Whats on Your Mind ?

Ok i decided to change title of my blog from “Free and  Open Source ” to  “whats on your mind” yes the first one was good focussed one  on  one topic but i felt and  that what i do is more than just FOSS.  This gives me the free­dom to write here instead of places like Face­book  or Twit­ter or Identi.ca . Ok whats on the plate to start with the new title “whats on your mind ” yes you got it right its been flicked from Face­book , thanks to there pol­icy changes they were  in News for past few  weeks  , actu­ally i really like it  so does so many of mil­lions of  Face­book Fans .

i started dig­ging and try to find out the social maps which exists and the  con­nec­tions i can see , obvi­ously FB was the tool of choice to begin with i hit upon my first search with Nexus which has shut down ;-( , but it gave me enough apps using which i can do pretty much what i wanted here are the list of appli­ca­tions on Face­book which mapped social con­nec­tions not only they did that they were dig­ging more into the connections.

Touch Graph
Namegen­Web
Friedn Wheel

i am sure there are more ways to dig in with the Graph API .

For all those peo­ple who are afraid after see­ing the web of con­nec­tions and hav­ing pri­vacy con­cern there is no straigh­for­ward way to deac­ti­vate your Face­book account , deac­ti­vat­ing actu­ally does not help you in delet­ing all the data , to actu­ally wipe all the info you need to go to this link Delete Face­book account

for all the other folks who do not want to delete the account here is a scan­ner to test your reclaim­pri­vacy pri­vacy set­ting on Facebook.

nice reads on this topic
eff link 1
eff link 2
yahoo link
wired.com
Quitfacebookday

I was invited for a site visit of OLPC in Chen­nai India , Arani is town around 150 Kms from Chen­nai here is a route map Route Map , and pic­tures below

OLPC in Chennai

, over­all the visit has been fruit­ful saw sugar @ work kids dis­cov­er­ing and learn­ing new things on there own , there were some 10 Xo’s which attracted around 200 kids from in and around the village.

The weather was too hot and dry i did not feel the humid­ity like Chen­nai so sug­gested them to install water cooler . The most pop­u­lar activ­i­ties were Paint , Wikipedia , lack to Inter­net is some­thing which needs to be looked into to get these kids talk out to the world.

on 20th the next day i vis­ited one more school which is a govt school which is under Sarva Shik­sha Abhiyan pro­gramme of govt of India , here i learned about the ABL ( activ­ity based learn­ing ) which is sim­i­lar to activ­ity based in Sugar but it was more struc­tured in the sense of the kid goes from one class to other after he has com­pleted a set of activ­i­ties in on sub­ject or class. In this school the four XO’s are pro­vided the pro­gramme is sched­ule to begin after sum­mer holidays.

things to be done in com­ing days , XO’s need Sugar upgrade. Teach­ers need train­ing , iden­tify kids who can teach other kids , get Inter­net con­nec­tion so that they can con­nect to the larger OLPC community .

The day started with my car tyre goin flat , tried tak­ing friends his car won’t start , some how i reached the event by chag­ing two autos from my place.

By the time i was there the event was in full swing , Saini intro­duc­ing foss con­cepts and Ubuntu desk­top , there were around 60 + par­tic­i­pants from col­leges across Delhi. Over­all a diverse group of teach­ers from Chem­istry , Biol­ogy, Physics and Matematics.

the Event venue as announced ear­lier was Acharya Naren­dra Dev Col­lege (Uni­ver­sity of Delhi) and the theme was
Appli­ca­tion of Free/Open Source Soft­ware (FOSS) In Sci­ence Teach­ing and Research.

Day 1

Inagu­ra­tion with light­ing of the lamp , peo­ple present on the dias , Prof Krish­nan , Mrs Latha , offi­cial from DIT
after the brief speech from Prof Krish­nan and .… the Saini took over and explained the desk­top , then i explained the instal­la­tion to the audi­ence. Prof Tabish Explained about Scilab , then all the group from the mail audi­to­rium dis­persed to the indi­vid­ual labs . The Chem­istry ses­sions were taken by Arun Luz which cov­ered tools like Bkchem, xdrawchem,pymol,chemtool the Physics and math­e­mat­ics ses­sions were taken by Tabish , Lekha, Asad and Myself , we cov­ered top­ics like Latex, Gnu­plot, Gamgi Phoenix kit, Sage, scilab and R-Commander.

The bil­ogy ses­sion were taken by G Ramesh cov­er­ing Pymol, perl pre­mier, melt­ing temp, chem­tool in com­puter sci­ence san­jeev saini cov­ered lamp

The most pop­u­lar of them was Biol­ogy and Chem­istry to our sur­prise , the least was the math­e­mat­ics and com­puter sci­ence track.

all the labs were assisted by Lab in charge God­frey, Prab­hakaran, Choud­hary, Gopalsivam .

Day two ended with vote of thanks by Sub­ash from Andc and Dr Sav­itri Singh spoke about her pet project , the event con­cluded with dis­tri­b­u­tion of certificates.

Here are some pic­tures from the event enjoy

Adem­piere listed in top 10 Busi­ness appli­ca­tions in this arti­cle here

Acharya Naren­dra Dev Col­lege (Uni­ver­sity of Delhi)
in asso­ci­a­tion with NRCFOSS*, Anna Uni­ver­sity Chen­nai organ­ises a Sem­i­nar
on
Free/Open Source Soft­ware (FOSS): Aware­ness and Possibilities

Date: 16th April 2010 Venue: Uni­ver­sity of Delhi South Cam­pus
Time: 9: 30 a.m to 4: 30 p.m Ben­ito Juarez Marg, New Delhi ­ 110 021

The sem­i­nar envis­ages to intro­duce par­tic­i­pants to myr­iad pos­si­bil­i­ties of FOSS in every­day
com­put­ing and acad­e­mia. Besides intro­duc­tory aware­ness of FOSS, hands­on ses­sions to include
soft­ware instal­la­tion and appli­ca­tions Par­tic­i­pa­tion is encour­aged from all dis­ci­plines with or with­out knowl­edge of FOSS Reg­is­tra­tion is free and on a first­come first­serve basis For reg­is­tra­tion con­tact Mr. Jatin Lamba at 26294542 or email us at workshop.andc@ gmail.com Last date of reg­is­tra­tion: 12th April 2010
Coor­di­na­tors: Savithri Singh (ANDC), San­jeev Singh (IIC, UDSC), C. N. Krish­nan (NRCFOSS)

*National Resource Cen­tre for Free/Open Source‘ Soft­ware (NRCFOSS) is a multi­institutional Project funded by
the Dept. of Inf. Tech., Min­istry of Comm. & Inf. Tech., Gov­ern­ment of India ­ http://nrcfoss.org.in/. This work­shop
is being organ­ised jointly with NRCFOSS at AU­KBC Research Cen­tre, Anna Uni­ver­sity Chennai –

http://nrcfoss.au­kbc.org.in/

Acharya Naren­dra Dev Col­lege
(Uni­ver­sity of Delhi)
in asso­ci­a­tion with
NRCFOSS*, Anna Uni­ver­sity Chen­nai
Organ­ises a Work­shop on
Appli­ca­tion of Free/Open Source Soft­ware (FOSS) In Sci­ence Teach­ing and Research

Date: 14 – 15 April 2010 Venue: Acharya Naren­dra Dev Col­lege
Time: 9: 30 a.m to 4: 30 p.m Govin­d­puri, Kalkaji, New Delhi 110019

The work­shop aims to acquaint and train the par­tic­i­pants in the var­i­ous generic and dis­ci­pline spe­cific free/open source soft­ware use­ful in Sci­ence teach­ing and research. Besides an intro­duc­tion to FOSS, Linux and other Open Source Com­put­ing and Inter­net tools com­mon to all par­tic­i­pants, the work­shop would have par­al­lel ses­sions on spe­cific FOSS tools for teach­ing and research in Biol­ogy, Chem­istry, Physics, Math­e­mat­ics, Sta­tis­tics and Com­puter Sci­ence.
Reg­is­tra­tion: Email us at workshop.andc@ gmail.com
Reg­is­tra­tion fee: Rs 200/­ through DD (non­refundable) favor­ing Prin­ci­pal ANDC, and payable at
New Delhi, may be sent to the Col­lege address given above.
Last date of reg­is­tra­tion: 10th April 2010
Work­shop coor­di­na­tors: Savithri Singh (ANDC), C. N. Krish­nan (NRCFOSS)
Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee: M. S. Rajeswari, Sarita Kumar, Neeti Misra, Sunita Narang
Harita Ahuja, Sub­hash Kumar, Pawan Kumar, Pankaj Khanna
Work­shop Sec­re­tariat: Jatin Lamba; Phone: 26294542
*National Resource Cen­tre for Free/Open Source Soft­ware (NRCFOSS) is a multi­institutional Project funded by the Dept. of
Inf. Tech., Min­istry of Comm. & Inf. Tech., Gov­ern­ment of India ­ http://nrcfoss.org.in/. This work­shop is being organ­ised jointly with NRCFOSS at AU­KBC Research Cen­tre, Anna Uni­ver­sity Chen­nai – http://nrcfoss.aukbc.org.in/

Pro­gramme Schedule

DAY 1: 14/4/10
9.30 – 11.00 Ses­sion I
Ses­sion Title : Inau­gu­ra­tion
Venue Type : Sem­i­nar Hall
No. of Par­tic­i­pants : Around 100
11.00 – 11.20 Tea
11.30 – 1.00 – Ses­sion II (Com­bined)
Ses­sion Title : Use of Linux Desk­top & OpenOf­fice
Venue Type : Com­puter Lab
Require­ments : Lab with 100 seats and sys­tems with CD/DVD dri­ves, Pro­jec­tor & white
board.
No. of Par­tic­i­pants : Around 100
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch
2.00 – 3.15 — Ses­sion III (Com­bined)
Ses­sion Title : Linux Instal­la­tion
Venue Type : Com­puter Lab
Require­ments : Lab with 100 seats and sys­tems with CD/DVD dri­ves, Pro­jec­tor &
white board.
No. of Par­tic­i­pants : Around 100
3.30 – 5.00 — Ses­sion IV (5 par­al­lel ses­sions [maths,phy,chem,Bio & Comp.Sci)
Ses­sion Title : Intro­duc­tion to domain spe­cific FOSS tools( 4 to 5 nos)
Venue Type : Com­puter Lab
Require­ments :5 Labs with 20 seats and sys­tems with CD/DVD dri­ves, Pro­jec­tor &
white board.
No. of Par­tic­i­pants : Around 20 each
DAY 2: 15/4/10
9.30 – 1.00 – Ses­sion V (5 par­al­lel ses­sions [maths,phy,chem,Bio & Comp.Sci)
Ses­sion Title : Live demo on domain spe­cific FOSS tools ( 4 to 5)
Venue Type : Com­puter Lab
Require­ments : 5 Labs with 20 seats and sys­tems with CD/DVD dri­ves, Pro­jec­tor &
white board.
No. of Par­tic­i­pants : Around 20 each
2.00 – 3.15 — Ses­sion VI(Combined)
Ses­sion Title : Cus­tomi­sa­tion of FOSS tools
Venue Type : Com­puter Lab
Require­ments : Labs with 100 seats and sys­tems with CD/DVD dri­ves, Pro­jec­tor &
white board.
No. of Par­tic­i­pants : Around 100
3.15–3.30 Tea
3.30 – 4.30 Ses­sion VII
Ses­sion Title : Wrap up/Certificate Dis­tri­b­u­tion
Venue Type : Sem­i­nar Hall
No. of Par­tic­i­pants : Around 100

This is one ques­tion has been asked on the web and the young peo­ple i meet day in and day out. They are all edu­cated and literati of this world , still they have this Ques­tion How? and some­times Why?

i think it all starts with giv­ing or so called sense of shar­ing with­out any expec­ta­tions , i think that’s the key to it all . This all starts with shar­ing your thoughts , ideas and writ­ings you actu­ally are on the path to con­tribut­ing , because in Foss Com­mu­ni­ties col­lab­o­ra­tions is they key to the sucess  of an idea. lets exam­ine these in more detail hope­fully peo­ple who ask these ques­tions will get there answers some­where or never since it takes time and energy to let go your Old Habits and relearn the new ones, the best doc­u­ment i have come so far in this direc­tion is from Gnu­bie

In spite of folks talk­ing about not to buy Benq i bought myself a gift for New Year Joy­book Lite U 121 Eco from Nehru Place, New Delhi.

Actu­ally the itch has been going on for long after read­ing reviews on var­i­ous mail­ing lists in India, it was evi­dent that find­ing a Net­book with GNU/Linux installed would be a tough bargain.

I had an eye on Acer One D250 for long. But it was a no no after read­ing this pre­sen­ta­tion by Matt Porter

i strongly rec­om­mend for all the mobile devel­op­ers to con­sider read­ing this before div­ing into the Android way of undo­ing things.

ok com­ing back to the story of why Benq all in the world , since Acer was already ruled out and Asus had some good rec­om­men­da­tions , Benq was def­i­nitely was not on the list.

had a look at the two Joy Book mod­els one was with smaller screen and lesser hard disk space , the other was rec­om­mended by the mar­ket­ing guy as it came with Linpus .

Lin­pus still does not con­nect me to the Net , i called up there office had to go round in cir­cles aka musi­cal chairs, but still i wanted to taste first hand rea­sons why folks don’t make GNU/Linux based Net­books or Laptops.

The answer i sup­pose is a well know one in FOSS world “Sup­port” , i am still explor­ing and find­ing how the OEM is tied to Lin­pus and what sup­port aggre­ment i am enti­tled to.

in the mean­time i did not want to install any other OS and get online ASAP since i am still explor­ing and expect­ing some form of decent sup­port from the Ven­dor ;-( , more on that later…

In the mean­time i had a liveusb with Ubuntu 9.10 to test the wifi, it too does not work out of the box , i got it work­ing work­ing by insert­ing rt ker­nel module.

$sudo su -
#mod­probe rt3070sta

enabled the net­work by press­ing func­tion key and F10

Ver­ba­tim Mail from Carlos .…

Hi com­mu­nity,

Fif­teen days before the third anniver­sary of our repos­i­tory, this project arrived
to the com­mit 10.000, and Tri­fon had the honor to make it:

http://adempiere.svn.sourceforge.net/adempiere/?rev=10000&view=rev

Thanks to the 56 com­mit­ters that have made this possible:

http://www.adempiere.com/svnstats/20090824/stats/adempiere/index.html

tri­fonnt
hengsin
vpj-cd
teo_sarca
red1
mjudd
tspc
gvishi
shameem_z
fredt­sang
kthie­mann
oliven­steins
pel­grim­for­ever
wght
kon­tro
jc-perez
phib
armenrz
death­meat
usrdno
mark_o
agram­dass
red­chris
afal­cone
joergvi­ola
fer_luck
fjviejo
sendy_yagambrum
xiaomj
bayu­c­ahya
rob_k
bmovaqar
kolec
tobi42
ljreyesd
croo
gabrielke
esk­a­betxe
stefan_kuthan
acanaveral
j2garcia
ancabradau
ivanceras
vinhpt
marek­mosiewicz
needle58
satyaakam
kzmp
kai7
agenda_gm
vclark
hongnk
banym
egsso­lu­tions
richardgennaro

and to myself glob­alqss

Regards,

Car­los Ruiz