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PS: Actually so many goooood things have happened that I am not finding time to update! Hint:darkch0c0lat3 does nag me about that and *that* nagging is also a Good thing™! ;-)

On Monday, bluesmuse and I went for our first Broadway play. We started out the day planning on heading to the Met Museum, but when we got there, we learnt that it was closed on Mondays. We walked through Central Park and then headed down to Times Square at Broadway. The lights were shining, brilliant; the day would never end, it seemed. We scouted around for things to do, places to go. We checked every theatre we passed - they were all closed on Mondays, selling only advance tickets for the following days. We finally checked with a ticket salesman if there was anything playing anywhere on this slightly overcast Monday.

He handed us a booklet, and we walked for a while, then saw a large sign that said "Tickets". To everything apparently. They were selling tickets to movies and plays at a discount. The two young ladies out there suggested that we head to the Snapple Theatre on Broadway and 50th and watch the Perfect Crime — the longest running play on Broadway. Tickets were normally priced between $41 and $51, and they were selling them at $35 at this place, but one of the girls told us to go down to the theatre and say "20 at 20", so we did, and got tickets at $20 each.

The theatre was not too large. Small enough to be personal. It felt like sitting in the NCPA's experimental theatre. I almost expected Jaimini Pathak to walk out and start speaking.

The play was very good. I highly recommend it. I'm not leaving any spoilers here, but it's basically about three psychiatrists, a cop and a few patients. It's set over the course of a week, and you really need to follow every part of it or you'll be left wondering what happened.

Manish pointed me to the Chandler Project .

From their website :
Chandler Project is an open source, standards-based personal information manager (PIM) built around small group collaboration and a core set of information management workflows modelled on Inbox usage patterns and David Allen's GTD methodology.
Chandler Desktop and Chandler Server are cross-platform and standards-based.

(Damn, I wish people used words that convey meaning without having to be abstract !)

FUDcon Signage

We needed some signage for FUDcon pretty quickly so I've been working on that. Here's what I came up with:





Links to the source files and printer-ready graphics are here, as well as sort of a 'lessons-learned' writeup so hopefully the next time we do designs like this we'll be a bit the wiser. :)

I'm also going to do a FUDpub sign design; I'm thinking we can get those printed out on normal-sized paper closer to the time of the event.

Fedora Collateral

I've been hearing from a lot of you about the Fedora general-purpose posters. They are only in SVG format on the wiki right now, and it's really hard to work with these files when trying to go to the printers. I definitely hear you on this and I'm going to try to go back soon and get these posters done up in printer-ready format so you can just grab and go to the printers and be all set without having to poke around in the file. One question I have for you, though, is what sizes would these posters be useful in? I'm thinking of maybe having printer-ready files available for:

- A4
- Letter
- Poster - 24" x 36" (standard poster size in the US)
- ??

What poster sizes are common in your country/region? For the smaller signs, is either A4 or Letter sufficient?

Thanks :)

I really felt bad, when Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, did not have a Hindi translation.Official translation has been provided to languages Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Therefore I was trying some hands-on with translation by translating its preamble. It is still not complete. Surely I need voulnteers. Once the entire translation work is done, I will post it on our OSSRC-wiki. I am posting some part of the translation effort. Need feedback...

( translations... )

Another thing to try : Retroshare

From the Off the Record site:

Off-the-Record (OTR) Messaging allows you to have private conversations over instant messaging by providing:

Encryption
No one else can read your instant messages.
Authentication
You are assured the correspondent is who you think it is.
Deniability
The messages you send do not have digital signatures that are checkable by a third party. Anyone can forge messages after a conversation to make them look like they came from you. However, during a conversation, your correspondent is assured the messages he sees are authentic and unmodified.
Perfect forward secrecy
If you lose control of your private keys, no previous conversation is compromised.





Off-the-Record (OTR) Messaging allows you to have private conversations over instant messaging by providing:

Encryption
No one else can read your instant messages.
Authentication
You are assured the correspondent is who you think it is.
Deniability
The messages you send do not have digital signatures that are checkable by a third party. Anyone can forge messages after a conversation to make them look like they came from you. However, during a conversation, your correspondent is assured the messages he sees are authentic and unmodified.
Perfect forward secrecy
If you lose control of your private keys, no previous conversation is compromised.

From the Open Change website:

OpenChange aims to provide a portable Open Source implementation of Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange protocols. They are working on two aspects:
1. Provide interoperability with Exchange protocols.
2. Provide a transparent replacement to Microsoft Exchange Server with native Exchange protocols support and direct communication with Microsoft Outlook.

From the Domingo website:
Domingo is a simple, consistent, object-oriented easy-to-use interface to the Lotus Notes/Domino Java-API.
Two of the listed features look interesting:
# Easy access to the Notes client in Java from outside of the Notes client.
# Stable access to Lotus Domino from a J2EE Web-Application server

Spicebird looks promising and an open alternative to some features that MS Exchange and Lotus Notes provide.

David Nielsen, before you get all excited, you might want to read this. "It's true that, under the terms of our agreements with Microsoft, only SUSE Linux Enterprise will be able to bundle Moonlight into the distribution." I hope that we aren't struck with more patent encumbered software issues now.

Fedora as a project is well known today for having a strong Free software philosophy and a push for upstream that results in remarkable amount of innovation. We have upstream projects who love us for what we are and recognize the great strides we have made in the community.

My passion for Free and open source has only been strengthened and solidified since I started participating in this community during the early days, a couple of months after it was formed and I have learned a lot, got a job working with and on things I enjoy. It is a remarkable and wonderful journey. In all these years, it is surprising to look back at that email I wrote and not wonder if my ideas really has changed at all.I think, maybe not.

One of those every lasting ideas that has always stayed with me is a strong commitment to our underlying principles. After making great strides with focusing our free and open source licensing guidelines and policies and continuously doing extensive internals reviews to make sure we are compliant with our own guidelines, I started regularly discussing with FSF, especially RMS and Brett Smith about what we are doing with Fedora. What was most striking in these discussions was that FSF and RMS in particular who was well known in the community for having such adamant and extreme focus on the Free software philosophy turned out to have other not so well known traits too. They were all that and more such as RMS insistence on using just the right words but I also found something quite unexpected hidden beneath the ideology: Pragmatism. If you notice carefully, it is reflected everywhere in their actions as Alan Cox eloquently observed.

I have been spending the last couple of weeks talking to them about clarifying where exactly they are drawing the lines on what constitutes a free system beyond just software and today, FSF just again proved to be quite reasonable by publishing the free system distribution guidelines based on the Fedora licensing guidelines. While I just send my detailed list of feedback on these guidelines and we are not done just yet, I hope this proves to be a useful document to everyone involved and all hail the pragmatic extremists for that. The world is just better off with them in it despite all their own quirks.

M: Heya
R: Hey there
M: wassup ?
R: kickstarting an ubuntu box here. How about you ?
M: Just migrated everything to a new file server.
R: Cool. Faced any problems ? How about the ISCSI Initiator ?
M: Naah, the ISCSI initiator worked fine.
R: Nice.


R: Hey
J: Hey. How is everything ?
R: Good.
J: Hey, I fixed that problem with the F1 key on bootup for MachineX.
R: Nice. What was it ?
J: The hard disk cables were not plugged into the correct port on board.
R: Oh. I must check that when I get to the office.

J: The latency between this office B and office P seems high.
R: Let me check right away
* R does some quick checks *
R: The latency between our router and the office P router is very high. Instead of the usual 30 ms, I see 250 ms. This is still within the agreed upon limit of 300 ms, though.

A: Should we opt for source based destination routing or destination based source natting ?
(we ended up using DNAT and SNAT)

I sat down and tried to get comfortable. The seat had more joints than I knew what to do with, and it had a separate button, no two, for each of them. Then it had two macro buttons that scripted the others to do a bunch of high level maneuvers to get to two extremes, and discrete points in between.

I played with it a bit.

There was a bar. They served Dom Peringon among other things. They brought it to me with nuts. That confused me because half my brain suddenly thought that I was at Yacht. I wasn't.

There was a table that slid out from under the television. It was rather large. They came up to me and said, "Sir, may I dress your table?", which always cracks me up. The food was the same old fare, just decorated and served differently.

I watched I am Legend, and Italian Job, and I stretched out and slept. Full length, with a large pillow and comfortable blanket. The seat turned into a bed, with sufficient room for all six feet of me to stretch out. I enjoyed a good couple of hours of undisturbed rest.

The restroom was large. You could stretch out your arms without hitting the walls. Large half length mirrors that covered the side walls created the impression of a larger room.

This was my first time flying international business class. Thanks to my Jet Airways upgrade vouchers, I was able to upgrade from Brussels to Mumbai. I was two vouchers short of an upgrade all the way through.

I could really get used to it, but my company isn't going to pay for my personal travel, not business class, not economy. Which means I should either halve the number of flights I take, or double the amount of money I make.

I still don't know who's going to pay for me to go to Linux Symposium this year. The conference says they won't pay, and I'm not about to pay $1500 for the right to speak at a conference. Let the attendees read my blog instead.

Oh yeah, in other news, just had a four day vacation in New York (Manhattan and Cold Spring), and I'll be working from Mumbai for a week.

Another link http://enigmail.mozdev.org/home/index.php

I haven't tried this yet. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Protecting_the_contents_of_the_profile_-_mail

Hm, it's hard to 'draw' when you can't see what you're drawing when you're drawing it. :)

This is about Nirav Mehta's post on usability found here...
http://www.mehtanirav.com/2008/04/17/impressive-usability-on-the-login-page/
and the comment by Naveen, found here...
http://www.creanology.org/2008/04/usability-review/

I do not agree with either of these great men, Nirav and Naveen.
1) I will like to remove the "No, I'm a new user" link. When I want to login, I simply want to type in my username and password and hit enter! When I want to register, I look for big "Register" or "Sign Up" button with mouseover effect. As you can see, 'Sign Up' and 'Sign In' links are there at the top! Therefore it would be best to remove the 'sign up' option from 'Sign in' page.
2) I do not like the idea of using E-mail address as login. I want to use 'username' as login credential and NOT an e-mail that may change.
3) I will like the username, password input boxes integrated somewhere on the home page, instead of having a separate page for it. If space is an issue, create a mouseover/ onclick drop down box for 'Sign In' link at the top right.

You have to understand how the new users come to site, interact and judge/trust site. The users like me register with several sites before settling down with one or two really useful sites those I will like to use often. So all I look for is a quick way to login or register. The best would have been integrating with facebook or drupal or open ID so that there is no need to login at all or atleast I can use the same username and password evreywhere!

As previously mentioned, this week is Bike Week and so I'm pushing myself to only travel by bike for the week for going to school/work rather than availing myself of some of the other options. Plus, it's spring and the office isn't that far, so biking in to work gets me some good extra miles.

Yesterday was supposed to be cool and rainy, but the weather forecasters were wrong and the day ended up being just cool and windy. Biked to school per normal, no real oddities. Legs were a little sore from Sunday's ride, but I took it easy and just tried to lightly spin which worked out well.

Today ended up being significantly warmer than I expected, so I ended up peeling off some clothes on my way out to the office. I also happened to be behind a guy on the bike path who had both of the pannier bags that I've been considering (the Arkel Bug and the Arkel Commuter). This was convenient as I was able to get some real opinions and based on that, I think I'm going to go with the Commuter.

My way home ended up being a bit more interesting... I passed a few Quad riders on 225 as I was heading back but only noticed as I was flying past them spinning for all I could (ahhh, the fixie on downhills :). They did eventually catch me with a "don't you hate having to race to catch up to a commuter on a single speed" and I rode with them for a ways. Fell off as they sped down Lowell Rd and I continued on. Happened upon someone on the other side of Concord Center with a mechanical and stopped to try to help them. Finally made it home as it was getting dark and then ended up helping my next door neighbor, who needed to borrow a pump so that he can bike to work tomorrow.