Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

February 26, 2005

Its desirable to want a cool case

Filed under: Funny News — Suramya @ 3:41 AM

I know its highly desirable to want to keep your computer cool, but this is ridiculous . Why would anyone want to make a computer case out of cooling fans is beyond me. On the other hand people have also made computer case’s out of lego’s, bricks etc so… How loud do you think this particular case would be and how much power would it consume just to run the fans?

cooling_tower.jpg
A ‘cool’ Cabinet case

Site Url: http://www.peteredge.orcon.net.nz/casepics.htm

– Suramya

February 24, 2005

I guess its time to get a new harddrive

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 8:42 PM

I was copying stuff from one of my drives to another partition to free space on the drive when my drive suddenly disappeared from the system (none of the data on the drive was showing up when I did an ls on it). So I rebooted the computer and the drive came back. A few hours later I ran a ‘df -h’ on the drive to see how much free space I had available on my drives and got the following output:

If you look carefully you will notice that I am using -64Z out of 74GB but have 71GB free and am using 101% of the drive. The funny part was that I could still access the data on the drive. So I copied the data off the drive. The next thing I did was to create a RMA to return the drive to IBM for replacement.

– Suramya

February 22, 2005

Windows updates blocks WINE

Filed under: Computer Related — Suramya @ 2:38 AM

Just read this article on Betanews which tells about a special function in the Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation program that seems to check for a registry key used by WINE (An open source implementation of Windows API’s). If the program encounters the key it shows an error message and exits.

This on its own is not that bad, but if this is not stopped here whats to stop MS from using the same detection procedure on other programs and prevent them from running on wine? Their main target would probably be the MS Office Application suite which a lot of people run on Linux using Crossover Office. Soon they might decide that its against the EULA to run MS Office on a non-windows platform. Apple did the same thing with the OS X, by making it illegal to run it on non apple branded hardware.

I personally don’t care that much ’cause I run Linux and don’t run Wine on my system. I have a seperate windows machine where I run the Windows only software I use [Warcraft, Diablo etc etc] and all the MS software I have is legal and licenced. (For a change)

On the other hand its pretty disturbing. Lets see if the courts decide that this is a breach of law.

Original Story: BetaNews

– Suramya

February 20, 2005

SCO faces ejection from Nasdaq

Filed under: Computer Related — Suramya @ 10:59 PM

The infamous SCO has been threatened to be delisted from the Nasdaq by the Nasdaq Exchange. I guess they should have paid a bit more attention to deadlines than on their lawsuites. If SCO doesn’t make a meeting with the Nasdaq officials it will disappear from the market on Feb 25th.

Considering that SCO stock dropped to $4.06 when the news of possible delisting spread, if the stock is delisted, the company is finished. ‘cant say I will miss them much. Never liked their high handedness is accusing the entire Linux community of stealing their work and then refusing to show the proof. They deserve whatever comes to them.

Complete Story: The Register
Another Version: computerweekly.com

– Suramya

Upgraded the Blog Software

Filed under: Website Updates — Suramya @ 4:30 AM

Upgraded the Serendipity Suite to the latest version. I don’t think there were any problems during installation nor were there any problems in converting the old data to the new format.

However I may be wrong so let me know if you encounter any bugs.

– Suramya

SHA-1 Broken by Crytography Team

Filed under: Computer Related — Suramya @ 3:40 AM

I was catching up on all my unread email when I saw an email telling Bugtraq on how the SHA-1 encryption algorithim has been broken by a research team of Xiaoyun Wang, Yiqun Lisa Yin, and Hongbo Yu (mostly from Shandong University in China). These guys have published a semi-private paper describing how they broke the crypto.

Now that even this algorithim is broken, we have to move to a new hash function that is harder to break. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) already has standards for harder-to-break hash functions: SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512. They’re already part of government standards and can be used. Though I don’t know how fast people with switch to the new hashes.

A pretty good introduction to secure hashes is available here to help put all this in context.

Original Story: SHA-1 Broken, Schneier.com

– Suramya

Its fun to relax

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 1:23 AM

After a week of being very busy I finally the time off today and yesterday to just relax. Yesterday I saw Constantine at the Jersey Gardens mall. It was nice. A lot better than some of the other movies that have been releasing recently. Might watch Ring 2 when that comes out. I don’t think Vinit or Surabhi would like to go watch that one so I will have to find someone else to go with me. Maybe Vivek or Jessica would be interested…

Today all I did the entire day was sleep and read. Its nice not to have to do anything the entire day. MAY update my site a little bit, depending on my mood. But don’t hold your breath.

Well this is all for now.

– Suramya

February 18, 2005

Post-It Notes Go Mobile

Filed under: Tech Related — Suramya @ 4:41 AM

Read in the ACM Technews that Siemens has developed a new application that lets a user post a message to a specific location and when anyone with a cell phone who passes through that area. It seems like an interesting concept but has a lot of potential for abuse.&

Think about it, the messages posted are not censored at all. Anyone can post anything and whoever passes through that area will get that message. So all the new age spammer has to do is send such a message to Times Square or New York Penn station or Madison Square garden and anyone in that area will get the message as an SMS. So in the near future a 15 year old with a cell phone walking down broad street in NY could get a message asking him to step into a shop to get really cheap porno’s or cheap drugs etc.

And the pranksters will have a field day with this one. They can post a porn image to a crowded area and watch the reactions on everyone’s face. There are hundreds of such possibilites and if I can think of them res assured others can too…

Original Summary:
Siemens has developed a new “digital graffiti” application that would allow mobile phone users to send a message to a specific geographic location, where it would appear on the screens of other mobile phone users who are passing through the area.

The concept is similar to placing a Post-It note in a certain spot. The application also resembles SMS (Short Message Service), although the message would be directed to a defined radius and the mobile phone users who are in the area, rather than a specific person. The ability to post notes to a zone makes the digital graffiti technology more than just a mobile phone location-based service. “Imagine a foreman walking through a plant and making notes of things to check for the maintenance crew on the production floor, or a friend who really knows his way around an area leaving tips of places to go for less familiar buddies,” says a Siemens spokesperson. Users can post text messages and pictures, and have the information expire at a certain date. Researchers at the University of Linz in Austria and the Ars Electronica Center in Linz assisted on the application, which could have a commercial rollout by 2007.

Complete Article: Here

– Suramya

February 17, 2005

Website transfer complete

Filed under: Website Updates — Suramya @ 5:13 PM

Done moving the site to the new server. The site seems to be running ok and I think I managed to move all the files/data without any loss (Unlike previous time when I lot about a week of stats).

I think everything is working, but if you find something that isn’t let me know.

– Suramya

February 16, 2005

New Article posted

Filed under: Website Updates — Suramya @ 6:32 AM

Posted a new article titled ‘How to Setup a Jabber Server‘ in the Linux Tutorials section of the site. In this article I document the steps I took to setup a working Jabber Server installation with Conferencing on a Linux system. Check it out and let me know what you think.

– Suramya

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