TAG FROM ROHITH

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?

I won't let that happen...

2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?

Driving my Hummer through the Amazon forests...

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?

Those who can't run faster than me...

4. Why do you blog?

Just for a horror...

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?

No...

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?

Being loved by someone...

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you love?

Enikku kalyana prayam akunnodam vare...

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?

No secret likes...

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?

run a parallel government...

10. What takes you down the fastest?

Ignorance...

11. What resurrects you the fastest?

My bike...

12. What’s your fear?

Palli, patta, ettukali...

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

DOLMA...

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?

Married and rich...

15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

Go to toilet...

16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?

I don't think I'll fall in love with two people...

17. Would you give all in a relationship?

Depends on the relationship...

18. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?

May be...

19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?

I don't know how's life with a girl friend... 

20. Tag 6 people.

  Devi, Nivil, And the first four who comments...

THE MAGICAL BOARD

I want to share with you the information we got, about Beagle board from the program 'EMBEDDED LINUX TRAINING WITH BEAGLEBOARD. We missed the first session as we were a little late due to the traffic block in Banglore town.




Beagleboard is an Ultra low cost, high performance, low power OMAP3 based platform. I was amazed to see the functioning of that small board. It's a tiny 3"-3" USB powered board. Mr. Khasem an team demonstrated the working by connecting the standard input output devices to the board and showed us it's various functions. They played movies, music etc through that small board.




It's secondary memory is a 4GB SD card. It has 128Mb of DDR RAM and 256 MB NAND. We can connect any USB controlled device through it's high speed USB 2.0 OTG. There is port for connecting monitor, key board and other peripherals. It has also a TV out (S-Video) to connect it to the Television. It also provides a slot for stereo in and out.



In the after noon session they showed us how to make the board working. First they cross compiled the boot loaders u-boot and x-loader for the ARM processor. After that they started the cross compilation of linux kernel and drivers for the board.

The beagle board is intended for low power applications and don't require a complex embedded hardware development system. Instead, the beagle board uses standard, desktop computer peripherals.



They use open source softwares u boot and x loader as the boot loaders, Linux operating system and file systems. Free tools such as compiler for ARM and DSP and utilities to flash on board NAND are also available. The cost of this magic board is rs 9999/-.

India sales:
beaglesales.india@cranessoftware.com.

The important links given to us:

Complete Technical reference manual for OMAP3530 processor is open and freely accessible to all

http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/gencontent.tsp?contentId=36915

Software is made open and freely available to all,
*DSP LINK(for ARM-DSP communication),
https://www-a.ti.com/downloads/sds_support/targetcontent/link/link_1_50/index.html

*Validation software, Linux device drivers, latest kernel from GIT
http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleBoardDiagnostics

* Linux drivers are being submitted to kernel.org mainline to be in sync with latest Linux kernels

More info on http://muru.com/linux/omap

*Board schematics
http://www.beagleboard.org/uploads/BBSRM_B5.pdf

*Tools

*DSP compiler
https://www-a.ti.com/downloads/sds_support/targetcontent/LinuxDspTools/download.html

*ARM compiler
http://www.codesourcery.com/gnu_toolchains/arm/portal/release313

ONE DAY IN IISC BANGLORE

As usual Pramode sir told us about a program at Indian Institute of Science, Banglore. Some of us registered for the program and five of us, who got the confirmation mail started to banglore. Our transporter was a 2000 model Tata Indica DLS.



We started at 6 in the morning from our GEC. The first check point was Nilamboor. I was a little worried as I didn't have my driving license, I had only a copy and was not attested. But My brother managed to scan the license and mailed me and I took a print on the photo paper. We had food from a hotel at Vazhikkadavu, which is build on the side of a huge rock, we can see parts of rock inside the hotel.

We continued our journey. As we passed Vazhikkadavu we saw the beautiful mountains at Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. After a little drive from Vazhikkadavu , We entered the beautiful rain forests. I enjoyed driving through the zig zag roads inside the calm and beautiful forest. We saw the rare species 'SIMHAVALANKURANGU'. We stopped near a huge rock by the side of which is a small stream of the pure water from the deep forest.

Two hours drive through the forest, we reached Tamil Nadu check post where we had to stop for police checking. They searched our bags, and after that we bought s ome 'poovanpazham' and continued our journey through the high ranges.



The journey through the high ranges reminded me of our kodaikanal trip. It was so relaxing to drive through the roads in Tamil Nadu. After crossing a check post we entered into Mudhumala forests. Gudallur is a small town between Mudhumala forests and Bandhipur Tiger reserve. We expected to see some wild animals, but we saw only deers and monkeys.



We had to stop at the check post in TamilNadu-Karnataka border where we gave the officers some money(I don't know whether we can call it a bribe or not). They directly asked " intha kattil joli seyyarathu romba kashtam, nega ethavathu kodithittu pongo", I was wondered to hear this. And then ariyavunna thamil okke vachu adjust cheythu njan chodichu " sir naga intha oorukku puthusu, evalo venamnnu nenga sollungo". They asked for 50 rs a nd we gave them.



After that we entered Karnataka state and the condition of road was a bit pathetic till a small town. We reached Mysore by 5:30 pm. We got the Mysore AKA SHAVANI quarters which was more than enough for we five. From there we went to Devi's friends house, visited his old house and then to GOKUL Chat Center for having our dinner.



We started early in the morning from Mysore as our program registration starts at 9:00am. After a few kilometers through the Banglore -Mysore four line highway our car just passed through a hump in a speed of 80-90kmph. The engine foundation was broken, but anyway we managed to reach IISC by 10:00 am.



The program was already started, but only the self introduction section was the only part we missed.



The students were from IITs and NITs and some from othe r colleges in Banglore. They started the program by giving us an introduction about the free software philosophy. The next session was about the basics of GNU-linux. They demonstrated some basic commands in GNU-Linux.



I felt a little proud when some students asked doubts about the basic commands in GNU-Linux. After that they give an introduction to embedded systems, the OMAP Architecture and some details about the BeagleBoard.



We had delicious lunch from the IISC canteen, arranged by them. Afternoon session they demonstrated the working of BeagleBoard. I was wondered to see the way that small bord conects to the monitor, keyboard and other peripherals.



They first cross compiled the boot loaders U-BOOT and x-loader and then the Linux kernal and drivers for the ARM processor. By the time it's compiled, they told us about the different applications of beagle board. After that they showed a movie which is played from that board.

After that they had a group discussion, which me and Devi didn't atte nd as we want to repair our car.


We went through the Banglore town in search of a workshop. After a few minutes journey we find one and we bought the foundation from Shivagi Nagar which is similar to Pattalam in Trichur.



We started back to Mysore at 7:15pm. We reached there by 12:00. It's too risky and difficult to drive through the crowded roads in Banglore. And I noticed one thing, almost all bikes I saw there, the back seat was occupied by cute ladies :P.



And I saw a beautiful lady in an INNOVA at a traffic signal. She was holding a cigerate in one hand and driving with the other hand. She stopped her car next to our's, she opened the window, I was a bit restless seeing all these. But she didn't even notice us, just put the ash into the road and closed the window. I was shocked seeing all these. For the fi

rst time I saw a lady smoking.

We had a one and a half hours drive from Banglore to Mysore. We reached Mysore at 12:00 midnight. I fell asleep as soon as saw the bed.

We started back to Trichur at 9:00 in the morning. We had our breakfast from Hotel Mahesh Prasad. It was so delicious that I didn'l leave an inch of space in my stomach. We had Iddli smabar, vada sambara, set dosa , paper rost etc.



Our next check point was THAMARASSERY churam. It's really beautiful to see the mountains, thick forest and we saw the road by the side of mountains like a rope laid in a Zig zag manner over the montain. After that we stopped at kozhikode to have kozhikodan biriyani.



We reached Trichur at 7 in the evening. We all just enjoyed the trip and we missed Denny and Arun a lot through out the trip.

CIAO
Bristow

PS: I'm sry for such a long post.:)

BLOGCAMP KERALA

BlogCamp Kerala is an event conceived by a group of volunteer bloggers who want to meet up and share ideas and have casual discussions about blogging, internet, technology and more.

Me and Devidas are lucky to be an attendee of the camp. Devi informed me about the camp and with a narrow strip of hope I mailed them and fortunately I got the reply and they assured me a pass.




We plan to go in bike. And we hope to make it a joyful trip to visit all the beautiful spots in Kuttanadu and to enjoy the delicious Kuttanadan special Karimeen pollichathu, tharavu fry and all.


Kerala Tourism (Govt. Of Kerala) is the main sponsor for the event who are hosting BlogCamp Kerala 2008 in all its glory. And the most interesting thing is the venue, the venue which is a Houseboat in the background of Alleppey Backwaters.



And I'm so glad to meet wonderful, fun loving and intellectual freinds there. More details after the trip.

CIAO

Bristow

HE TAGGED ME

Here is the reply to Devi's tag

*Last movie you saw in a theater - Madambi, not that bad.

*What book are you reading- Royal Enfield Owners manual

*Favorite board game - darts

*Favorite smells - The smell that comes when the first rain hits ground after long summer, though there is nothing good smelling, it gives me a fresh new feeling. And obviously the smell of my favorite cuisines.

*Favorite sound - my mom's, thumping of a Royal Enfield bullet engine, violin.

*Worst feeling in the world - I agree with Devi- Loneliness, and feeling of losing something.

*What is the first thing you think of when you wake up - last night's dream.

*Favorite fast food place - Hotel New Double X, Trichur.

*Future child's name - I'll have to put a list. "ll consider my life partner's decision.

*Finish this statement. "If I had a lot of money, I'd" buy the worlds best cruiser bike and go for a world trip with my comrade with all the accessories needed. And then I'll buy a plot in the Maldives and live there with my life partner enjoying, swimming, fishing and a lot of interesting activities.

*Do you drive fast - depends on the situation, usually I don't. I love biking so I prefer a moderate speed, enjoying the ride.

*Do you sleep with a stuffed animal - ha ha ha I sleep with my roommates.

*Storms - Cool or scary - cool.

*What was your first car- Owned?-Actually it was not a car, it was a Jeep.(Mahindra and Mahindra)

*Favorite drink - Apple and Grape wine in small amounts.

*Finish this statement. "If I had the time, I would..." - waste it. And I'm doing it.

*Do you eat the stems on broccoli?- No

*If you could dye your hair any color, what would be your choice? -Green ;)

*Name all the different cities/towns you have lived in - Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram, Thodupuzha,Nagpur.

*Favorite sports to watch - sprint

*One nice thing about the person who sent this to you - Loving comrade of mine.

*What's under your bed?- magazines which I read just before I sleep.

*Would you like to be born as yourself again? - Yup, definitely.

*Morning person or night owl -both

*Over easy or sunny side up - Over easy.

*Favorite place to relax - lap of my Mom.

*Favorite pie - Apple

*Favorite ice cream flavor - Strawberry

As Devi said, when I started it was boring but as it came down it's very interesting...

So here I tag the first person who comments on this post.

CIAO

Bristow

Porting In Progress

We have made our second check in to the Zope-checkins. At present there are two failures and one error. We are now trying to fix these. After this we will move on to the RPython implementation. The details of second check in are published in the Zope-porting blog.

CIAO

Bristow

Zope Porting Blog

Our GSOC work is going on and we have started a new blog, to keep track of our progress.

CIAO

Bristow

IT'S LIKE A DREAM!!!!

I'm extremely happy, proud, a little shy, don't know what all feelings I have now. I got my dream bike ROYAL ENFIELD THUNDERBIRD and I can't believe being a part of the ROYAL ENFIELD community. It's my all time dream to ride her more than to own, but now...I have one.




Thunderbird is a big bike moreover it's a matured bike, it's seating comfort is inexpressible. It's driven by a 350cc Bullet engine, with maximum power of 18bhp and a maximum speed of 110kmph. It has got a CV carburetor. And there is a set of cool alloy wheels which makes my bike more comely. A set of nickel plated meters adds to her beauty. And over all, the charming, roaring, sexy sound of BULLET, love that. It offers a milige of 40-42kmpl for long run and 35kmpl in ordinary use.




My first long trip in Thunderbird is to my home town, Thodupuzha, 110km away from Trichur. It was an amazing experience to ride a 350cc engine through the national highway 47, taking a speed of 60-70kmph. I felt her power while overtaking buses and big trucks. And it was so comfortable.




I made a call home and told my mum that I'll be coming the next day by evening;), and they all were surprised to see me, with that big bike, at that evening, full wet in rain. It was raining when I reached Perumbavoor, but I didn't stop just because I love rain and riding in rain.



The very next day I went to my friends to introduce them my 'girl friend'. They suggested some modifications but I love her own beauty without any makeups.[Pinne oru cheriya potto matto avam..;)] Anyway me and my brother are planning many more long trips in my new BULLET.


To explore new lands, to meet new people and to ride her... Discover colours you have never seen before. Make friends in distant lands, get used to people staring at you at traffic lights, a whole new lifestyle. A unique motorcycling experience...Hope to make many trips of joy, from our college. Let us goooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

CIAO

Bristow

GSOC 2008- ZOPE 2

We a team of five from the S4 CSE GEC Trichur is now working on a GSOC project - Zope. Out of the three proposals we submitted it's the only one accepted. Our work is to port Zope 2 to Python 2.5.


The most important Python changes concerning this project are the C API change, changes in compiler module and Python library changes. Apart from this the work also includes Restricted Python implementation in Python2.5.


Zope 3 has already been ported to Python 2.5 by our seniors, Nikhil Chettan and team as a part of the GSOC 2007. They helped us a lot to start the project. And mainly Pramode Sir is our motivator.




And about Zope. Zope is a web application server coded in PYTHON. ZOPE is an abbreviation for Z Object Publishing Environment. Images, documents and page templates are available for users to create and manage web.



There is a thriving community of small businesses creating custom web applications as Zope products. And we are really happy to be a part of that community.



Our Mentor is Sidnei da Silva, Brazilian. Hope to finish the project in time. The final pen down date is August 7th.


We have got three more GSOC projects in our college:-

1) Full Text Search Implementation for the content management system, Bricolage

2)All Indic Language Themes and Improvements in Tuxtype

3)Additional Features to Tuxtype

In addition to this we have three GSOC mentors.

CIAO

Bristow

For You...

Here is a short story. I don't know whether this make you think the same way I did. Anyway the moral of this story seems wright for me...

Once there lived a farmer and his son in a beautiful village. His mother got expired when he was born. Father was everything for him.

There was his friend's family as their neighbor. Father, mother and a beautiful girl made up that small happy family. They were good friends. The boy and girl were in love.

But after his school days his father send him abroad for studies. At first he send letters to that girl, but as time passed it came to an end. There was no contact between them. He was fed up with his own enjoyments there. The girl send him many letters but he didn't replied. Years passed...

After completing his studies he returned back to home. He was in a bad mood. And after knowing that his girl is now a wife, made him in extra agony.
His father noticed all this things.

One day he went to his father and asked,

"WHAT IS LOVE?"

Father thought for a while and replied,

"In order to answer your question, go to the wheat
field and choose the biggest wheat and come back.
But one thing: you can go through them only once and cannot
turn back to pick."

He went to the field, went through first row, he saw one big wheat,
but he wonders....may be there is a bigger one later.

Then he saw another bigger one... but may be there is an even bigger
one waiting for him.

Later, when he finished more than half of the wheat field, he starts to
realize that the wheat is not as big as the previous one he saw, he
knew he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted.

So, he ended up went back to his father with empty hand. His father
told him,
"...this is love... you keep looking for better ones, but
when later you realize, you have already missed the person."

here ends the story...



SO DON'T MISS A PERSON WHO LOVES YOU AND WHOM YOU FEEL FOR...

CIAO

Bristow

WINLIBRE-EMBEDDED

Google summer of code(GSOC) 2008 is on. The program is alive with hundreds of projects for students under different mentoring organizations. We heard about the program last year, when two of our seniors got GSOC projects. Zope and SMC were their mentoring organizations. They successfully completed it and they got a reward of 5000$ and more over they got the FOSS India awards 2008. Here are the HEROS.




This year unfortunately the last date for submission of proposals was march 31st. We were busy with our third semester university exams, though we managed to prepare the abstract for three projects under three different organisations-Winlibre, Zope, and Rockbox. It was in between the DCS exam we prepared the abstracts with the help of Pramode Sir and Mobin Chettan. The abstract for Zope was prepared with the help of Nikhil Chettan and submitted under Renjith's name. Pramode Sir gave me new idea to propose under WINLIBRE and it is WINLIBRE-EMBEDDED, an open source tool for programming micro controllers with an IDE and a compiler. And the third one, Rockbox was submitted under Deepak's name. It is a project to add real media support to APPLE i-Pod.


As a next step we got into IRC to communicate with our mentors. We were really thrilled by their quick response. I was a little worried to talk to a mentor as the subject is more technical rather than a friendly chat that we usually do in chat rooms. But as we expressed our ideas they became more interested.


And about Winlibre, it is an open source package which contains multimedia, browsing, editing and some educational tools. It works on both windows and mac-os platforms. Our idea is to create a new tool for embedded system programming, particularly for programming the ATMEL AVR atmega8 microcontrollers. We are planning to make a tool similar to PARALLAX which is a proprietary tool basically meant for programming stamp family microcontrollers. It is famous as an educational tool. Our aim is to give an open source tool to replace parallax. The project details are as follows.


Our tool contains a user friendly IDE instead of the difficult command line.‭ ‬The only open source tool available now is the GNU C compiler.‭ ‬But programming a microcontroller‭ (‬for beginners‭) ‬is a tedious task with command line GCC.‭ ‬Our project has mainly three parts:-

1‭)‬Utility library-‭ ‬which contains functions for controlling hardware units of the micro controller (an AVR Atmega8).

2‭)‬BASIC compiler-‭ ‬which generates the corresponding assembly code for the micro controller.

3‭)‬IDE-‭ ‬in which user can code in simple BASIC language, get it
compiled and transferred to the microcontroller (using a program
like avrdude or uisp).

We hope the mentors are convinced and will approve our projects. And we plan to spend the summer vacations on the project if we get one.

Thanking Pramode Sir, Mobin Chettan and Nikhil chettan.

CIAO

Bristow

Valentine's Day-Express 'The Most Beautiful Feeling -LOVE'

First of all let me wish you all in beforehand HAPPY VALENTINES DAY. Feb-14, the valentines day, is dedicated to all those who keeps love in life and mind irrespective of culture, religion, sex and age. Love is one of the most wonderful gift given by god. There are only very few human beings who has not felt the feeling of love to anyone or anything. Every human being is blessed with this gift.

The feeling of love makes you happy, it makes our life worthy, without love our life is meaningless. Love has no age, no religion, no caste etc, it just blooms in our mind.


Though we cannot give a clear cut definition to love, it's a game of of our mind. The word love has got a range of meanings from 'something that gives a little pleasure to something one would die for. It can describe an intense feeling of affection or an emotional state. Let me tell about a love story, based on which the valentines day is celebrated.



The origin of Valentine's Day is from St. Valentine, a Roman who was martyred for refusing to give up Christianity. He died on February 14, 269 A.D., the same day that had been devoted to 'love'-the most beautiful feeling given to humans. St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From Your Valentine". Other aspects of the story say that Saint Valentine served as a priest at a temple during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Claudius then had Valentine jailed for defying him. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honor St. Valentine.

Gradually, February 14 became the date for exchanging love messages and St. Valentine became the patron saint of lovers. The date was marked by sending messages and simple gifts like flowers.

Years ago in Rome, the lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on pieces of paper and put into a box. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the box and then, they would be partners for the duration of the festival. Sometimes the pairing lasted for an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their lovers or families. As a result, Claudius canceled all marriages and engagements in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married, and for this kind deed, Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off.

He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270. At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honor of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance direct

ed.

The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavored to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's Day for th e celebration of this new feast. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way...

It's our second valentines day celebration in our college. The first one was really wonderful. And our Sami got a wonderful gift:) Three more valentines day (sadly)in our college life, and let it be more wonderful.:)

As a cessation-'There is nothing in this world that is more wonderful than love'.

ciao-

Bristow