New Linux Kernel v2.6.23 Released

I got an email just now from a colleague that, the new Linux kernel v2.6.23 was released today. This released was greatly delayed due to a lot of bugfixing and some noise regarding the process schedular.

For those who haven't followed the story read here, about the CFS Vs SD. Linus finally chose to integrate CFS and this is the first major release of the kernel with the CFS process schedular.

The ChangeLog at linux.org, will be able to give you complete details of a lot of improvements in this kernel. If the changeLog seems a little complex, the summary can be read here at Kernelnewbies. We expect this kernel to be rolled into major distros in the coming months!!


This is a group photo from the Kernel Summit 2007 at Cambridge U.K. (courtesy: LWN.net) Was trying to lookup for a friend there, couldn't find him!!

Update: The guys at Phoronix.com have done some preliminary benchmarks on the new kernel and it doesn't show as much performance. Its truly preliminary, so take it with a pinch of salt!!

Indians Can Now Search Google With SMS

Found an interesting story at tech-buzz.net that Google has started its 5GOOG service in India.

Searching Google on the really slow world of GPRS in India is a complete pain. Quite a lot of places in a city like Mumbai have a very low coverage of GPRS connectivity, and hence browsing google and performing searches is a test of one's patience.

Google has just launched beta service of its text messaging service in India. You have to write your search query as an SMS and send it to 54664 , (represented on keypad as 5GOOG). You can go to the site and test the results for the service.

Google SMS is a premium SMS service; queries sent to 54664 will be charged at the following rates:
Aircel: Rs. 3.00
Airtel: Rs. 2.00
BPL: Rs. 3.00
BSNL: Rs. 0.80/1.00 (post-paid/pre-paid)
Reliance: Rs. 3.00
Note: Incoming messages from Google are not charged.

Requirements: Text messaging enabled mobile device; mobile operator networks supported at this time: Aircel, Airtel, BPL, BSNL, Reliance.

I tried this a few times since morning but haven't got any replies for results from Google. I have an Airtel mobile and I'm located in Mumbai. I was querying for the Pizza Hut phone number located at Malad... and till now my hunger for Pizza just died... and I swallowed my Daal-Chawal.

The idea of the service is useful and is quite a good way to monetize as well. I'm wondering though if it's worth spending if you don't get accurate results, as has been my experience with web searches. You require atleast 3-4 searches with different keywords before you get the desired results.

AMD Joins Eclipse Foundation

We do use a lot of different IDEs within our organization and like I mentioned earlier in my Visual Studio 2008 vs netBeans comparison, I'm not an IDE fanatic... Eclipse is a very popular IDE that we use in our organization. So, have a few friends at Eclipse.

Just heard that AMD will be joining hands with Eclipse's team. AMD has recently given support to a few software projects and openSuSE seems to be one of them. Eclipse leaders will be announcing this new friendship with AMD at the Eclipse Summit Europe.

The exact details of what interest AMD has in Eclipse is yet to be understood, but may be we'll have some announcement at the summit on what the exact collaboration is all about. Will there be any money exchanged... is also another question?? Eclipse is not just an IDE, but also popular as a platform on which other companies have made different tools. BEA and IBM quickly come to mind, when talking of using Eclipse as a platform to make developer tools!!

Let's wait and see what AMD gets from this partnership!! May be some compiler advantage or plugin for AMD's processors in store... Or just some community goodwill

How To Convert Media Center Videos (dvr-ms to avi)

I record a lot of TV content for playback later and all these days have been using Nero Home, WinDVR or MythTV. Recently, I formatted my hard disk to reinstall Windows Vista. And all of a sudden, a friend called and told that I had to record a TV show in which she starred and it was starting in 5mins. You know when the bad times hit you, they hit you hard. I couldn't find my Nero installer and downloading it again would take more than 5 min to complete, considering how bloated the package has become lately. Instead, logic prevailed and I remembered Windows Vista Ultimate's Media Center. Scanned the channels, and started recording. The show finished and I completed recording.

Happy with the recording quality and ease of use of Media Center, I went on to look at the recorded file. The dvr-ms file which was created is an MPEG2 with some ASF Wrapper. I said to myself, "How tough is it going to be to remove the wrapper and get the MPEG2 stream". I scoured the internet to discover "The Green Button" and I decided to press the button (I mean download DVRMSToolBox). It said, "some process failed"..or something. I said, "Ok, lemme try GraphEdit". Connecting the arrows between the input to a video demux would again throw some incompatible stream error. After, some 2hrs of searching for solutions and trying all the different things, I couldn't find a solution.

A little while later, as I was swearing on Microsoft, I remembered Windows Movie Maker... The saviour had arrived!! Sorry, if the story was boring, here the tutorial begins:

Tutorial to convert dvr-ms to avi and then DIVX/XVID/MPG/MP4 or anything else

Step 1.) Drag your recorded TV show into Windows Movie Maker's Library (You could import the dvr-ms file as well)

Step 2.) Here, you can cut/split files and play with it however you may like. (Ignore this step, if you wish to convert the whole video)

Step 3.) Drag the split/complete video file to the timeline.

Step 4.) Then, Click Publish to: This Computer from the left "Tasks" section. Give a name & location and hit "Next"

Step 5.) Put the radio button on "More Settings" and from the drop down select "DV-AVI" and click Publish... and that's it!!

The output process will create and uncompressed AVI file. It's an extremely quick process compared to other video processing tasks from other softwares. This uncompressed avi may be later compressed into DIVX/XVID/MPEG using VirtualDub or GordionKnot... I prefer using Nero Recode and create Nero Digital MP4 files. I couldn't find a quick solution like this anywhere online and hence decided to write this tutorial. Hopefully it'll help a few others to convert dvr-ms to avi, since Vista's Media Center does excellent recording and is simple for dummies... Happy recording!!

Review: openSuSE 10.3

For the last 10+ yrs, I have spent quite a lot of my PC experience on SuSE beginning with v4.2.
openSuse 10.3 was released 4th Oct, 2007. A lot has improved over the years and I've seen how SuSE has improved with every new version. My last linux installation & review was Shift Linux 0.5 RC2 some days back and I was eagerly waiting for openSuSE 10.3 to be released. I have been following the development of v10.3 and installed a few milestones builds on the way to the final release.

What's New
There are a plethora of improvements in openSuSE 10.3. I wouldn't go through all the changes, since the link explains everything. But I wouldn't mind mentioning my special favorites in this version. 1-Click Install, Official Repository List, Improvements in YAST, Compiz-Fusion, KDE4 Games... These are some of my favorite enhancements in openSuSE 10.3.

Installation
Over the years, Linux installation has simplified and become user-friendly. SuSE was probably the pioneers in simple, intuitive GUI installation through a tool called YAST. It's my favorite system administration and configuration tool among all distros. In openSuSE 10.3, YAST has some interesting improvements. Its faster and better integrated. One example of this is, when you right-click on an rpm in konquerer's file browsing, you'll see an install option. This will call yast and install the package.

I downloaded the i386 DVD version from Bittorrent. openSuSE 10.3 is also available in CD versions of KDE and GNOME. Burned the DVD and booted. And yes, I was happy to see the "Green Welcome Screen" (see below). The green of the chameleon is back and it looks great! Then, it asks me to choose if I wish to boot from HDD or Install. I selected "installation" and the linux kernel loaded and the installation started. Other than the openSuSE branding, the loading process is the same like other distros, with a loading process happening the background of a graphical screen (image 2, below) (click on the images to see a larger version)

The Green Welcome	Boot Selector	Linux Loading	Language Selection

After, the loading completes, YAST starts up the installation. YAST shows a language selection screen and contains Bengali, Gujrati, Hindi, Marathi, Sindhi, Tamil among the Indian Languages. This should be helpful for the uptake of Linux in India, since the recently passed an order in India makes it mandatory to use free-software in schools. The next few screens ask for installation type and desktop environment.

I like KDE and hence installed it as my default environment. You can check the screenshot below which shows the default packages that are installed. openSuSE 10.3 installs a few non-opensource stuff like flash player, agfa-fonts, jdk 1.5.0, jdk-plugin in the default and asks the user for agreeing to some license agreement. The default installation size is 2.2GB, not too much, not too small!! Expert Settings tab on this screen allowed me to change grub bootloader settings. People will multi-boot can change the default from openSuse to anything else.

It also shows -
Processor: 2x Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 2.13Ghz &
Main Memory: 512 MB

Default Packages	OS Starting	openSuSE 10.3 Desktop	openSuSE AutoUpdater Applet

The file-copying process starts and takes about 20min to complete on my system. In the meantime I read the release notes. The following are from the release notes:

==> By default, the new YaST gtk front-end runs on the GNOME desktop, and the YaST qt front-end on all the other desktops.

==> GNOME 2 is installed under the /usr file system hierarchy since openSUSE 10 3 and KDE 4 now follows KDE 3 will stay in /opt for compatibly reasons

The desktop looks neat and clean. The Beagle Search, Clipper and AutoUpdater Applet and placed in the tray icons at startup. Every piece of hardware from my system was detected including webcam, HP Printer, USB Cable Modem, Wireless Router...

The AutoUpdater Applet is an interesting addition to openSuSE 10.3 and is extremely useful for quick updating and bug fixes. It uses YAST's modules (which inturn uses zypper) in the background and works pretty good, checking from openSuSE's official update repository. It downloaded 12 updates, including security and package updates and installed it, without me having to worry about anything...

1-Click Install: 1-Click Install is an extremely useful feature included in openSuSE 10.3. Completely rocking... and is the need of the hour for success of linux on the desktop. apt-get is easy, but then this is even better. I installed the Compiz Fusion through the 1-Click Install link provided on openSuSE website. Clicking on links for 1-Click Install opens a .ymp file and the associated application is called "YAST Meta Package Handler". In reality, it required 3 clicks, but one was "Next" and other was a security warning. Both good things, right?? I think Linspire tried something similar, but openSuse's technique looks slick and is FREE!! Great work Benjamin Weber and other devs!!

1-Click Install	Compiz 3D-Cube	Compiz-Fusion Burn Animation	Compiz-Fusion Explode Animation

openSUSE 10.3 contains the latest Compiz 0.5.4 installed by default and Compiz Fusion (Compiz + Beryl) is available in the official online repository. Like I said, I installed it in 1-Click. The default installation of Compiz means that a lot of people don't have to bang their heads with the download and installation. I'm not a fan of 3D effects on desktop, since I dont see much productivity gains. But for those who love it, just a single command (gnome-xgl-switch --enable-xgl) activates Compiz, and a restart later, we are ready to play with the 3D Cube etc...!! Few other screenshots of Compiz Fusion and different animations and effects are above. The Cube also does bounce and do a lot other stuff. Check here. But I found Compiz-Fusion to be a little slower. May be the System RAM was low, but then I didn't expect it throw segmentation faults on KDE.

KDE 4 Preview
openSuSE 10.3 DVD includes a preview of KDE4 which is still under heavy development. Its unstable and hence is an optional install. By default, openSuSE 10.3 comes with games from KDE4. The games have interesting look and feel and has great graphics for arcade and board games. Check the screenshot below.

KDE4 Games	Buggy KDE4 Desktop	OpenOffice 2.3.0	Improved YAST

The KDE4 I downloaded off the SVN was unstable and after 2 downloads, I wasnt able to see the desktop manager correctly (check the screenshot above). It didnt show the icons correctly, not was I able to load Oxygen. Some problem with Oxygen's installation I guess...

Conclusion:
After watching openSuSE 10.3 from its early days in development, I think the developers at openSuSE have done a great job. After the review finished I was sure that for a newcomer to the linux world openSuSE 10.3 is the best place to be. With Autoupdater, 1-Click Install, Easy Repository Management, Easy Software & System Administration, you can not go wrong with openSuSE 10.3. So does it mean it's perfect?? No, still a lot has to be done in terms of Compiz-Fusion performance and stability. Sometimes my system slowed down with Compiz-Fusion running. Other times KDE threw a Sig Fault when Compiz-Fusion started. KDE4 needs to be fixed. It has promised quite a lot of features and hopefully it doesn't become a burden on stability.

All In All, openSuSE 10.3 is highly recommended and is among the best distros released this year!

Amit Paul Rocks Again

Amit Paul rocks again. After end of Indian Idol 3, Amit performed again at his hometown Shillong, Meghalaya. He rocked the entire stage and created his magic again!!

He performed at a place called "Polo Grounds" in Shillong and some 50,000 audience came to watch his show. Its was a jam-packed show and Amit showed his humble attitude here. He obliged to every request the audience made and performed free of cost for the audience. No tickets, nothing!!

He will also be performing at different places at Shillong in the next 2 days. He was gifted 24-carat decorations by the Meghalaya government. He has also recorded 2 songs for unnamed films. After his trip from Meghalaya, he'll be coming back to Mumbai and performing many more shows around the world.

I also discovered 2 videos. Go and watch and enjoy vintage Amit Paul!! The Jhalak Dikhlaja performance was not his and prashant's best, but was enjoyable to watch him after so many days on TV. The second video, of his journey at Indian Idol is awesome watch!!

Does The Web Deserve Version 3.0 ??

Yesterday, I was reading about the "Official Definition Of web 3.0", and I thought what a wannabe. I couldn't stop thinking does the web even deserve the version 2.0, forget about 3.0!

Many people would say that the world of the internet has drastically changed in the last couple of years, specially after the dotcom bubble burst that it deserves the newer version. Things like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and other free CMS systems have made it easier for anyone to have a web presence. Then came AJAX and people thought it was some new language (it actually isn't) for the web. Then we had YouTube, Flickr and host of other media websites. And then came a lot of social networking websites. And then you have bookmarking and websharing like Digg, Delicious, Technorati and the rest!! According to the media, the internet had changed. The marketing and show organizers wanted something new to camp around... and they called it the Web 2.0

Analyzing the Web 2.0 Moniker
Google will tell us the different existing definitions to Web 2.0 here. You can call it "participatory web" like Bart Decrem or "as a platform" mentioned by Tim O'Reilly. Yes, today most of the activity on the internet is participatory. Social networking, Blogging is the big hit thing on the internet, but then we need to ask ourselves if none of this was being done earlier?? Coming to the idea of "network as a platform". Such definitions have varied and wide implications and wasn't Sun Microsystems saying that in the '80s??

Few other characteristics of web 2.0 discussed by the media were:
1.) Data as the driving force (Database web application have existed for a long time)
2.) Distributed Independent Developers (Collaborated efforts in software development has existed since the beginning of the internet)
3.) Lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication (Haven't tech magazines and newspapers doing this for eternity??)

Comparison To Other Popular Projects
Who decides the version change?? May be the CTO or Project Manager or the team decides. There are generally some milestones to be completed before a project gets a new version.

Linux is one big old project. There have been a lot of changes since Linus released it in 1991. Quite a few changes in the Filesystem, Process, Memory management... but we are still after significant changes at v2.6.xx. There are many more examples that come to mind. After changes to some million lines or significant percentage change to code, they get new version names like MS Office, Windows, Python.

On the other hand, the internet or web hasn't really changed drastically. If I remember my first days on the internet in 1995, I used to have mailing lists and BBS where I would write some content and other users would share the same. So the "participatory web" was still alive that time. Data sharing was active when the first university networks joined the internet. Like I mentioned earlier, OSS and lightweight models existed long time before the Web 2.0 name was created. To make a gross comparison: HTML is written the same way we used to in the earlier days!!

Still not convinced and want Web 3.0

If you still aren't convinced and want Web 3.0, then be my guest!! How about giving you the definition for Web 4.0??

Definition of Web 4.0: You speak to it and it speaks back. It does all your household work. It can transport you physically from anywhere in the world to a given place in seconds. Web 4.0 is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. Web 4.0 can even... (oops I remembered this is "G" website)

Google Gives 25GB Gmail To Google Apps Clients

Google is all set to give 25GB email box to corporate clients who buy the Google Apps service. The corporates have to sign up for the Google Apps service and pay $50/year for every user using Google Apps.

Along with this the users get access to Google Docs, Google's fast support, Better Security, Better Spam Filtering. There will also be features from Postini, a company Google bought recently!! So we now know, what was Google's cunning plan when buying Postini!! I think Google's main USP (Unique Selling Proposition) here is that they want to advertise this to companies which want to reduce their IT support staff for emails.

The service is supposed to be available from 2008 and Google will also offer Premium Google Apps Service to existing Postini customers.

Yahoo Creates AJAX 'ified Search

Just observed that Yahoo has changed its search engine. Yahoo search field has something they call, 'Built-in Search Assistant". They seemed to have done something similar to what's available at the firefox's google search field on the right... Firefox has an option called "Show Search Suggestions" and it'll show you suggestions to search keywords. Look how yahoo does it, in the screenshots below.

After writing some keywords, the hints appear,

May be an AJAX query is sent to the set of popular keywords that are in the yahoo database. The keyPress on the field fires a query on the database and returns the popular keywords in a dropdown. Probably this technique has been the most common use of AJAX lately.

Is this web 2.0?? I'm still wondering!!

MySpace Takes Features From Facebook

Recently I was reading BigAdda Vs Orkut, and I wondered how the other social networking websites are working! Went into MySpace and saw a newer changed look with a lot of the stuff which was there are Facebook. I regularly use Facebook and identified those features...

The new features on MySpace are:
1.) New Friends View (Facebook, Orkut already have this one - MySpace has Mutual friends now!)
2.) Forums (more like real forums now!!)
3.) New Music Player
4.) Spam Control (CAPTCHA to send you a friend request)
5.) Tagged photos (Like Flickr and Facebook... this should be a nice one)

Login to your myspace and enjoy the new features