Harsh J

My 4th semester’s begun, and its back to college for over 8 hours a day.

The subjects this time are all mostly theor-ish.

Here are my subjects this 4th semester:

• Probability and Statistics
• Microprocessors and Microcontrollers
• Computer Architecture
• Software Engineering
• Digital Signal Processing
• Information Coding Techniques

Probability is fun, but also involves a wrote of writing, than solving. Bah.

Microprocessors and Computer Architecture are interesting ones which I don’t mind paying full attention to. Though Computer Architecture is something very basic and I end up day dreaming in its classes.

No one’s turned up for Digital Signal Processing yet but from the syllabus it looks like its just a deep extension of the Signals and Systems I had last semester. Signals was easy last year, but I don’t know how it could be an IT Industry application. But the problems were simple nevertheless.

Information Coding Techniques is the lone nice subject I have this semester. It has all those things about data compression, various formats of compression, and so on. Neat.

Software Engineering is full theory of various models, concepts, blah. I never would understand the need of learning so much corporate stuff until I start working I think. But the subject’s just started so I can’t say much. Having the word ‘Engineering’ in its name makes me think its more than just what it looks.

So am off to another grueling 3 months I guess. This time am gonna need 2x the amounts of pens I used last semester. Since there is NO CODE at all. I wish there were more Code/Algorithmic subjects.

In Labs we’ve got 3 again:

• Digital Signal Processing and Communication Lab
• Microprocessors and Microcontrollers Lab
• Software Engineering Lab

Software Engineering Lab has project stuff where we have to make teams of 4 or more and build something redundant. They advised us to use VB and MS-Access even while the Syllabus stated the use of just simple C/C++. Meh. I’m gonna see if they allow the use of other languages and GUI tool-kits as well.

Microprocessor one is all OP-Code and programs with those. Adding two numbers was never this fun.

Not been to DSP & Communication Lab yet, will update this part next week or so. Its gonna be boring, am sure of that. Cause to me, Communication stuff is ALL boring. Don’t even get me started on how I managed to write things in that Principles of Communication paper in December’s Anna University exams.

sudo apt-get install [name]

Thats probably one of the most used commands on your Ubuntu box. Hate writing such long lines for while installing a package as quick as possible? This guide should help you reducing the length of that command to just, well, 1 character!

Like this example:

user@domain:~$ i john
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
john
(. . .)

Notice the one-letter i in the above? I created i to stand for apt-get install.

Unix/Linux have something fantastic in them called alias. The command alias is used to create shorter and quicker keywords to another command which could be very long with all its parameters. So lets move on to making a simple alias for apt-get.

Basically our command is:

alias i="sudo apt-get install"

But just giving that would not last anymore once your terminal is closed. To make it permanent we have to do the following in the Terminal:

echo alias i=\"sudo apt-get install\" > ~/.bash_aliases

Now give this command:

gedit ~/.bashrc

A text editor should open with some content in it. Now scroll a bit until you find the following lines: (Should be around 50~ lines from beginning)

#if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
#. ~/.bash_aliases
#fi

Now remove those 3 #’s (hash comment symbols) from each of the lines so that they look like this:

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi

Save and close the editor. Restart your Terminal and voila, you can now do the i method as shown earlier!

Example:

user@domain:~$ i gnome-bluetooth
[sudo] password for user:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
gnome-bluetooth is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Some of you (actually a very few I guess), might be experiencing a weird and random issue of having all your videos play garbled or corrupted with lots of pink and green lines. The corruption / garbling also leads to a total freeze at times, for me at least. As an example this is how your video would look like when played in ANY player:

Yeah any, VLC, MPlayer, you name it. Once it starts appearing it appears in everything you play!

I don’t know of a proper bug page for this at Launchpad but I do know the fix. Apparently its something bad in the nvidia-glx-new driver package that makes this happen. So the fix is to roll back to the normal nvidia-glx driver. You can either run the following or just click on the link to do so:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx

That should probably fix it (as it has for me). In case someone stumbles here with a better workaround than to lose performance with the removal of the nvidia-glx-new driver, do post it here.

P.s. This is exclusive only to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 I think. Cause I haven’t seen any such issues on Feisty on either of the drivers.

P.s. again. I use a GeForce 7600GT by the way. And this thing was sure a pain in the ___.

Check this news piece:

Opera files EU antitrust suit against Micrsoft

Opera Software has filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the European Union, accusing it of stifling competition by tying its Internet Explorer Web browser to Windows, the Norwegian company said Thursday.

The complaint, which was filed with the European Commission on Wednesday, says Microsoft is abusing its dominant position in the desktop PC market by offering only Internet Explorer as a standard part of Windows, and hindering interoperability by not following accepted standards with IE.

Opera is asking the Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, to force Microsoft to unbundle IE from Windows, or include other browsers as a standard part of its operating system. It also wants it to require Microsoft to adhere to industry standards with its Web browser.

The issue of standards is seen as important because if all Web browsers do not use the same standards, Web site developers are likely to design their Web sites to work with the most widely-used browser, which is Internet Explorer. That gives people a disincentive to use other browsers.

Microsoft’s spokesman in Brussels did not immediately have a comment on the lawsuit. The company has argued in the past that consumers benefit from its tight integration of IE and Windows.

Opera said it filed the complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them.

PC World

Have the Opera people gone out of their minds? I’m not an Opera hater. I do detest Internet Explorer (IE) but asking an OS to omit out the browser from its bundle is something no one would approve. And what about Apple’s OS X? They too bundle Safari together with it, lets sue them too!

My point is, an OS without a browser in it is suicide. No one would want that to happen. In fact people would love to use the bundled IE on-install than to be presented with a dozen of browsers to choose from.

This is no way to improve a browser’s rank in the market, its pure stupidity. Instead, do something the more smoother way like advertise it on TV a few times, or a board, stickers, and stuff like what the community driven Mozilla Firefox does. That is slow, but it works. This is just screaming out for attention like a 13 year old kid!

But there’s no telling I won’t be happy to see IE in flames. But that would be another blog post, if it happens.

The Windows Vista’s first Service Pack (SP1) is out as its early RC1 release for now. This promises that the final SP1 is just around the corner somewhere. Perhaps near to the Windows Vista anniversary in January. Yep, 1 year and SP1 is here!

Click here for the download and other details for Windows Vista SP1 RC1.