Two Awesome Weeks At Bangalore

Published on June 14, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Things just keep getting better by day. Living alone by oneself is not easy, but the thought of your friends joining you in another 10 days keeps you going. Apart from that, life’s good at B’lore.

My first job at Fair Isaac has almost everything I ever desired. I have my own desk, with reasonable amount of privacy. I have an awesome 4gb laptop. I am part of a great group of people, who like to party and travel places together. And the team is led by a manager who himself doesn’t care much about formalities and is completely friendly with us.

Our group of campus recruits has lots of good people. I have made some nice friends. And though shortly we shall be moving away to our respective teams, I hope to keep in touch with them and spend more time together. Luckily, a few of them are on the ground floor, the same as me.

As I mentioned earlier, my friends from Kharagpur shall be joining me pretty soon. Once they are here, it will be party time and lots of fun. Also Chuski will be coming for enrollment into the management course at IIMB. Yay .. a treat’s due :D .

The best thing however is that I have not yet managed to get the gas conneciton transferred. :D … So I am having to dine out everytime. Lucky me. Cooking alone would just be devastating. I have done enough cooking in Switzerland last summer to last a lifetime.

The only downside to the whole life at work is that using windows is mandatory. :( . I am already missing ubuntu. I am missing amarok. A new version of it has been released and I cannot test it.

Also, it was boring transitioning to Java. I am still in love with the complexity of C. Moving on is turning out to be difficult.

Sadly, now I have to go and get started on my Java project. Enough procastinating already.

Yet Another Transition

Published on May 29, 2009 in Anu. 1 Comment

After 4 happy years of coding in compiled languages of C and C++, the time has come to make a transition to the interpreted language of Java. The change is more of an imposed one than desired. And I am not getting drawn into the subject of compilers vs. interpretors, mainly because of my lack of experience with the latter category.

Starting the next week, I shall join the FICO, Bangalore. I am quite excited about the oppurtunity as I have received excellant inputs from my seniors and their friends regarding the kind of work that people do over there. Also I need a change from an university-like environment.

Now at Fair Isaac, apparently, people prefer Java over C++. Navin sir said that there are a group of people using C++, but the bulk of libraries and code is in Java. So it will be easier if I switch over to Java than C++, though it shouldn’t be a lot tougher sticking with it. And after giving it a thought, I have decided to learn Java. Learning a new programming language is all about going through its libraries and adapting them. It should be an easy enough task. Also since I have a basic understanding of objects, classes, inheritance and theior abstract nature, it should be easy enough.

The only thing I shall miss are the pointers. Sadly Java does not allow pointer access to programmers like the C does. I do not know the reason behind this restriction, but it sure makes me sad. Of late, most of my variables were being referenced by address and I was really getting into the habbit of using pointers. They make complicated things so easy to manage.

And then another thing is the usage of WIndows. I would really prefer Ubuntu for coding. I do not thing there should be any problem with using ubuntu. I just do not want to START to TURN OFF windows :P .

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Installing Amarok 1.4 in Ubuntu Jaunty

Published on May 1, 2009 in Tech. 6 Comments

Don’t like Amarok 2? Despair not, because there is a way to get back your Amarok 1.4 in Ubuntu Jaunty. Basically, you need to find a mirror of Amarok 1.4 and just install from there. One of those is mentioned below. This is all you have to do :

Add the repositories for Amarok 1.4 to your sources.list file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Add the key:

sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
0×1d7e9dd033e89ba781e32a24b9f1c432ae74ae63

And then finally, update your sources, remove Amarok 2 and install 1.4

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove amarok
sudo apt-get install amarok14

That’s it. You are done. You have successfully installed Amarok 1.4 in Jaunty. Have fun.

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Three Race ban For McLaren

Published on April 30, 2009 in Sports. 0 Comments

But guess what ! The ban comes with a string attached. The ban is hereby “SUSPENDED” unless any mor fresh evidence against McLaren is revealed or if McLaren makes a smilar fiasco in the next 12 months. Is this a joke ! FIA should have made this announcement on the 1st of April instead, at least there would have been a few takers.

After all the speculations and debates as to what would be a just penalty for a team that thought lying is a better way to achieve glory, this was a shameful anti-clmax. A general sentiment echoed by most of the fans was of a constructor points deduction or of a single match ban. The earlier option was a better one as it sought to punish the team McLaren for instructing Hamilton to lie and yet allow Hamilton to maintain his stake for the world championship.

But as declared, McLaren are free to race with no punishment what so ever. However, if any fresh evidence becomes public showing McLaren scheming to grab the third place by lying, then they will be handed the three race ban. Ridiculous ! How many more reasons does one need to conclude that the pair were lying in the face of the stewards. And what other motive can there be except to gain an advantage. A second criteria for the suspended ban to become active is if McLaren indulges in any wrong doing in the next 12 months. This looks like a mother telling her child not to be mischievious, unless he wants to fofeit his chocolate for a day.

The FIA took a stance that mcLaren had brought the sport into disrepute by lying. Its intentions were always to punish McLaren. A mild pnishment for the constructors would have done. but showing complete leniency in this regard invites other teams to use unfair means too.

What the FIA chose to do was play politics. Yes, nothing but politics. The intended target was always Ron Dennis. He eventually succumbed to the overall pressure and had to throw in his towel. Mosely should now be feeling quite relaxed with Ron out of the way.

I personally did not want the McLaren team to he handed a heavy penalty. Afterall, the diffuser row was enough to distract the atention from the main agenda of the sport, and these court ruling should be kept to bare minimum. But why make all the fuss and then shy away. FIA has got no balls. Ferrari has always ruled the sport. FIA has been afraid of Ferrari breaking away. Now McLaren joins the rank. Welcome to a New World Order wherein the organisation chosen to govern the teams is being governed by the teams themselves.

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Printing The Last 50 Lines Of A File

Published on April 29, 2009 in Miscel. 0 Comments

Having completed the coding of my BTP, I had to test the program. I wrote down a simple C program to do this and generate the outputs in log files in a specified folder. However, I messed it up big time. The actions included creating temporary files, catenating them and then moving them. I did it horribly wrong and ended up with lots of garbage in each log file. Only the last 50 lines of each file were the results, rest garbage.

I needed a way to retain the last 50 lines of each file and discard the rest. This is when I stumbled across the tail command. It does exactly this ! All you have to do call tail -50 <filename> for each of the files. Sweet !

A simple recursive loop, calling the tail command for each file, and yay I am done with my work. Now it is the time to analyse the results.

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Amarok 2.1 : Managing Collections in Mounted Partition

Published on April 26, 2009 in Tech. 1 Comment

I have a huge collection of songs stored in my 500 GB USB drive. Now this partition is accessible from /media/Songs/audio [I mounted the partition with label Songs]. The problem I was facing was that Amarok 2.1 failed to remember the location of audio folder. As a result, whenever I would close and restart Amarok, I would lose all the collection information. And if I build the collection again, the information such as number of times played and etc., would not be remembered.

However, Amarok auto-detected ~/Music/ as containing all the media files. This is the default location where Amarok would look for the collection of songs. This gave me an idea to solve my problem.

I created a link for my audio folder in the Music folder. To create a link in ubuntu, grab the folder, press and hold CTRL+SHIFT, and drag the folder to the ~/Music/ location. And we are done.

Now all my songs are remembered and all the folders watched for collection.

So, as I understand from the bug report filed, Amarok fails to remember the collections if they are either not in $HOME or not on the same hard drive. Well, this should help. Thanks Mark Kretschmann.

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Lastfm Makes Radio A Subscriber Only Feature

Published on April 25, 2009 in Miscel. 0 Comments

This is the message I received from the lastfm today morning

Lastfm Radio Message

Lastfm Radio Message

I am heartbroken. I never expected such a thing to happen. I was becoming fond of their radio service. But to pay $ 3 per month to just listen to songs I have in my hard disk is just not worth it. Looks like the end of the road for me and lastfm. Its a last goodbye.

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My Plans/Wishlist After Moving To Bangalore

Published on April 24, 2009 in Anu. 0 Comments

Well, everybody has plans regarding what they would want to do with their first salary. I have mine too. Here I list them in no particular order. And most probably, I sill do most of the things. So here’s my wishlist -

  • I crave for a Dell XPS. And the machine needs to be powerful enough to render all of the eye-candy effects of compiz. It goes without saying that I shall be using ubuntu as the operating system. No windows for me. I think a 4 Gb RAM should do. It would help if I could get a graphics card. Hmm .. lets see.
  • I want a domain of my own. Not like this one. Here I am required to show ads from the people whose server I use. I want a reliable ad-free domain and hosting. Also this one’s a bit slow and always has some sort of problems. The latest being a problem with WP Super Cache plugin.
  • I want to become a subscriber of last.fm. And this is something I will definitely do as it is the cheapest thing. A subscription costs only some Rs. 500. The positive of becoming a subscriber are lots. Mostly you can make many playlists. Also you can listen to your loved songs. And as it is, I am starting to like the last.fm radio. I dont care for 500. In light of recent events, this has become a necessity rather than luxury.
  • I want an Ipod touch. Nothing else will do. Just imagine … Sony Ericcson Xperia X1 + Ipod Touch … awesome :D :) .

Can’t think of more now. Shall keep adding here :) .

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Liargate Issue Blown Out Of Proportion

Published on April 23, 2009 in Sports. 0 Comments

No, I am no fan/supporter of McLaren F1 team and neither do I like or have any sympathetic feelings towards anyone working for the Woking based team. Yet the latest events – the Liargate issue – makes me sit up and feel sorry for McLaren.

A season already in torubled waters, thanks to the double-diffuser row, does not need another fiasco. Although three races have been raced already, the most engaging actions have taken place out of the race track. The latest of which is the hearing coming up later next week to decide a punishment for McLaren. And the rumours don’t help either.

Talks about McLaren being banned for the championship or being fined heavily is doing rounds. But taking such stern actions, is it really the need of the hour. A season which was hit by withdrawl of Honda, does not need to see the grid size reduced to 18 cars. Also, taking note of the recession, a heavy fine would cribble McLaren for the season and might perhaps leave them short of sponsorers.

Rules are not meant to be observed in words, but are just general guidelines – is what I believe in. FIA needs someone to stuff some sense into themselves to make such a big issue out of a lie. What should have ended with McLaren being banned from the Australian GP has now moved to courts and requires hearing to settle the matter. All this negative publicity has already a few fans away from the sport.

It’s high time for both Berlie and Mosely to leave their office and take a not-so-well-earned break. That’ll perhaps be the best thing they could do for the sport. It’s time for the focus to shift back to the racing grid where the bulk of action takes place.

Man proposes, God disposes – seems to be so true in this context. With the McLaren issue not out of way, Flavio has stirred up another unrest in FOTA regarding the payment of travel compensation to BrawnGP, More on that later.

Ohh, how I wish things get back to normal.

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Amarok 2.1 … Now We Are Talking :)

Published on April 18, 2009 in Tech. 1 Comment

Amarok 2.0.2 lacked many a features of the earlier 1.4 edition, and was largely a disappointment.

For one the playlist was displayed differently, and it was not easy getting used to it. I used to have my playlist sorted in the order of rating or last played or play count, but that was missing here. Also the playlist was cramped to a side, hardly revealing anything.

More than a half of the sreen was covered up with applets or scripts. I found only two useful ones – Current Track and Lyrics. So this was basically a waste of space for me. The earlier Amarok made a much better use of space.

Then there was this nagging issue of scrobbling under proxy. Last.fm was being detected, I could see all my neighbours listed and all, but streaming would not work. Also the played tracks would not scrobble, even though I had manual proxy configured in the kioslaverc file.

All in all, I stayed away from Amarok. I installed Exile for the time being and used last.fm client to listen to radio. This was until I stumbled across Amarok 2.1 yesterday.

The Kubuntu has a download binary file, but to install for ubuntu you have to download the source file and compile it. And it wasn’t easy. There were quite a few dependencies that needed to be taken care of. Also it took me hours to get mysqld working. The funny thing is that I am not sure how I managed to do it. I remember having given up trying to install Amarok. Later on I thought of giving one last try and the installer detected mysqld ! Anyways, I got Amarok compiled and ready to go.

This edition is wonderful. I will soon fall in love with it. Though it looks just like the earlier one, it has quite a few newly added features. Firstly, here’s a screenshot of Amarok 2.1

Amarok 2.1

Amarok 2.1

One of the first things I noticed was the ability to modify the display of the playlist. It can now be configured to show informations as chosen by the user. It is very easy to make these changes. Towards the right hand bottom corner there is a icon labelled Playlist Layout. Clicking on it pops up an easy-to-use editor. Just drag and drop the required information tabs in desired order. Simple ain’t it. Now I can display the rating of each song with its name.

Also the last.fm is scrobbling now. Yay ! I have the proxy manually configured in kioslaverc. All my songs are getting scrobbled. I think that amarok scrobbles the songs a bit late, because sometimes a song is displayed as now playing, and after it is finished, it shows up as played only after a few minutes. Doesn’t matter. I’m happy as long as it scrobbles.

The radio service didn’t work for me. Sadly. But its not much of an issue as I have last.fm client to cater to my radio needs.

The now playing display has changed in look. It looks better now, when compared to the 2.0.2 version. The lyrics are fetched without any problem. Also I noticed that this time around the songs get an initial rating of 50 compared to 75 that they used to in 1.4. I have 120 gb songs in the collection and no problems.The On Screen Display looks cool. The cover manager was easy and intuitive to use. Also the sound can be configured from within Amarok itself.

Although this edition has everything I need, there are a few additions I shall like to see. For one, in this edition you can only select files and not folders, to import into the playlist. If you want to recursively inport a folder, you have to drap-and-drop. Earlier Amarok 1.4 allowed importing folder.

Its not easy moving up and down in the widgets pane. You have to click individual tabs to see them. I am used to my mouse tracker ball for moving up and down.

Most importantly I want to see the amarok 2.1 in the repositories of Ubuntu Jaunty.

All in all, this version has all that I need of Amarok.

But the most impressive fact that I stumbled across about Amarok was that this version is just the beginning of a new journey. There are a lot of features planned to be built into Amarok quite soon. The one that I read about was having a amarok:// url to be able to play amarok using custom urls. Now this is an exciting and something I am quite looking forward to. Till then, chillax and enjoy the cool Amarok 2.1.

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