IT @ School Installing Linux easily

Yesterday I went to one of my cousin's house.The aim was to install one special flavour of Ubuntu Linux called IT @ School.Basically I am a .Net developer and have a very limited experienced in Linux.My experiences had given me a understanding that installing Linux is difficult task and working with that is again another big task having limited knowledge in hand.But I took that as a challenge.

What is IT@School

This is a project by Kerala Govt to ensure the IT awareness in the schools.Kerala Govt already said good bye to Microsoft and welcomed Linux.Obviously it is not wise to buy Windows licenses for each schools.Even I have to learn basic Linux to talk with the next generation here.I strongly believe that all the establishments here will move to Linux in the future because cyber law is getting strength in India.According to the nature of the people here if something is free of cost which will satisfy their needs, they will definitely go for that.

How to install Linux
When I was in college I had tried installing RedHat Linux which was not in syllabus(Now most of the colleges moved to Linux).At that time I had to keep 2 OSs.Win98 and Linux.That was the painful task.The intallation order was Windows then Linux.When I play something in Linux and if that crashes I had to reinstall both.Very tough.At that time the resources were very limited too.(10GB HDD ,500Mhz Intel and 64MB RAM)

But now things are very much easier.The systems got enough or more than that in configuration.Running a Virtual PC machine is not a big deal.

Now you might have got the idea of running more than one OS without pain.Just create a virtual machine and install the Linux Distribution in it.No dual boot or MBR changes.Take a backup just after installing everything in case of any crash because it is Linux.Restore it whenever needed.

IT@School distribution has got a good documentation even step by step installation guide in Malayalam with screenshots.Even with that I had to install twice to get a working installation.Any way it is nice.

Select your camera

Here is one site which help you to select your camera by giving different parameters

http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/digital-camera-selector.cfm

VisualSVN SERVER a Subversion Server for Windows

Now keep up your files in your own server with versioning facility.Not much complexity in setting up a svn server for you and your team..

For more details

http://www.visualsvn.com/server/

What is torrent and how to speed up downloading

It's a collection of links about torrents for beginners.

http://lifehacker.com/software/ultranewb/a-beginners-guide-to-bittorrent-285489.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_protocol

Setting Airtel Mobile office in Win 7 though Nokia 5300

It was a big question,which connection I should take in my home.Since my home is in a village the options are very limited.Finally I came to the BSNL's 500C plan which combines Home phone rent + 1.5GB internet traffic + Night unlimited only @ 500+modem rent.
I applied for the coneection and things were fine until the local exchange people told me the heart breaking fact.That exchange is running out of broadband slots I have to wait until somebody terminate their internet connection.
Again the search for net connection started.Reliance is providing net through wireless cards.But I have to purchase device for the small period and the rent is too high for a CDMA connection.Our cable provider (Asianet) has internet facility.But that is not available in my locality.Finally decided to activate Airtel Mobile Office in my mobile.
It is just 250/Month for unlimited usage.Speed is less.But due to the situation, I selected it.But after activating Airtel Mobile office, I came to know so many setting in my computer and mobile.Its too complicated I think.
Steps to activate Airtel Mobile Office and use in Win 7 computer through Nokia 5300 Express

1. Call Airtel customer care in 121 and ask them to activate Mobile office.They will ask some questions about the account before activation.
2. Some times it will take 24 hours to get the activation message and settings as per airtel.For me it took around 20 hours.
3. Save the settings which are received in the mobile.
4. In the mobile
1. Goto Settings->Connectivity->Packet Data->Packet Data settings->Edit active access point
2. Set Alias to Airtel.This name can be anything.Remember the name because we have to set this in some other place.
3. Select Packet data access pt.Give the address airtelgprs.com there.
4. Change the active access point to Airtel.(Or the name you gave in step 4.)
5. Install the Nokia PC suite if you havn't installed.This will install the Nokia phone modem.
   
6.  Go to control panel and open the Phone and Modem Dialog .If you can't get the way to open the dialog directly, search for the "Modem" keyword at right side search box while you are in control panel.
   
7. Open Modem Tab.There will be an entry for the Nokia 5300 modem.
8. Select the modem and click on properties.
9. In the advanced tab there will be "Extra initialization commands filed".Give AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”airtelgprs.com”.
10. If you can't edit that field, goto the General tab and click on the "Change settings" button.(Win7 security)
11. Now click on the Network icon present in the system tray.The popup shows the new modem.
12. Right click and connect.Give *99***1# as dialing number.Leave user name and password fileds blank.
13. Done.The icon will change as connected.Enjoy browsing.
    

Since Win 7 is having new interface I will be adding images as soon as possible.

Inserting Table of Contents in Word 2007

Nice feature in word2007 which helped me lot in preparing my final year MBA project report.We can easily add TOC in our document, if the headings are formatted using the correct heading styles.

Here are the steps to automatically generate TOC in Word

1. Create new document
2. While typing format your headings using the “Styles” tab in “Home” section.These Heading are the elements which will be included in the TOC.
3. After finishing typing with above said formats goto “References” section and click on the “Table Of Contents” button placed on “Table Of Contents” tab.
4. Customize the appearance of TOC to suit your document.

Add recent comments widget to blog

Good technique to make visitors stay more time in your blog
http://beautifulbeta.blogspot.com/2006/11/customizable-recent-comments-widget.html

Using Win7 specific features

Virtual Hard Drive
How to Create a Windows 7 VHD at Boot to Start with from Boot
Boot from a VHD using Windows 7
Dual boot
Installing Linux in a Win7 VHD

Label cloud and Archive calendar for Blogger

Links to implement Label cloud and Archive calendar in your blogspot blog.

http://phy3blog.googlepages.com/Beta-Blogger-Label-Cloud.html
http://phydeauxredux.googlepages.com/Blogger-Archive-Calendar.html

Installed Win7 and new features

Finally I installed the Win7 yesterday the new operating system from Microsoft.The machine was a AMD Athlon 4000 with 2GB Ram.And it is performing fine
Here are some of the features I noted immediately after installing

• Better than Vista in performance
• Virtual hard disk drive mounting support
• Multitouch support
• IE8
• Media player 12
• Virtual PC
• New task bar navigation

Now its Win7 RC build it will expire on June 1 2010. Try yourself by downloading from here.

Wolframalpha A Scientific search engine

More like a knowledge engine which analyze the search query and gives results according to that.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

It gives you result differently.You can even save the results in a pdf file too.
Very useful for students in their research.Try the search "India and china"in Wolframalpha as well as Google and feel the difference.
Google just gives the links which are related to the words based on page rank where Wolframe gives compiled details about the search query.
The compiled result includes graphs to demonstrate the data in an understandable form.Try the bmi calculation by just giving the bmi keyword along with and your weight and height in any unit as follows
"bmi 180cm 80kg"

More examples here.
But if you are searching for the "Java" programming language by keyword Java,it will identify that as Java Island and give you the information about that Island.Hope they will add more intelligence to the search in future...

Since this uses some processing to identify the exact search query ,it won't give results if you give query in unicode Malayalam.

Microsoft surface in future

Video demonstrating the vision of Microsoft about it's new surface computing platform.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/microsoft-plans-put-its-surface-throughout-your-home

11 Killer applications done in Microsoft surface

If you don't know what is surface please have a look here.

Here goes the list of 11 killer applications developed for surface.It contains applications which are done in my current company Identitymine.

Bypass download limit of 2 at a time of IE7

Here is a nice workaround to avoid the download file limit.
http://vistarewired.com/2007/04/16/increase-the-number-of-simultaneous-downloads-in-internet-explorer-7/

UI design of various Operating systems from 1981 to 2009

Here you can see the UI design of old and new operating systems.They dated from 1981 to 2009

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/operating-system-interface-design-between-1981-2009/

Adobe photoshop tutorials

Here goes my list of links which contain so many tips and tricks for phtotoshop as well as other image editing softwares.

• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/04/50-stunning-photoshop-text-effect-tutorials/
• http://www.photoshopessentials.com/
• http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials.htm

Create your dream flash site without Adobe Flash

Yes its possible to create a flash site using this web based interfaces.
http://www.wix.com/create/website
This site itself created in Flash and it allows us to create our own flash sites.Offers so many customization options.