Prakash Advani's Blog

Fight global terrorism with Rats, the bomb squad is here!

Rats, which many people dislike are being trained to find explosives. They are used to find Landmine’s and are saving lives.

They are suitable for this, as they have a keen sense of smell. They are also being used to screen for diseases and are found to be faster and cheaper than normal lab tests.

Read More about APOPO the NGO behind one. Want to adopt one?


USB 3 devices have finally started showing up in the US and expect them to be more widely available everywhere else in the world, later this year.

USB 2 has been around, but with serious bottlenecks. Its slow and gets slower when you connect multiple peripherals. Is USB 3 going to solve the problem? It looks promising. What is USB 3 all about?

• 10 times faster than USB 2.0 with 5Gbps.
• USB 3 is bi-directional so its much faster. In USB 2 data can flow only in one direction at a time.
• Realistically you should get 3 times faster transfer speeds for external drives.
• Backward compatible with USB 2. If you connect to older systems, you will still be able to use, but at slower speeds.
• More power. Since more and more devices are being powered by USB, USB3 provides more power to adequately power those external hard drives.
• Linux is the first operating system to support USB 3, and yes Microsoft has followed by including support in Windows 7.

The first place where USB 3 has started showing up is in external hard drives. If you are looking for one, you should consider USB 3. To get USB 3 performance, you will need USB 3 port on your computer, which is lacking in most of the PCs/Laptops sold today. However you can buy a hard drive with a card for your PC/Laptop.

From Amazon: 1 TB USB 3 external desktop hard drive with PCIe USB 3 adaptor.

USB 3.0 Expresscard for your laptop.

Here is a nice article posted in New York Times written by a former Microsoft Vice President.

“Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator. Its products are lampooned, often unfairly but sometimes with good reason.

Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.”

Microsoft should open source the projects which got killed and will never see the light of the day.

Here is a photo taken during a sunrise in Mumbai. Have fun!

“There are at least 142 vulnerabilities in IE6, 22 of which are not yet patched.”

Read more.

If you are still using IE, time to switch to Google Crome or Firefox. I have been using Firefox for a while now, find it very good. Off late I have been trying out Crome and find it faster  because most websites today make heavy use javascripts and Crome is fast at rendering them.

Here is a tip to save time while sending emails using Mozilla Thunderbird.

If you compose an email with Thunderbird, you do not come back to the inbox immediately, unless the email is sent which take a few minutes.

A solution to this is to use the add-on Sendtools. Once you install this, your emails are sent in the background and you are immediately returned back to your inbox.

This also allows you to schedule sending emails at a specific time.

Note: I have tested this with the latest Mozilla 2.0 but sendtools wouldn’t install as it checks for version compatibility and doesn’t install if you have a newer version.

Here is a fix. After you download sendtools, you will find a .XPI file.

Right click on the .XPI, this will open in your archive/zip application.

Now you will see a install.rdf, open this file with any text editor.
Change the max-version to 2.0.*
Save and close the file.
Save and close the archive.

Now install sendtools, it should work correctly.

Two years ago, I said good bye to my lone Desktop. I wasn’t sure how I would survive 🙂 since I had so many peripherals, but I am doing pretty well so far.  I only use a Notebook these days.

Would I still buy a Notebook or a Netbook would fit the bill? Was just thinking if I were to buy a notebook next, what would I be looking for?

Pre-Installed with  Ubuntu: The last 2 Notebooks I bought, had Windows pre-loaded. I didn’t have an option to buy without Windows, this is a big pain. I am paying for something that I am not using, so why not have a choice? Ubuntu pre-installed notebooks are available, but there is not enough choice. Currently I need to boot into Windows perhaps once in 6 months to update my camera software, only because the application doesn’t have a Linux port. Other than that I don’t need to use Windows.

Good Battery life: This is important, I  can’t survive with just 1-3 hours. I would look for 10 hours of battery life, useful for long flights or go for meetings the whole day without a charge.

GPS built in: This will help in integrating with Google Maps.

3G Built in: With 3G getting very common these days, it makes sense to have the 3G build-in, so you don’t need to carry those dongles.

SD Card slots: these are common these days in Notebooks and Netbooks but now can’t do without them 🙂

More USBs: I already have 3 USBs and sometimes find them insufficient specially when I connect external mouse and keyboard.

eSATA: With external 1TB hard drives becoming cheap, the bottle neck to transfer huge amounts of data becomes the USB port. eSATA is about 3 times faster and you can get a hard drive casing with an eSATA port. Make sure your notebook/netbook has an eSATA port too.

LED Monitor: These are nice displays which are easy on the eyes and they have already started showing in laptops. What would be even better is an epaper type reader  that doesn’t hurt the eyes since we spend so much time reading in front of the computer each day.

Good resolution Webcam: these are also common but not all of them are high resolution. With Skype video getting pupular this is nice to have.

Tablet Convertible: I have see a few notebooks which can double up as a tablet, they are a little rough, but nice feature to have. Not sure if I would actually use it alot. But my wants exceed my need.

SSD: Solid State Drives are getting cheaper, they are safe to use in mobile environments and consume less power too.

What about processor speed? Well this is irrelevant today. For basic computing todays processors are fast enough. Most PCs have only 5-10% utilisation so why have this craze for faster processors and hurt the environment? when we can buy small low powered processors?

Netbook or Notebook?
I may invest in a Netbook instead of a Notebook, they are sufficiently powered for my need. Now only if they have a nicer keyboard too.

Making your own herbal tea can be fun and keep you healthy too. Here is Herbal Tea-HOWTO. Herbal teas  boosts your immunity, maintain general good health and can be useful in curing common cold, cough, allergies and indigestion. For best results drink early in the morning.

Ingredients

• 5 Lemon Grass  – Good for Digestion and cold.
• Slice of Ginger root – Generates heat in the body, good for digestion, cold and throat, heart and prevents arthritis.
• 10 mint leaves (pudhina) – good for digestion.
• 5 tulsi leaves (holy basil) – good for immunity and memory.
• 5 whole pepper corns – good for throat and cold.
• Ajwain (thyme) – induces hair growth and provides relief from stomach problems.
• Honey for sweetness – good for throat.
• 1/2 Lemon – rich source of vitamin C. Provides cooling since we are using many hot herbs.
• 1 1/2 cup water.

Optional Ingredients

• Black Cardamom – it is very hot, useful in fighting cold, congestion.

Procedure:

• Wash the lemon grass and mint leaves thoroughly. Cut the lemon grass into smaller pieces for easy handling.
• Mix all the ingredients except the lemon and honey, which will be used later.
• Cover with a lid, Bring to a boil, reduce the flame.
• Boil on low flame for 30 min till it gets reduced to 1 cup.
• Strain, add honey, lemon and serve hot.
• Drink and Enjoy!

What’s a plug computer?

• Small ARM Based Computer
• Runs Linux and other OS: Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo and FreeBSD
• Consumes just 2  watts of power
• Can be kept always on to run those long nightly downloads such as Torrents
• Can you used for any application that requires an always on computer
• Access through browser or shell
• Has USB, Ethernet and SD Card.
• And yes costs $99

More photos

For more information check plugcomputer.org

Many of us (this includes me :), often complain that we don’t have enough money, we don’t earn well, we are poor and so on. This is called poverty thinking cause we may not actually be poor, we just think we are.

Now this statistics may come as a surprise to you.

If your annual income is US$10,000 and you thought you were poor? Think again. You are actually richer than 87 percent of the world population. Now this gets even more interesting.

If your annual income is US$50,000 then you are in the top 1% richest person in the world, better off than 99 percent of the world!

So stop complaining, and start living 🙂 .

See this site to see how rich you are. This has been blogged earlier.

Dr. Nagarjuna, Founder of Gnowledge and Director FSF India, shared this very interesting app.

It creates a dependency map for any Debian package.

It can also create similar maps for any concept not just packages..

Now this opens up a whole new opportunities to graphically represent many ideas and concepts. Ff someone wants to track the email workflows within the organisation, this can be used. For example if A sent an email to B and B forwarded to C &D, this application can show A how the email is flowing within the organisation and show roadblocks.

And yes this app is Open Source/Free Software, released under GPL.

I have been using SIP Protocol, Nonoh Service and Nokia E63. Nonoh.net allows you to make free calls to many destinations including US, UK, Germany, Australia are among the few. It also allows you to make cheap calls to many other destination. See the full list here.

Note: The free services is limited as a trial or to certain number of days.

The service uses a SIP Protocol which is an open standard VOIP protocol and can be used on any device that follows the standard protocol including WiFi routers, mobiles, and SIP client on your PC/Laptop such as Ekiga.

How to configure Nokia E63

First you need to configure Wifi connection on your phone. SIP uses the Wifi connection to make calls. Theoretically you can also use 3G connection to make SIP calls but this may work out expensive especially if your service provider charges you for every KB of data transfer.

You also need to go on Nonoh.net and register.

Now to configure Nonoh on Nokia E63, do this:

Go to Tools-Settings-Connection-SIP Settings

Click on Options-New SIP Profile and create a new profile.

Profile Name: Nonoh

Service Profile: IETF

Default Access Point: Specify the WiFi access point that you want to use.

Public user name: sip:username@nonoh.net. I think if you add username@nonoh.net, it adds the sip: .

Use Compression: No

Registration: Always on

Use Security: No

Proxy Server address: sip.nonoh.net, rest of the information remains blank.

Registrar service:

Register Server address: sip:nonoh.net

Realm: nonoh.net

User name: username (your nonoh username)

Password: put your password that you selected when you created your profile on Nonoh.net

Transport type: auto

Port: 5060 (default, no change required)

And now if you go back into SIP setting you should see Registered. You should also see a telephone icon on the phone in the top area. If you don’t, check if you are connected to WiFi and check if the above settings are correct.

Now you are ready to make calls.

Select any contact number, press the middle button, Once you see the call button, press the right arrow and you will see additional options called: Internet Call.

If you select that, it will use Nonoh.net to call out.

You will see the number being dialled as number@nonoh.net

Note: if it says number invalid, please check the formatting of numbers, Nonoh may not understand spaces or dashes, it understands only numbers.

I found Nonoh.net a good service the voice quality was good in most cases but varied and sometimes was not as good.

Enjoy free calling.

This is an interesting article which talks about building a solar water heater using a discarded refrigerator and few other things without spending much money.

Read more if you interested.

The European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), part of the European Commission, has compiled a detailed repor titled: Microsoft A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm.

“For more than two decades, Microsoft has engaged in a carefully designed and extremely successful campaign to protect and extend its monopolies. Microsoft has repeatedly made market allocation proposals to its competitors and has used a broad range of other anticompetitive and unlawful tactics to eliminate potential rivals, including tying, predatory product design, and intentional deception.

Microsoft owns several monopoly products, including its Windows operating system and Office suite of productivity applications.  These monopolies are extremely lucrative: Microsoft generates more than $60 billion each year, largely from Windows and Office. It has profit margins of 77% and 65% for these two monopoly products. Over the years, Microsoft has carefully cultivated and expanded the barriers to entry protecting these monopolies.”

Read More.
All the more reasons to use Linux

It was Firefox which popularised the concept of plugins and now OpenOffice too has come up with nice extensions. With the OpenOffice extensions, OpenOffice.org has an edge over MS Office.

Here are some nice extensions that I liked.

Sun PDF Import Extension : To edit PDFs.

Sun Presenter Console : Makes it very easy to do presentations.

Sun Wiki Publisher : Allows you to publish directly to Wiki.

OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs : Export your OpenOffice docs to google docs.

Get Stock Price : Pulls stock price data in realitime from yahoo finance, wonderful tool to calcuate your portfolio value in realtime.

It also has various dictionaries and more.

Download Link for all the extension.

Some time back, I read an article in the Hindustan time about a person spending Rs. 45,000 flowers on 14 foot bouquet for Valentines Day and the article title “In times of meltdown, a Rs 45,000 bouquet” sounded like it was criminal to spend so much money in Economic Downturn.

First I would like to remind you that Love is blind. Love knows no boundaries, love doesn’t care about cost and if a person is truly in love he can spend all his fortune not just Rs. 45,000. As the saying goes love can make the world go around. We have forgotten to love, all we care is the cost. If everyone was in love in the world, there was no conflicts, wars and terrorism.

The second thing is the media is over using the word Economic
Downturn. India’s GDP will grow at 7% this year  instead of 9% last year. Does the word grow mean something? It says grow !! Not Downturn. So India is not affected by the downturn for the following reasons:

1. India’s GDP dependency on exports is not as high as China. For example India’s exports are actually less than the imports.
2. Indians haven’t lost as many jobs, most indians are still very much employed. Chinese lost 20 million jobs!
3. You keep hearing the pilots have been asked to take a salary cut, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, its good for the airlines. The airlines have been facing heavy losses, if they can trim some costs (pilots earn 4.5 lakhs a month!), then they can be profitable and most importantly these people will continue to be employed. Its better to have a job with a salary cut then to have no job at all.
4. Hey guess what the last time I went to Delhi and most of the star hotels were sold out!
   So what economic downturn?
5. And most importantly we are a nation of savings, we save for the rainy day, unlike the west, which is a credit economy, so there is nothing to worry, trust me!

Economics depends on Consumption, and people will continue to use their phones, buy grocery, travel for work. Yes what has changed is that people planning on bigger expenses like buying a car are delaying the purchases. Not that they don’t have the money but because of the fear of the unknown. And thanks to the media hype that has been created and they saying “Economic Downturn”, people are not spending on big expenses.

If the media screams, “Economic Downturn doesn’t affect India”, you would be surprised that people will start feeling normal as if nothing has changed. Which is what is happening currently, as the stock market is going up, people are feeling happy. So the downturn is more of a perception than a reality.

Before the British left India, they created the Hindu-Muslim divide in India. Unfortunately this divide still exists.

Governor-General Lord Canning wrote to Vernon Smith, President of the Board of Control, on November 21, 1857: “As we must rule 150 million of people by a handful … of Englishmen, let us do it in a manner best calculated to leave them divided (as in religion and national feeling they already are) and to inspire them with the greatest possible awe of our power and with the least possible suspicion of our motives.”

Read More.

My friend Ramnath Shenoy, pointed me to this excellent Ubuntu guide for beginners.

Its quite detailed and covers a lot of what the beginners would needs to know.

Check it out.

Todays computer have more power than what is required by a single users. Thanks to the Gigahertz race, processors are getting faster and faster. The result is that an average Joe uses only 10% of the processing.

The best way to harness this underutilised power is to get multiple users to share the resources of the same computer.

One way is Utilise NComputing device or to setup a dual-head display on your computer and follow this howto.

I recently received a phishing email which was suppose to do all kinds of funny things. When I clicked on it, it got blocked and this is the message I got, thanks to the Netcraft Toolbar on Firefox.