.

I wait with lots of hope for tomorrow. 🙂

PS: I suggested we buy a new motor pump. Dad said, “Suppose your hand got wounded and you couldn’t use it, will you just kill yourself or try to heal your hand?” 🙂

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They made my day.

First of all, the guys of my class!

Aj – The treasurer.

Arjun – Master blaster.

Bose – The CS compiler. 😀

Chellappan, Ponnappan – Mr. Smile and Mr. CS respectively.

Usbu –  A brother to me.

GKV – A singer and thinker.

Gori – Just like me. 🙂

Haresh – The pure, perfect, crystal clear veg.

Jansheed – The hot boy. 😛

Jayan – My neighbour and the cool one.

Kannan – Raw power.

Kunjunj – The experimenter.

Reppayi – Microprocessor (A very big one though :P)

Panju – Sports? Look no further.

Rahul – The biggest programmer among us. 🙂

Rambo Jinu – JH spice chairman, CEO, secretary, peon, sweeper and what all bloody titles there are left. 😀

Rithwik – Mr. Personality.

Sabareesh – Life is cool.

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Mansoor and Shahjahan. My MIC hostel roommates when I was repeating for entrance.

Arjun Vishnu and Deepu. My neighbours.

Shibin, Najeeb and Riyas. My hostelmates.

Shabeeb. My roommate.

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Hashim. My childhood friend my classmate and now my senior. He’s the best. God bless him. 🙂 🙂

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Also with the blessings of Manu Mohan (who worked really hard but just couldn’t make it),  Revathy (who actually called me up on April 12th!!), Don, Afaf, Pretty, Namitha, Poornima and Varun (miss him). My classmates.

Also with the blessings of Ishaq (my neighbour and MIC hostelmate) and Anees (the guy with attitude 😛 . My college mate)

My sister’s wedding will be an everlasting one in my memory. To have done my part in it gives me a sense of responsibility and confidence. But what was lacking was given to me by everyone above. Especially those who took the trouble to come and bless the occasion.

It is sad that certain people whom I expected the most did not turn up. Also not even one of the girls in my class showed up. Not even those who were close to my home.

Well, but words can’t express the happiness I felt on seeing the gang that made to the legendary city EMC (Edappal Metropolitan City) and they made my day. 🙂

PS: I won’t be forgetting the way all of them ate in a hurry. 😀 😀

Here they are! :D

The dudes!!!

The wedding is over and I wait for the next time we can all be together for a celebration. 🙂

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Editing GRUB menu in ubuntu 10.04 and above.

1. Open a terminal.

2. Type in

sudo update-grub

Type in your password.

3. Go to the directory /boot/grub. To do this type

cd /boot/grub

4. Here if you type ls, a lot of files will be there. Fortunately, we’re only interested in grub.cfg.

5. Open grub.cfg with a text editor. To do this type

sudo gedit grub.cfg &

(The ampersand sign (&) is to run the gedit program in the background while we can use the terminal for other purposes. Try executing the above command without the ‘&’ sign and you will understand)

6. In there, find the following line

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

7. From the beginning of this line, select till the end of the file. The last line of the file will be

### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

8. After you have selected it, copy it. Right-click, copy will do.

9. Now go back to the terminal and go to the /etc/grub.d directory. To do this type

cd /etc/grub.d

10. In this directory, type ls to see the files present. There will be a file called 40_custom. Open this up using the following command

sudo gedit 40_custom &

11. There will be a few lines at the top. Don’t worry. Just paste whatever you copied from grub.cfg over here. Right-click, paste will do.

12. After you have pasted, look closely at it. There will be something similar to the following

menuentry ‘Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx right here!!’ –class ubuntu –class gnu-linux –class gnu –class os {
    recordfail
    insmod ext2
    set root='(hd0,9)’
    search –no-floppy –fs-uuid –set cafb13dd-92cd-4618-acfe-de02a0ca49e5
    linux    /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-28-generic root=UUID=cafb13dd-92cd-4618-acfe-de02a0ca49e5 ro   quiet splash
    initrd    /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-28-generic
}

The difference will be in what is written in between the quotes. You can change that to whatever you want displayed on the grub menu.

Also for whichever entries you want removed from the grub menu, just delete the corresponding menuentry blocks from the 40_custom file. Deleting a menuentry block means deleting the block starting from the words ‘menuentry’ till ‘}’.

Once you’ve done enough modifications, save the file and close it.

13. Now the terminal is staying in /etc/grub.d itself right? Run the following command from there.

sudo chmod -x /etc/grub.d/10_linux /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober

14. Alright you’re almost ready to go. Just do one more thing.

sudo update-grub

15. Ah good. Restart your system and you will see your own grub. 🙂 Good luck. 🙂

For more detailed description (and a description that makes much more sense too), please visit

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275

Thank you! 🙂

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Nayeem Noor Mohammed.

The big guy (literally).

I got to hear about him during my first year at college. Here is the story. I really believe this post is worth writing.

One fine day evening Pradeep and Vimal (my hostel roomies, Electrical Department) had some news for me. It was Humanities seminar for them the last hour that day.

It was a girl’s seminar. Or rather, a female student’s seminar (just to avoid the riff raff 😉 ). The topic I don’t remember. But here we go.

At the ending of her seminar, she finally concluded up with the idea that females should also have freedom and something of the sort. On a small scale she pointed out the lack of need for females to wear the Purdah (a kind of black loose dress which covers up almost everything).

Confidently, she stopped and started going back to her place. Just as she was about to sit down….

(A music playing in the background and a bit of slow motion would be nice too… 😀 )

Naeem Noor Mohammed stands up.

“Ma’am”, says he, “I have a question.”

“Do ask son”, replied the teacher.

Naeem, facing the girl, begins.

“Suppose you are walking through a ‘not so clean’ market. There are two apples with a street vendor. One covered and the other exposed to the flies and dust. My friend, I ask you… Which one will you take?”

The teacher jumped up from her place, “THAT IS THE QUESTION!!!”, she ejaculated.

The analogy sinked in pretty quick and there was much shouting and roaring. The class was dismissed.

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Well, that is the story. And I simply loved the delivery. I was a great fan of his and I still am, realizing he is a man of many talents. Pradeep and Vimal calls me Noor. 🙂 Koushik to an extend too. I love them all. With lots of memories…

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Omen?

The question mark there is not actually to ask whether what I’m going to write is an Omen or not but to ask whether that should be title for this post. Well, that’s actually the same thing, but a slight difference if you know what I mean. 😉

Its actually quite hurting when people call you names. But in contrast to that, there are times when getting called by certain names by certain people are the best moments of your life.

I’ve got a few of those names alright.

  • Kaakku
  • MPK (Metro Pottan Kaakku)
  • Noor
  • CBI (Complaint Box Inspector)

This post is not about what I feel on hearing those names but about two small incidents regarding the second and third names.

Only two or three call me Noor. And its meaning is ‘light’ by which I feel proud in the fact that I’m being called that. But one fine day when I had went to a nearby shop from our Hostel, I happened to see a Jeep. A delivery Jeep.

With a kind of… I don’t know what the word is… A kind of something, I read the name written on the Jeep…

NOOR SETTU BEEDIS

Beedis means cigarettes and Noor Settu was the company name!!! From then on my height didn’t increase that much whenever those two or three called me Noor.

But the wonder was that Jeep coming so close to our hostel just to show me that. 🙂

Now, coming to the second name… Wouldn’t you say that very three letters being on a truck will be just plain insult?? 😛 Whatever you say, last Friday, just as I was about to enter mosque, while crossing the road, a few fierce honks came. I had just time to jump out of the way and look at what the hell was honking at me. You know what I saw? An ape autorickshaw with its name written as:

MPK SONS

So I ask you again, Omen? 😉

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Rose.

If I say the following is a poem, I’d be doing a great injustice to the great poets who have walked the Earth. So just read it and take it as you feel.

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Oh how I thought the bloomed Rose would stay the way that it was,

   enjoying its smell and company each and every day.

Its thorns would prick only once a while,

   which I mistook for hate.

But alas I saw that it was not so,

   and the Rose was fading out.

A sound from afar came into play telling me a thing,

   that a Rose is a life that is on a plant and it has its own life too.

It has to get the water and nourishment it needs,

    without which its root won’t stay in God’s Green Earth.

I look back now and see that how little water I’ve given it,

    it has started to fade, so now with all my life….

                                  I’m going to take care of it.

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With love,

Dedicated to the Rose still clinging to life in my Garden…

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See? – Saw?

People used to believe in things that they see. But I guess that idea is not that true as the following video proves. I lost a bit faith in my own very eyes as it deceived me. Just do as the video says and keep looking at the spot. After the video is over, read what I’ve written underneath.

Concentrating on the dot, you saw a color picture at the end right? With green grass, blue sky and all? Then watch that video once more looking anywhere but the dot and see if that green grass and blue sky was really there! Please don’t hate me!!!

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A west day’s end.(An unfinished story)

Intro: This was written during my first year of college. I wanted to write something and this is what I did. However, the story reached a point where I couldn’t make myself to continue with it. It ended up in me calling two of my friends and having a hearty discussion about it. Are we alive?

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The sun was setting. It seemed to him that with the sunset, the final hopes of joy and life were going to go forever. It was not as if life was always kind to him. But life being kind or not was not his problem.

He walked slowly across the beach, golden in sight as if by Midas’ touch. Not a soul was in sight and he knew it would be so. It was his first time there and probably his last time too. He came there to collect his thoughts. His own thoughts only soothed by the calm voice of the waves.

He walked on. His body seemed a burden to his feet and his mind was an unsolved jigsaw puzzle. He would solve it today or never. Such was his decision.

Time was plenty as the quietness and the red sun seemed to slow down the time to almost a standstill. He at last found the place he was looking for. A stone, a single rock standing upright determined to be there until the end of days and not to be moved by anyone.

He slowly settled down by the side of it. He had brought with him a bottle of wine called the ‘vintage 726’. He had picked it upon his way just to contain himself if anything was to go absolutely out  of control. He had heard enough to know that wine could wash away all the hurt in one’s mind. Of course, he had never tried it out till now. But if he was to, this would’ve been the best place to try it out.

He made himself comfy by the rock’s side. He wanted somehow to start his train of thoughts.

There was no rush. He watched the sun go down inch by inch, plunging the world into a realm of darkness.

Why? He thought. What is the purpose of all these things happening? Was it all a part of a predetermined or already written story? Then what is point in thinking things over? All that happens is bound to happen. So what am I doing?

As usual, a number of questions and zero answers. But he would not give up. He would not leave until he challenged his own very existence. This time, for once, he was determined not to give up.

“People were entitled to their beliefs and opinions. That doesn’t mean I have to be to theirs too, does it? Of course not. There is a purpose, a certain hidden force that drove me to this very spot, for this very purpose. I shall discover that.

If this was predetermined, then how come I can think it is predetermined? Do the characters in the stories of great authors ever think if they are only just creations doing and living according to the author’s whims? No they do not. But I wondered that. I have burdened myself with the doubt whether I am just a character in someone’s story”.

With this thought, he suddenly felt a tingling excitement. “Suppose I am just a character, then anything can happen now!”. Just as this thought crossed his mind, he heard a rumbling sound. At first it sounded like some trucks shifting on the beach, but then it started growing louder. The shiver came up through his spine.

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Marsh.

When you by mistake stamp on quick sand… Or a marsh… You always realize it a bit too late… The terror of losing the very thing you love, your life, strikes your heart and you claw and do everything you can to get out from there… To regain the thing you love… But that only makes matters worse… You just keep going deep into it… Inch by inch.. You lose hope, you lose faith… You try to think of something but everything comes into your head together… You are dead, dead for sure… Unless, unless a helping hand, unexpected, comes and reaches for you. The hand pulls you out and gives you your most precious back… But in a marsh where no man dares to go, where will such a hand come from? Someone have to have followed you… Or someone must’ve been there close enough to hear your cry for help…

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Sudden brakes are bad news.

Just because we’re not prepared for it. Whatever the journey be, whoever is doing the journey, sudden brakes just ruins it completely. Your heart gets thrown into your esophagus first, then your interior ventriculum upsets your bile secretions thereby fusing your brain momentarily. It takes a few seconds to fully realize what the hell happened and that happens only once you’re thrown back in your seat. But by that time, you’re back to your old state…

Now I assume that you’re wondering what’s with all the brakes and stuff… Thing is, college closed a certain day at noon just like that. Its vacation now and all my senses tell me that I’ll realize I’m in my vacation only when the college reopens. And by that time, you’ve already been thrown back into your seat. You’ll just have to resume the journey… No complaining. Just trust the driver.

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The rotation wire cutter.

What is the world coming to when people don’t have any respect for public property?

Okay, there is this fan that rotates (the table fan kinda thing, the only difference being that its on the wall) in front of the class above the blackboard. It is supposed to cool the first two benchers of the first two rows while entering the class. However, due to an unfortunate turn of events, some nasty, putrid scallawagger cut the two pull-a-chords of the fan. One was for speed. Alright, let it be because you can get on the table and use the speed regulator on the fan. But what about the rotation chord??? Why did that bugglyjopper have to cut that?? Idiot. Now the fan can face only one way and the sun isn’t showing any mercy.

Our and our neighboring benchers even got on a small fight over the matter of who deserves the fan more. At last compromises like “one day for you and one day for us” were reached. But its bull. The heat really is unbearable.

I still marvel at that squishgumper who cut that rotation wires…

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Shalin Jain.

The inaugural programme of Abacus. He came and delivered the stunning talk on entrepreneurship at our college, NSSCE Palakkad. We have someone to look upto. Nice and calm guy with a lot of tastes. Hope his first trip to Kerala was unforgettable! 😀