Arbit Scratchpad

The new series of comments on the website guestbook are welcome Thanks guys . . . Ill look into and follow your suggestions and comments seriously. lookout for changes. A good weekend indeed ! Just finished Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham - a classic book about the duality in life and everything else. If there is good why is there evil - a moving first person narrative describing both sides of life in a character running through the medley of characters their lifes and vanities from early 20th century Paris and London and a bit of America and India too. Now Reading (just started) - CONGO by Michael Crichton THOUGHT FOR THE DAY (Plagiarised from somewhere cant recollect now, cause I liked it) : You insult me; I feel bad. I insult you; We both feel bad. Better you insult me and we leave it at that.

I was reading an article in The New Indian Express where C N R Rao - former IISc Director, lambasted the hype surrounding Information Technology in India - saying 'imagine if everyone were a IT guy in India where would scientific development take place from' - young students are losing interest in the core areas of sciences and arts. Somewhat related to this but on a different plane are a series of thought-provoking essays I had found earlier - Questioning Technology [Why then -- if we have so much information -- are we in an age of such unenlightenment . . . ]

PREY released - waiting for arrival in India Official Site The Amazon editorial reviews -

Finally you can find me at the Indian Blogger's List maintained by Anita Bora .

Linux vs Windows continues . . . The world-wide market share for Linux (some 0.05% or so) may be dismal - but just to think that all of us are scared stiff to use Win XP - PIRATED for the reason that we will be caught. I have got news of someone (friends of my friend's friend) being actually caught using illegal copies and had to cough up some Rs. 10,000/- odd. Then why not use a FREE OS like LINUX or a advanced feature rich version from a distro for about Rs. 100. This is just beyond me. I guess the hardware compatibility issues are keeping people away - internal modems, sound card problems etc. Reliability is another issue. But with companies like HP and IBM supporting the Open Source ( OSDN ) movement such doubts will surely be quelled. With a equivalent for everything in Linux as in a proprietary OS like Windows ( 2000, XP ). Especially in our country, India, where we cannot afford to shell out 10K everytime for as many licenses as PCs. With the new BlueCurve and other such...

I dont know if I agree fully with Atul Chitnis on this . The Bangalore LUG here. Because competition is always a good thing - and what is just will surely prevail. I remember last year, I attended the 3 day Linux Bangalore 2001 - this time no chance clashes with office hours seems - I will really miss it.

BANGALORE LINUX USERS GROUP - Linux Bangalore/2002 J.N.Tata Auditorium, Bangalore, India - December 3, 4 & 5, 2002 A three day conference on understanding and using Linux technologies. This conference aims to cover a large number of areas that include Core Linux technologies, Open Source, Embedded Systems and other allied technologies. LIST OF TALKS

Two Search Engines I use and all about B L O G S and B L O G S there . . .

The newly reconfigured Blogdex :

Life has become monotonous, eh! No not exactly I am liking this new schedule (early to bed & early to rise makes a man healthy . . . and wise) - probably my entry into a job after those diverse school and college days makes me react in a certain manner. I would only like to mention that the internet speed at office is indeed amazing - almost 2 Mbps - unknown atleast to me, frankly. Well I was reading the Amazon Editors' Picks on Digital Culture . Seems like a good list (some technical some social) but I dont know if any of these are good enough in terms of building up a healthy social atmosphere - where you spend more 'quality time' offline than online. As someone was telling me today that all festivals and festivities are a way of putting aside the daily tensions and dissapointments aside and enjoying the variety of traditional, cultural and social events atleast for that time being. Too Much Information! -> READ THIS MY Google EGO SEARCH RESULTS ! M...

Need to update my website - coming up soon - 6 working days per week is a bit too much; but nothing doing I guess have to go by the rules of the job. Need to download & try and learn up to use MoveableType . This surely is a Journo Blog - all free speech - here I 'applied' to be included into the Indian Blogger's List. (You can too... )

Just to mention it here I had tried to install IPv6 ( http://ipv6.org )on my system a few months back - I installed the set of TCP/IP protocol software from trumpet.com for Win 98 but hopeless; it did not work - I was able to dial in and get connected with the new set of protocols but none of the sites were opening(including IPv6 ones). Rick had tried and was successful long long back on Win XP. I am stuck with my Win 98 system. Lets see if someone else has been successful on Windows 98 . . . ? This guy's(NetAhoy) blog seems interesting ! I reached him because he had signed my guestbook. A list of Indian bloggers is at indianbloggers.blogspot.com - though my blog is missing . . . ! Some disturbing news on Michael Crichton's Prey -> Rick informed me - the book ships on 25th Nov 2002.

I am back again blogging - PCs were provided at work today - the PII system (the fan actually) from Siemens makes a lot of noise on booting then vanishes. Apart from that the saga continues - got two CDs from Rational - Rose Evaluation version & a CD titled Inside the UML. Checked them out - Rose and other software after being installed is asking for a license - donno what to do? The UML tutorial and other PDFs were good. We might be using these in our project at BEL especially for requirements capture etc. Not Rose most probably. Thats it - Oh yes these are very good links especially this and this [parent site] too . . .

I am blogging after a long while after joining BEL. We had VC++ training from 22nd Oct to 05th Nov. Well right now I am about to jump into a project at BEL (Bharat Electronics Limited) classified as RESTRICTED and am not supposed to make public. The Software Technology Center at BEL is real cool and plush but we are getting tired ( YAWN ;-) ) reading the proposals and users requirements etc. The work atmosphere is also kinda good with amiable and friendly team mates. The inducted new comers like me have varied reactions on the projects alloted to them. Ill be assigned the project probably tomorrow and BEL uniforms (cream shirts and brown trousers) are to worn worn ( oh very dull !!! ). Bought a few books from a local book fair today. Thats about it for now. Gung Ho ! Project work and coding from tomorrow.

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