Harsh J » Internet

Anna University B.E. B.Tech (UG) 8th (Eighth/Final) Semester Results for April – May 2010

Harsh — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:19:48 +0000

Results for all (even) 8th (Eighth and Final) semester B.E. and B.Tech (Engineering Degrees, for IT, CSE, ECE, EEE, ME, E&I, etc.) are out These are for the exams that were held in April to May 2010.
Here’s a list of potential websites you can check for your results. Comment if you know some other ones!

Results are out!

More will be added once results get out.

Using the BSNL 3G Data Card on Linux

Harsh — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:19:07 +0000

This article shall detail the steps to setup, configure and begin using the Huawei E156 HSDPA (3G) USB Stick on Linux (fondly called by them BSNL employees as a ‘Data Card’).

On Windows, one generally uses the bundled ‘Huawei Mobile Partner’ software which does wonderful things like read messages, compute statistics, etc. There isn’t a similar software on Linux providing all of those under one roof, however.

First off, you need to create a BSNL 3G dialer profile, and you would require a software known as wvdial. Install it by either of these commands, in the Terminal application:

# On Ubuntu
sudo aptitude install wvdial

# On ArchLinux
sudo pacman -S wvdial

Now as root (or using sudo), open the file: /etc/wvdial.conf

# If you use GNOME, try:
sudo gedit /etc/wvdial.conf

# If on KDE, try:
sudo kwrite /etc/wvdial.conf

Paste into your editor, the following lines:

[Dialer bsnlnet]
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Phone = *99#
ISDN = 0
Baud = 460800
Username = " "
Password = " "
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = at+cgdcont=1,"ip","bsnlnet"
Stupid Mode = 1

Save the changes and close the editor. Now to get connected, you have to ask the wvdial command to start a particular connection. So simply do, on each startup:

wvdial bsnlnet

And lo, you’re online with blazing 3G speeds!

Note: You may be supposed to use a different APN like bsnlsouth sometimes (instead of bsnlnet or etc.), so change that in the highlighted line.

Google’s Public DNS

Harsh — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:32:15 +0000

Been a while since Google launched its Public DNS service and having used it for that long, I felt it was very unreliable. I had issues opening websites that had a lot of external items in it, and the most frustrating experience was with BBC UK’s site whose newsimg sub-server failed to resolve when using their DNS – I do much news reading on BBC during my random bursts of surfing.

However, I noted that these failures in resolving (or could be something else) were very odd, happening even after I’d successfully opened a web page. Switching to my former DNS, OpenDNS, makes all the issues go away, making me certain about the fault lying within Google’s service. I’m continuing to use OpenDNS here-on, until a good news article about the other trickles down my feed reader someday.

I leave it to my lurking readers to identify an oddity in the speedometer image used on Google’s DNS page.

Anna University B.E. B.Tech (UG) Odd Semester Results for November – December 2009 (January 2010)

Harsh — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:32:04 +0000

Results for all odd semesters B.E. and B.Tech (Engineering Degrees, for IT, CSE, ECE, EEE, ME, E&I, etc.) (3rd, 5th, 7th) will be out in the ultimate weeks of December 2009, as most rumors go (Some point around the first week of January 2010~). These are for the exams that were held in Nov to Dec 2009.

Update: For 2010 8th Semester April May Results of Anna University B.E./B.Tech, click here.

Here’s a list of potential websites you can check for your results. Comment if you know some other ones!

(I shall keep updating the links once results are out)

More will be added once results get out.

You may also directly pass your register number in the link, in times of heavy load:
http://result.annauniv.edu/cgi-bin/result/re10.pl?regno=11111111111 [Normal]
http://result1.annauniv.edu/result/result10.html?regno=11111111111 [Credit]
Replace the 11111111111 with your register number.

FreeNode and its policies.

Harsh — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:46:55 +0000

For the last few days I’d been observing unusual blinkenlights on my router even when the connection was supposed to be idle. Trying to fix overheating issues and a loosely mounted graphic card that was causing havoc in my game sessions, I did not decide to investigate early.

Today, a little peek into the system logs gave me these odd looking lines:

[ 245.194635] Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:F8:a1:68:d7:63:00:0f:a3:52:11:33:08:00 SRC=85.190.0.3 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=51 ID=56199 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=57538 DPT=17771 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 [ 248.186412] Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:F8:a1:68:d7:63:00:0f:a3:52:11:33:08:00 SRC=85.190.0.3 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=50 ID=42755 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=38368 DPT=80 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 [ 248.193452] Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:F8:a1:68:d7:63:00:0f:a3:52:11:33:08:00 SRC=85.190.0.3 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=51 ID=42451 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=45035 DPT=18844 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 [ 248.193505] Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:F8:a1:68:d7:63:00:0f:a3:52:11:33:08:00 SRC=85.190.0.3 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=51 ID=42230 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=53061 DPT=28882 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 [ 254.188289] Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:F8:a1:68:d7:63:00:0f:a3:52:11:33:08:00 SRC=85.190.0.3 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=50 ID=42756 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=38368 DPT=80 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0 [ 254.189632] Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:F8:a1:68:d7:63:00:0f:a3:52:11:33:08:00 SRC=85.190.0.3 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=52 ID=51624 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=60700 DPT=33322 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0

A quick google later, I realized these were messages sent by 85.190.0.3 to me looking at random ports like 33322, 80 (HTTP), 28882, 18844, etc.. A little more research over the IP led to this page: http://proxyscan.freenode.net/.

I was confused for quite a while. I don’t run nor use a proxy or an IIS server, as their policy page states. Why would they continuously poke around when nothing’s found? I can’t give up on FreeNode, but I certainly do not like this continuous checking. Do all of FreeNode users face this? It never used to happen before.

That said, a little more info into the message follows:

[ 254.189632] Inbound IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:F8:a1:68:d7:63:00:0f:a3:52:11:33:08:00 SRC=85.190.0.3 DST=192.168.1.2 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=52 ID=51624 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=60700 DPT=33322 WINDOW=5840 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0

Drilldown:

Inbound – Incoming data
IN=eth0 – Data incoming via eth0
OUT= – No outgoing interface
MAC=00:F8:a1:68:d7:63:00:0f:a3:52:11:33:08:00 – Breaks down to “00:Destination MAC”:”00:Source MAC”:”Payload-Type:00″ (IP)
SRC=85.190.0.3 – Source address
DST=192.168.1.2 – Destination address
LEN=60 TOS=0×00 PREC=0×00 TTL=52 ID=51624 – Length, Type Of Service, Precedence(?), Time To Live, ID(?)
DF PROTO=TCP SPT=60700 DPT=33322 WINDOW=5840 RES=0×00 SYN URGP=0 – Don’t Fragment, Protocol, Source Port, Destination Port, Recieving Window Size, Reset(?), Sync packet (trying to connect), Non-Urgent Data.

The doubtful ones are indicated with a (?). It was fun analysing this, and I think the solution is to block all incoming ports? Or perhaps, blocking the IP?

Smart Google, But…

Harsh — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:46:09 +0000

Google's displayed logo

Notice those weird lines below Google’s logo while you search? Like this first example.

It only appears on the web search for me, the image search’s logo appears fine.

Its only cause the actual complete logo, the one you get when you dig into it, is this one.

Google's full logo image

Smart cause it reduces the number of image requests sent to the server, assuming Google’s chopping this one out for use all over the search result pages. But this could also be a small browser FAIL.

Maybe its been there for quite a while before, but I never noticed it until now, when Flock started displaying those odd lines below the logo. I think its done ever since SearchWiki got implemented. I’ve yet to put that feature to use, cause I got this liking for vanilla google results. I never miss getting what I’m searching for. Google’s far better in its relevancy than Yahoo, or even Live if we are allowed to compare.

ThinkDigit.com

Harsh — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:55:09 +0000

ThinkDigit.com, the online presence of one of the best selling Technology magazines Digit, has quite recently upgraded the website and its features and have added quite a lot to it. Previously, they only had a forum and a few additional magazine related links. Now, they’ve extended it with new sections like:

Product Reviews, where the team posts various new product reviews and test results.
Blog Watch, where you can find links to some of the best blogs online related to various topics of technology.
Tech Q&A, a more interactive version of the discussion forums which helps solving all technical questions and answers.

And also a few others, and enough content to launch them smoothly into the new age of the Internet media.

The discussion forum is one of the most active in India and has a lot of great members who are ready to answer and troubleshoot any technical queries or problems a member might have. Apart from this, they also have a great off-topic and debate sections that have posts definitely worth reading in them. All this supported and moderated by a great team of administrators and moderators.

About something new in this re-invention of their web-presence, the free classified ads section is surely something very much welcomed by the community they have gathered online. It allows people to post free classified ads related to buying/selling of technology products, services and even jobs.

Along with this free service there does exist a paid option too; using which a company can publish to a 125×125 pixels banner that will appear in the Classifieds section of the ThinkDigit website. This costs 5,000/- INR and an additional 3,000/- INR could get you this and a 6×9 cm block in the digit magazine under the same classifieds or the web watch sections (Which is for online businesses). This is pretty low cost for a very good coverage of the Indian technology community.

This new site is a good start to expanding the Digit magazine’s online presence.

Refocus on Flock

Harsh — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:32:22 +0000

Last time I’d used Flock browser was back when it was 1.0 or something above it. It worked nice then too, and the not-so-recent version maintains that with even more features.

Around 15 minutes of starting the browser, I had over 8 services integrated with Flock with just simple logins on the sites of each, ranging from this Blog (This’s posted by Flock) to Facebook (A service I’ve just started to use).

Twitter works well with it and so does the Flickr and YouTube media browser implementations. Things I miss are very few actually, one being Google Reader integration. Mozilla’s feed-reader Liferea was supposed to have gotten that by now (GSOC), so I’ll check that soon.

But what overshadows all its feature and gloss is its ability to work smooth even when its all loaded up with services and other enable-able things. Its clearly built for this, one can have no doubts. Firefox loaded with a couple of extensions on the other hand works much slower and the drastically long close-times proves that well. The optimizations are well seen in Flock.

Currently am using it without any of the Flock branding, thus named ‘Minefield’ like my Firefox is named ‘Gran Paradiso’. Managing so many Web-2.0 accounts can’t get easier than this over a browser!

Django

Harsh — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:41:19 +0000

I’m loving the MVC pattern that Django offers. I’ve been reading Googler Ayman Hourieh’s book ‘Learning Website Development with Django’. Its a quite old book now and the approach to web development via MVC in it is very nice.

Ayman Hourieh's Book

I’m mainly looking at Django to build a custom CMS (Reinventing the wheel, blah blah) to serve some needs of mine. And also possibly, a replacement to this blog here. WordPress is lovely but having something written from scratch by yourself is a different level of satisfaction altogether. Plus, I got lots of free time coming up.

I’ve never written so much of HTML before in my life, and its pretty fun writing the tags in the Template files of my django project. Till this my thought on web development was plainly – boring.

Since the book is rather old now, compared to the amount of Django improvements that followed it, there is one small change to the registration/login.html file example provided in the book. Instead of the code {% if form.has_errors %} it must simply be {% if form.errors %} if you are using any recent version of Django.

Django Website | Documentation

Also am working on adding several language options to a much-more pretty Tinge theme (For gedit / gtksourceview 2). You can expect the new version to it soon, with more pretty colors. Rich colored yet simple syntax highlighting is bliss!

Zimbatheticians

Harsh — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 08:30:42 +0000

Combine the power of such high inflation rates with the power of large prime numbers as prices of various products and you might just have the best mathematicians coming from Zimbabwe soon. “That’ll be the 1565927th prime or 24999983 dollars please.”

Why do they do this?

Of course, Somalia would need more focus first. That country badly needs prosperity if it is to have any citizens left over the next few years. The plight of these countries sometimes makes me think colonialism is not bad at all. War, poverty, hunger, gah.