moved to wordpress !!

I am no more blogging here !! i have moved to surendran.wordpress.com ! please do follow me there !! sorry for the inconvenience caused !

Nice fonts in Linux

How to add nice cool, clean fonts in Linux!! its so simple !! Get all the true type fonts from net (or better take it from the fonts folder from your windows :P ) and copy them to /usr/share/fonts/default probably with a prefix so that you can remove them later in case of a need. Thats all !! Now just use open office , all the fonts you copied are right there !!

Found this when I did this poster for MGL :)

Fedora - 7

Installing Linux is/was my hobby for the past one and a half years or so :p

I had done about 15-20 reinstallations in my own computer trying out fedora,ubuntu,suse and even damn small linux once(i screwed that comp :P ) .Then , i did not know how to configure repos and working in linux was a bit tough as i did not have most of the necessary s/w and installing from a source package was a pain in you know where !!
But the Fedora 6 that I installed has been stable since i installed (about 6 months which is about the whole development cycle of Fedora distro itself) in my new computer and has also has all of the s/w i would ever use.

Now updated the computer to fedora 7 !! wow f 7 ROCKS !! it has by far the best installation i have seen. The fastest i should say. The whole system got installed in 20 minutes( my comp is duo 2.4ghz and 512 Mb memory) and thats too fast for my system. Even Ubuntu has a 15 minute installer but that doesnt have all servers , players and other stuff. They have to be done after installation. Now i can run beryl in my comp !! and package management is awesome !!
I thought after fc6, f 7 cant be that different and all !! but after seeing this , i am now waiting for fedora - 8 :)

Who am I ???

Who am I ?? What am I here for ??? Seems to be a big question !! I wish I knew that now.

Linux , Windows and Mac

Well , I am confused.
Linux is my type.. I mean i prefer it for all uses. Until recently (thanks to my project) i had only Linux running on my machine.

Windows : Went to microsoft (in fact twice) @hyd - thanks to Manas. And it seems so wonderful (actually We had lot of fun but thats in another post) But what Manas told showed of microsoft and its products and based upon what i saw there , probably i like it or not , should not hate MS.( Come on hate it with its cola inside :P )

But that was not the place the confusion started. I saw the mac's iphone introductory presentation by Steve Jobs. WOW !! That was one revlutionery product truly. Its surely is next generation.. So this is where my confusion starts. Is Open source the only best thing ??? (I still take the stance that Linux is My fav and the best OS for me) I mean if something that good iphone, you cant expect mac to just give it away after five years full of research and innovation.

And i had few sleepless nights thinking about it (which otherwise also would have been sleepless :P) and the obvious result is I am confused...

the other side of Hari's Love story

first read this hari's blog entry
okay !! though hari and manas told liked the same girl, hari did a really bad thing by actually rejecting another equally popular girl in the college, when she was actually behind him like anything.

actually earlier alagu knew about that girl very much and knew hari will waste his time with this girl as he would have a lot of Spider,Ldtp and other works to do. So he just asked the girl herself say to him that she does not have any feelings.she said so but actually had some feelings for hari and proposed her the very next year.

But hari took revenge on her, not realising that someone was trying to help him in the first place , even though the S girl he had mentioned in his blog had not proposed him at that time.

And the worst part is the S girl keeps doing something new , thanks to hari for supporting her , and this paavam girl could not do much cause of her own limitations which added to her frustration and poor performance in the college.
now , at least even after all i explained about this to hari, i don want him to find the same old love for her.Let him be happy with S itself, but cant he atleast be friendly with this paavam girl ???

Shame on you hari :p

MGL - Meet GNU Linux 2007

Meet Gnu Linux is a small course which introduces Gnu/Linux to newbiesorganised by thirs years students of Nit trichy to anyone interested in and arund trichy.
After two Successful editions of MGL (as of i know), first one coordinated by Alagu and second one by Hari, this year I am going to coordinate it.
But its really backed upon by a big band of GLUG Trichy members. Lot of work has been going on for that.Check them out here.

Some of the new things we are planning for this year are
1 A book/booklet for the participants - "Introduction to Gnu/linux"
2 A Glug-T distro to be distributed free of cost to all participants.
3 Record the classes and then distribute it.
and lots more.

I am all geared up as i am doing something of this magnitude for the first time and my flair for linux.

Speaking of my Project ...

First of all thanks to Siddarth , my senior who referred me to this project and since then helped me out very much in this .

Well, i thought i am going to do a really big work at my project this hols. But the fact is i have not done something even trivial. I have learnt a lot though(thanks to my mentor Raghu!!!) and that too in windows which otherwise i would have never had an inclination to work on. But the overall outcome is completly latent. Wish i do something in the remaining days (ten days left, already missing home and college very badly!!! ).I just wish i atleast finish off with a good note by getting some output.

It was not bad as it might sound, Had nice time chatting in Gmail (kudoos for gchat),participating in topcoder, spoj , getting damaged ,working for MGL, occasionally blogging, and not to forget the trip to chennai for podworks.



On the other hand some of the people from my college who came along with me to do a different project has to do only a single C file not exceeding 200 lines and say project is over and left(well anyway they were not doing a software project , nevertheless their total work is that much only)

PS : was a bit frust because of less progress. Thought blogging will relax and it Did relax me !!!

The Hyderabad Adventure

This happened a week ago.

I was going to Hyderabad Nampalli railway station(25 kms from IIIT, where i am staying) for booking tickets to get back to chennai. I reached there safely by local train and booked tickets. so far so good.

While returning back, instead of the final stop i have to get down, i got dow at hitech city stop, for I knew that IIIT is in the edge of HI Tech city. What i Didnt know was the station was about 8 km away from IIIT. So here i am new place , dont talk hindi also properly and dont have much money in pocket(well i had an 100 with me and few coins).

first i ask for an auto - 150 rs he says. I said no and started walking on the main road. no buildings near by and just a highway and not much traffic also. started feeling a bit afraid. Then the same auto came again. he said he is going to drop me in Hitech ciy bus stop. So i got in. but it was just a 5 min walking distance, but had to pay him 20 for that.

Then i changed three share autos from there each bringing me near to the college but i was getting afraid as i dont know what the way and it didnot seem familiar to me.I am saving the details of each share auto travel to avoid embarrassment.

Then come the final touch. Just have a fifty rupee note and it seems that i am just two stops away. But it started raining. Cats and dogs!!! i am fully drenching in the middle of road. curse my luck no building and the bus stop doesnot have a place to sit also.

Now comes a bus which i know for sure i going to my place. Got into it. The first time am seeing a lady conductor in a bus ( wow so nice of hyderabad ). she gives me a disapproving look seeing me all wet and causing trouble to all others. she asks me 5 Rs. I give her the 50 note. she asks me to give change. I check and find out to my horror i had just 4 Rs change in my purse. swearing to myself I tell her that. another nasty look at me she gives. asks me to get down at the next stop. me searching frantically for one more Rupee. Then found out two 1 Re coins and thank god get the ticket from her and reached there safely.

i knew i was a bit of whatever you are thinking of me rite now, but never knew i was so bad !!

Brain F**k, White Space and Intercal

First of all : i am not swearin at you. For People who dont know these are the names of programming languages meant to toughen a programmer's life.

Brain F**k : This is world's most horribly smallest programming language.
Its compiler can just understand 8 symbols :- + - . , [ ] < > Thats all.
all your logic has to be converted to this. Search Wikipedia for more about this abnormally fast language. More whoopier is the size of the compiler: just 16kb !!!

And INTERCAL - The full name of the compiler is "Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym", which is, for obvious reasons, abbreviated "INTERCAL".
I mean how vetti people can be to create a programming lanugage just for the sake of it, when it has no advantage than any other programming language !!!(no offense)

So Next time if you hear u think some one is swearing ,be careful,actually he/she may be mentioning a programming language's name :)

PS : i am not giving the exact links because i dont want my blog to be blocked from my college, but u can get them very easily by googling them!!!