Pramod

Waiting for Ubuntu 10.04

2010-04-06T08:59:00.000+05:30

I have been an Ubuntu user for 2 years now, many versions of this distribution have come and gone, and I have used many of them. But this time around I am getting so impatient ever since I begin to see the sneak peaks of the lucid. And when the month of april came I am feeling like the time is moving so slow.
I can't wait to set my hands on the new version, so I have put a banner showing the days left for the release of Ubuntu 10.04 lucid. I hope everyone downloads and installs ubuntu.
Long Live Ubuntu........and its getting better.

Old family pictures.

2010-02-05T11:17:00.001+05:30

I was going through some old pictures today, some were mine, some had my friends in them. But when our family picture came to eyes I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I was just saying to me, "Look, thats me,she is my mom and he is my dad, and the one with weird face is my brother."
There is this feeling when you are looking at the old pictures, you just feel like looking at them forever, suddenly all the moments flash back to your mind and you want more of that. You start remembering your friends, asking yourself what would they be doing now days and how would they look now.The fun you used to have and the childhood days are refreshed and you feel like a child again.
What a wonderful days I had,and if I could ask for something to god I would want those days again...........

The small story of LTSP in NCIT.

2010-01-18T14:57:00.001+05:30

Our final exams were going on and there was a notice from FOSS Nepal, they were to start a training on LTSP. I checked the date and found out that it was a 2 days training and was to start just after my exams. But everyone was not so lucky as me, Nitesh and Shiva had their exam on the same day.

We three decided to take part in the training and registered for it, it cost us Rs. 500 but the meal was also included. I was happy that it was finally time for the thing I was always interested in. On the day of training I got up early(which I usually don't) and headed for the venue. I was so excited and there was this feeling like I will know something new today.

I met Nitesh and Shiva at Shantinagar and they looked worried because they had their exams on the same day, Shiva was reading notes and kept saying, " I haven't read anything yaar". We got on Nepal Yatayat and headed for Naxal, though we knew where we were going, none of us knew the exact location of the venue(Brihaspati Vidyasadan). The training started and everyone was busy introducing himself/herself.

My two partners were gone at around 12pm for their exams and the funny thing is that they didn't get to have the 'masu bhat' though they paid for it. The training continued till 5pm and at the end of the day I had made many friends with little knowledge about LTSP.

Training continued the next day too, and when it was over we took photographs and made a commitment that we will implement whatever we had learn in the two days.

Now we knew about the pros and cons of LTSP and wanted to implement the system in our college. We had to convince the administration before we could do anything. But there was no progress for days and more days passed because we couldn't get the Boot ROMs we needed. We even thought of getting those ROMs from India and China, but it didn't seemed possible. After all this frustrating times, we decided to forget about the ROMs and testing the LTSP with inbuilt boot ROMs in newer computers. We first successfully tested and demonstrated LTSP in the then CISCO lab. Our principal and all the other teacheres were also happy to see that old computers could get new life with this system.

The demonstration was over, but the real testing was still to be done. So we switched to a bit older computers and successfully tested on around 12 computers with 1 normal computer as server.

Finally our dream was taking shape, things were getting favourable for us to deploy LTSP in library's net lab.

With the necessary hardware finally with us, we started the process of installing LTSP in library. After a long day of work everything was coming together and we were proud of ourselves. Our college became the first college in Nepal to practically implement LTSP(to my knowledge). But the real trouble started after all was installed and everything was going well. I don't know why they did that but some students knowingly or unknowingly were against this whole idea of having old computers in the library, I am sure they would also have supported us if they knew what LTSP really is.

Everything was going well (with some exceptions), our final exams started. We all know how it goes in Pokhara University. There was a long gap and we couldn't provide the support, which was the most for that lab. Then unfortunately, the college administration decided not to continue LTSP in the NCIT net lab and they did it without even having a word with us. Though that was not a good news to hear but I was happy that at least we tested a system which has a lot of potential in poor countries like Nepal.

And that my dear friends, was the story of LTSP in NCIT.

NOSK orientation, 2 Jan 2010

2010-01-02T22:59:00.001+05:30

I remember the day when I first heard about Open Source Softwares. There were some guys from FOSS, they came to our college and gave a long presentation on FOSS and FOSS Nepal.
And today I was the one giving the long presentation :)
It felt really nice to have the juniors in our community, though there were few of them. For me the size or number really doesn't matter, what matters is the passion and interest. I am glad that those who were there had interest in what the community was telling to them.
When they were sitting there and also may be listening whatever we were telling them, I realized there in front of us were the pillars of our community, they were the ones who would continue our community, and I felt proud, proud of being a NOSKian......

Multiplication simplified

2009-12-11T13:49:00.003+05:30

I was stumbling today like always and I came across a nice article which might be useful to all of us. So I am writing it here. I hope you like this.

It's always easy to multiply numbers with multiple of 10. That is exactly what this algorithm uses for simplified multiplication.

The algorithm is called “Nikhilam Navatascaramam Dasata.” It is part of a system of algorithms and mnemonics to remember them, collectively known as “Vedic Math”, that was developed by Jagadguru Swami Bharati Krishna Tirthaji Maharaj in the early 20th century.

Lets start with a simple example.

                  7 
                 x8

First find a suitable multiple of 10 for both of the numbers. In this case the suitable multiple is 10. Then write the difference between the numbers to be muliplied, and the multiple, off to the right:

multiple 10

                  7     | -3
                x 8     | -2

Multiply the differences. -3 x -2 = 6. The number of digits in the product and number of zeros in our multiple(1 in our case) should be equal; if we don't have enough, we should add leading zeros(we don't need to that here). Write the product on the right side of the answer:

multiple 10

                 7     | -3
               x 8     | -2
              ________

                       | 6

Now add the difference between the one number to be multiplied and 10, to the other number to be multiplied. Pick either combination, because you will get the same result

8 + (– 3) = 5  OR  7 + (– 2) = 5

Put the result on the left side of the answer:

multiple 10

                7     | -3
              x 8     | -2            7 x 8 = 56            
             ________

                   5  |  6

Now let's try it with significantly bigger numbers, to see why this is such an advantage.

                98     
              x 89
              ____

Since both numbers are close to 100, we will use 100 as our multiple. Write the difference between the numbers to be muliplied, and the multiple, off to the right. Because 100 has two zeroes, we need two digits on the right hand side.

multiple 100

                98     | (-2)    
              x 89     | (-11)             98 x 89 = 8722
            ___________
                  87   |  22

The 87 comes from either 89 + (-2), or 98 + (-11). The 22 comes from (-2) x (-11). You can do this problem in your head. Let's try another one, to show when you need to add leading zeros to the right side:

multiple 100

               98      (-2)    
             x 97      (-3)              98 x 97 = 9506
            ___________
                  95 | 06

The 95 comes from either 97 + (-2) or 98 + (-3). The 06 comes from (-2) x (-3). We need to add a leading zero, because the multiple is 100 so we need two digits on the right-hand side.

Let's try another example where the numbers to be multiplied are on either side of a multiple of 10(here 100):

                 104     (+4)
               x  98     (-2)
             __________
                   102 | -08

we have a negative on the right! Add it to the left hand side:

              10200 + (-08) = 10192

              104 x 98 = 10192

Let's try bigger numbers.

Multiple 1000

                       995     (-5)
                      x998     (-2)
                    __________
                         993  | 010

993 = 995 + (-2) OR 993 = 998 + (-5). 010 comes from (-5) x (-2) = 10, then one leading zero is added because we need 3 digits because our multiple is 1000.

This is all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting.......

Climate change and Nepal

2009-12-08T23:10:00.004+05:30

Everybody is talking about climate change and even I felt like talking about it. Actually I wanted to talk about climate change and Nepal. I was just going through a blog in www.nagriknews.com today and there was this topic,"खाँदै नखाएको बिष".

Even I believe that underdeveloped countries like Nepal are suffering because developed countries didn't cared about others and just thought about themselves. And now climate change has affected underdeveloped countries the most.

We all know the Copenhagen summit is going on but how many of us actually believe that this summit is actually going to bring any change. We have been through the Kyoto summit and we all know what US did. Who can guarantee that this time around China won't do the same.

What I think is that we shouldn't actually rely on these big countries to do any thing for us, instead why don't we try from our own side. We can start from small things if we can't do anything big.

At this point of time we have some more important issues than climate change......our cities are getting polluted, walking without a mask is getting harder. Garbage management is getting harder, heaps of litter are piled up in the streets.

So lets try guys, I am thinking that I won't litter my city any more.....what about you?

Late Night Surfing.....

2009-12-04T23:52:00.000+05:30

It's around half past eleven, and its dark. Slowly people like me are being filtered by the inevitable sleep....and I am surfing :)
To my knowledge there are two types of surfing, though I don't know how to surf in the sea but the other one, hell ya. I am always stealing time from my sleep so that I can surf, not because I have taken a night plan from my ISP, neither am I using dial up connection.

I still remember the first time I was surfing the internet late night, I was my first year in college and my room mate(Niraj) had a computer. Those were crazy days :), we had our time divided. Late night was my time. I always had red eyes in the class and couldn't help sleeping. Sometimes our teacher would ask me to go and wash my face :).
But now, I think I am just used to it. It feels good that I have perfected (if not mastered) the art of late night surfing.......

First Post

2009-12-03T21:07:00.000+05:30

I always wanted to have a webpage of my own, be it a blog or something else....

Registering the domain was a real headache, you know how it goes in Nepal. The next thing was getting a web space....I thought I had it all covered when I found about the free web space but free is never the best as I found out later.

So I had to get help from one of my friend....but as I was installing wordpress for my blog I found out that I could setup a custom domain with my blogger account, I was thinking like, what the heck...... I should give it a try..........

and this is how I ended up here........and I know this is just the start, I hope to take this much more ahead, I guess you guys know what I mean............

Thanks for reading my first blog entry, there is lot more to hear from both of us.

see you all later..........