Linuxers July 2001

linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in

117 participants
352 discussions

Do we have a problem?
by Philip S Tellis 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

In today's Bombay Times, Vijay Mukhi states that he has never been anti linux, and that C++ is just a newer version of C. This is the same Vijay Mukhi who will be teaching our cops how to use Java, C# and TCP/IP, all in an attempt to get them to know more than the `hackers'. Philip -- What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" Visit my webpage at http://www.ncst.ernet.in/~philip/ Read my writings at http://www.ncst.ernet.in/~philip/writings/ MSN philiptellis Yahoo! philiptellis

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] The Simputer
by Mayuresh A Kathe 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

> A more powerful device doesn't mean more power in their hands. > You could give them a p3 but that p3 will only have value as long > as they're actually getting something out of the power. I did see Now thats what I meant in my earlier mail (Arnold theory ;-) Unless they are using the tremendous power offered by the StrongARM, its a waste. > the simputer at IISc in Bangalore and from what I could see, this > has tremendous value as a information dissemination device. > Philip was right in saying that the primary use is likely to be > for output rather than input. This is definitely not a pathetic > product. Thats where you are wrong Mayank, the simputer is too sick as a information dissemination device, its best suited as a information gathering device. And as I said earlier, in the current state that they have positioned the Simputer, its not worth the hype. > You should check out this India today article > http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010219/adapters.shtml. It > shows fisherman in kerala using GPS positining devices as well as > [snip] > Please don't make the mistake of assuming that since they're poor > and illiterate, they cannot ever learn to use a simple device > like the simputer. Mayank you are going at tangents... What made you think that I am assuming "since people are poor they cannot ever learn to use a simple device"? What I have mentioned is, the person will have to learn an extra script, and the device is certainly not worth that effort. But the Simputer certainly isn't simple enough nor is it sophisticated enough, it hangs somewhere in between with no identity what so ever. GPS positioning devices are one of the most sophisticated instruments I have come across and they are _verrrry_ expensive. > Relevant question here is whether there will be people who are > willing to manufacture the device and also provide the content > that is essential to the receiver of the content. I don't think a > farmer in North India would be interested in the prices of fish > down in kerala. The device is here as it the technology, but when > do we see it in the hands of the masses? People would be willing to manufacture it if they just want to hop on to the bandwagon, else they would want to manufacture it if the device makes some business sense. Regarding receiving content: Well don't you think it to be stupid not to include a wireless interface _inside_ a handheld portable device? But since they wanted to keep the costs low they had to put in a standard modem which hooks on to a phone line, now if the person wants to surf he has to be sitting near a phone jack, so what the heck, why not add a keyboard, mouse and an inexpensive monitor, and voila, you have an ultra low cost desktop. I don't see it in the hands of the masses in its current state, somehow I think the designers got their basic concepts wrong. ~Mayuresh

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Re : C help
by Triptpal Singh Lamba 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

wrt : I need to know If there is an online > (dowloadable or otherwise) verion of a good book on > C/C++ > like Dennis Ritchie / Bjarne Stroustroup... Ditto > for Unix. N/W prog. like Richard Stevens... I had > seen the 2nd Edition and felt it was mostly about > how different commands work answer goto : http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds3-2/ovp32.html U will find all u need Regards, Triptpal Singh Before criticising anybody step into their shoes and walk for a mile.

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] Compressed files
by Nikhil Karkera 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

------------- Original Message -------------- Q u a s i <quasiabhi(a)yahoo.com> wrote: At 04:33 PM 6/29/01 +0000, Nikhil Karkera wrote: >An MP3 file is just a compressed WAV file. err. IMHO WAV -> MP3 is more than just plain compression. A lot of sophisticated techniques are used to decide which data is redundant and can be removed. The resultant compression is "lossy" - original data cannot be retrieved after decompression. Ditto for BMP -> JPEG. ---------------- End ------------------------ Yes, lossy compression techniques do throw away data. In case of images, JPEG exploits the limitations of the human eye, and throws away data in such a manner so as to try make the loss of data as unnoticable as possible. (image is represented in the form of a discrete signal I(x,y); pixel intensities represented by magnitude; signal magnitude is quantised to certain number of levels; no of quantisation levels variable; lesser quantisation levels = more compression & lesser quality; quantisation throws data). So also for MPEG compression. I guess it woldn't be right to call lossy compression a data compression technique (data = 0's and 1's), but rather an information compression technique(information = picture/sound represented by the 0's and 1's). But it is compression. Lossless compression on the other hand is a data compression technique. Regards, Nikhil. ____________________________________________________ Buy Feng Shui Package for Rs. 151/- only, at http://shopping.rediff.com/shopping/fengshui_mailer.htm

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CVS
by Rajen Parekh 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

Hi all, I have a stupid question to ask. What is this CVS thing ? I come across it at many places, mostly on download pages, but don't know anything about it. Could anyone enlighten me ? Regards, Rajen.

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[OFF TOPIC] Looking for Windows programming reference books
by S. Krishnan 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

Hi, I need the following Windows systems programming books urgently. If anyone is has them, I'd request either a short-term loan (say a week to 10 days), or alternatively, I'd be willing to buy them from anyone who wants to sell. 1. Systems Programming for Windows 95, by Walter Oney 2. Writing Windows VxDs & Device Drivers; Programming Secrets for Virtual Device Drivers, by Karen Hazzah Please e-mail me offlist if you can help me with these. TIA, Krishnan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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$MAIL: New mail notification in bash
by Manish Jethani 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

Bash has this feature of notifying you when you have new mail. The MAIL env. var. needs to be set to include the mail folders that need to be checked for new mail. On my system, I have included some of my Pine folders (e. g. $HOME/mail/linuxers) in $MAIL. I would like to know how bash "checks for new mail". Does it just use the "last accessed time"? I am sorry, I couldn't find any info on this in the manpage. My problem: After getting the notification ("You have new mail in linuxers") and reading the new message(s) using Pine, bash _again_ tells me that I have new mail. I suspect it just uses the last access time, which makes it so dumb in my case, because the message gets "marked as read/old" (thus modifying the mail folder file) since I have _just_read_it_. In short, it notifies me twice, once when I have new mail, and again when the mail has just been read. Any of you guys using this? How do you cope with it? Manish PS: I run fetchmail in daemon mode, so mail notification on the command line is cool for me. -- "If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)

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Reminder: ACM Seminar on Data Compression, Friday June 29
by Durgesh D Rao 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

Dear Colleague, This is to remind you of the following ACM event. Once again, sorry for the delayed email. - Durgesh, for ACM Mumbai ACM Seminar Friday, June 29, 2001 - 6:30 p.m. Title: Data Compression Speaker: Sayyed S. A. A., NCST Venue: Lecture Theatre, NCST, Juhu Abstract:Data compression techniques are applied to files to reduce their size, which in turn increases the capacity of data storage and speeds up data transmission. Data compression draws heavily from information theory, which deals with the probability of some symbol appearing in the input. For totally random sources, each symbol is equally likely, but random sources are uncompressible. This means that the more probable an event, the less information it contains. Data compression techniques also work on this principle. If we look at real-world files, we find a lot of redundant data in them. Data compression exploits this redundancy to its advantage. I intend to give an overview of data compression About the Speaker: Mr Sayyed is a consultant in the Database and Knowledge Engineering division at NCST Juhu. His interests include Databases, compression and encryption. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Durgesh D Rao (DDR) | Email: durgesh(a)ncst.ernet.in Research Scientist, KBCS Division | Ph: 6201606x372(w), 7563437(r) National Centre for Software Technology | Fax: +91-22-6210139 Gulmohar Rd 9, Juhu, Mumbai 400049, INDIA.| Web: www.ncst.ernet.in/~durgesh ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] Re-building the kernel
by Mayuresh A Kathe 02 Jul '01

02 Jul '01

Yup, this mail fixes it :-) ~Mayuresh > > Hi, > Sorry about the html.. hope this fixes it... > > As for the re-building the kernel.. i meant updating it with fixes of a > remote machine... a machine on which i dun have hands on access.. > > Philip answered my question.. > Thanx > Kunal > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Mayuresh A Kathe" <mayuresh(a)vsnl.com> > To: <linuxers(a)mm.ilug-bom.org.in> > Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2001 11:31 PM > Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] Re-building the kernel > > >> Hi Kunal, >> >> What do you exactly mean by re-building the kernel of a remote server? >> >> Awaiting your reply. >> >> ~Mayuresh >> >> PS: >> DO NOT send HTML mails, you are using Outlook Express, >> but most of us do not have an HTML aware email client. >> >> >> >> > >> > Hi, >> > I couldnt find anything on the ILUG site, on how to re-build the >> kernel of >> a > remote server... Could some one direct me to the right page? >> > Thanx, >> > Kunal >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Richard Stallman's Public Lecture 5pm 17th July, at TIFR. >> Linuxers mailing list >> Linuxers(a)mm.ilug-bom.org.in >> http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Richard Stallman's Public Lecture 5pm 17th July, at TIFR. > Linuxers mailing list > Linuxers(a)mm.ilug-bom.org.in > http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] Re-building the kernel
by Mayuresh A Kathe 01 Jul '01

01 Jul '01

Hi Kunal, What do you exactly mean by re-building the kernel of a remote server? Awaiting your reply. ~Mayuresh PS: DO NOT send HTML mails, you are using Outlook Express, but most of us do not have an HTML aware email client. > > Hi, > I couldnt find anything on the ILUG site, on how to re-build the kernel of a > remote server... Could some one direct me to the right page? > Thanx, > Kunal

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Linuxers July 2001