Love thy neighbor... Even if he slaps you!

The headline carried on the front page in today's edition of the Times of India just riled me no end. 'European Union raps India' it shrieked. And below the headline were the words, 'Describes Church Attacks as Massacre of Christians'. And may be I got out of the wrong side of the bed today morning, but the words just put me off. The church attacks were a reference to the recent attacks on Churches in Karnataka and Orissa. Of course, the issue has been hotly debated in many forums - on mails, by casual bloggers, by seasoned columnists, in the television and print media. But the point really is not about the attacks. It is about a conglomeration of countries trying to interfere with the sovereignity of a nation. A nation's internal security is it's concern alone. And people living in glass houses certainly shouldn't throw stones. Look at what the French President, Mr. Sarkozy had to say about the issue of Sikhs in France. "We respect their customs and traditions and they are welcome to France. But we have rules regarding the neutrality of civil servants... So while we respect the customs of Sikhs, we expect them to follow the rules of the Republic", he said. This was Mr. Sarkozy's response when asked about the ban on Sikh turbans in government-funded schools. And honestly, I admire him for his clear words on the topic. Unlike the ruling coalition in India, where the leaders hem and haw about calling a spade a spade. For clinging on to their chairs. To preserve their votebank. And do not utter a word about a third party interfering in the nation's internal affairs. To give an analogy, this is like your neighbour giving you sermons on familial harmony because he happened to overhear that argument you had with your wife last night. Not only that, imagine the same neighbor calling you a serial wife-beater! Calling the attacks on the churches a 'massacre' is being exactly like the neighbor. Well, if he (the neighbor) were to do that to me, I'd tell him to shut the *#$** up! But our premier, being the genial Sikh that he is, gives an 'assurance' to the neighbour about 'the constitutional right' of the minorities 'to profess and propagate their respective faiths'!! I can understand the profess part. But propagate?! What the hell does he mean by that?! But then you expect no more from a man who 'professes' the 'love of Indian people' for Mr. Bush, the president of the US of A! What riled me was the fact that this remark was a slap on the administration of the country. And the fact that the administration remained a mute spectator, instead of reminding the EU to keep their noses out of a sovereign nation's affairs.

The box said 'Requires Win 95, NT or better'. So I installed Linux

Yes, it is true... I've just switched loyalties to Linux! I'm now using the Ubuntu 7.10 64 bit edition, and from my initial experiences, I'm just loving it! Especially, the graphics part, which IMHO (in my humble opinion ;)) is way beyond what Windows Vista has to offer. The nVidia GeForce 6150 Graphics card which was lying unutilized all this while (yep, I'm not a great gaming enthusiast), suddenly sprang to life and the snazzy effects are cool, to say the least. Well, there were teething troubles in getting up my notebook to full functionality, so to speak. But they were just that - teething troubles. And thanks to the huge Ubuntu community out there, getting them sorted out was no sweat. That's the best part about using Linux. There's a whole bunch of guys out there, who've likely faced the same problem that you're facing right now, and you'll find the answer on a forum. You just have to google on your problem, and Voila! And oh, the ubuntu official forums are there, too. So getting my Wireless connection up and running, and fixing the sound issue (no sound) was done in a matter of an hour or two (well, the sound card issue was vexed).
The move from Windows was prompted by an itch, really. An itch to do something different, to just experience a different OS for a while (OK, OK, I'm a geek ;)). And at not having to pay through your nose for softwares, and updates - who doesn't like free stuff?! And real quality free stuff!! The installation itself was pretty easy. I've worked on Linux boxes quite extensively during my grad student days at IIT, Bombay, and so Linux installations were nothing new. In fact, Linux itself was nothing new. And there was a time when I was more comfortable at command lines than Windows-based apps (for one, it really helps on a notebook, when you don't use a mouse). But installing Ubuntu from the disc proved nothing at all like installing that Linux distro I'd installed on my machine during my IIT days. No manual partitioning, no setting up /boot, /home, /swap; no being prompted for LILO or Grub. Just a glide through the set-up process where you're asked for the place settings and a couple of administrative things. The whole set-up was done within half an hour, and I was ready to go! Next followed setting up the Internet connection (the LAN card was configured correctly, so this was smooth), and getting help on setting up the Wireless connection. And fixing the sound issue. This far the UI,while being on par with Windows, was pretty ordinary after all. Then I installed the restricted firmware for the nVidia Graphics card, and boy! The snazzy effects while switching between apps, opening or closing a terminal, switching workspaces... A whole lot of cool stuff! Then downloaded the security updates from the Ubuntu site, and there I was ready to go.
I've been using Ubuntu for the last couple of days, and the experience has been perfect. In fact, it does all the things Windows does, and more! So unlike the Linux distro that I'd used in IIT-B, I don't have to mount and unmount the CD-ROM and USB drives - they're done by the system. Even though I'm comfortable with that part, that was a pleasant surprise (yep, I hadn't quite been in touch with the evolution of Linux the last couple of years). At the same time, the command line just puts a lot of power at your fingertips (literally and figuratively). I don't think I'd be moving back to Windows any time soon. So here's to Linux!
Cheers!!

Dont Look, We're changing! Bet you can't NOT look!!

Amidst a lot of hype and buzz, the Android phone was finally launched in the US on September 23. I guess it'll be quite a while before it comes around to Indian markets, but looking at the features it really made me wish I could lay my hands on one. Here is the coverage on Techcrunch, and you can read another post here. Now you'd think that these 'smart phones' are only for the nerd and geeks amongst us, but if you scratch the surface, it's kind of a revolution that's happening in the mobile space. It began with the iPhone launch in July, and it's really catching up with the Android launch. Mobile phones are no longer just devices that you use to make calls, or text messages to your friends or girlfriend. They are packing in a whole lot of features - right from checking your e-mails to searching maps to cool apps that allow you to do a whole lot of stuff that seemed just un-imaginable just an year ago! You can use your mobile phone to listen to your favourite songs, to chat with your friends, to browse the web, to check your e-mail (and make sure that it syncs up with the mail server!)... And the list goes on... Heck, you can even take snaps, record a video inpromptu, and watch full-length movies on that small device! And you can carry all this functionality in your pocket! And with at least 8GB of storage, you don't have to offload data every other day to your notebook. I seriously can't think of something that my notebook can do that these phones cannot! Now a lot of phones had these kind of features for a while now. They were restricted to the cool dudes with hot pockets. Or the business executive who'd use them as a PDA. But with these phones being launched in the USD 200 range, they've become a lot more you-and-me-friendly, from the cost point of view. The fact that the iPhone 2G sold as many phones in the first week as the first iPhone sold in a month says something! The Android phone may not (yet) give the iPhone serious competition, but it's sure to revolutionize the segment, and give Steve Jobs something to think about. The mobile phones are changing in yet another aspect. They started out as big, bulky devices, and then moved to a phase where small was in. Now it seems that the catch-phrase is Big is Beautiful and life for the mobile phone seems to have come full-circle! But then looking at everything that's packed in there... Well, I can't wait to get either the iPhone or the Android for myself. But I guess I'll have to wait... At INR 31K, the iPhone in India is still a bit out of my range. And the Android G1 will take a while to come to our shores... Till then, you can drool over some of these images ;)