Tellico: A great collection manager

You may have lots of Audio/Video CDs, XviD/DivX Movies and music files in various media, photo albums, books etc. But when you need them actually, you may unable to locate them. At least you may take a long long time to locate the files. Always thought to manage such collections in a systematic way? If there would be some tools to manage it, life would have been so simple. Just open your pc, locate the media with a search parameter, send the search command right away and you get instant result, you collect the exact media from the upper most stack of your iron book shelf in a CD tin. Thats it. It took only 4 minutes.

Is it possible? I asked the question several times repeatedly and searched for it. Using apt-cache search and google search. May be my search keyword wasn't accurate enough, all the times I got wrong pages. But finally I reached the cute homepage of http://tellico-project.org. That’s it. Tellico. My long awaited collection manager. After getting Tellico, my life got smooth. Tellico makes it easy to track your books, videos, music and anything / everything else. A simple and intuitive interface shows cover images, groupings, and any detail you want. Grab information from many popular Internet sites, including IMDB.com, Amazon.com, and most libraries. Tellico is GPL licensed Free Software.

The Tellico logo

Its intuitive user interface will help you to get a clear idea on how to use it. At present all my DVD videos, XVID videos, Video CDs, audio CDs are updated in Tellico and I am so satisfied using the software. Tellico is great.

GIMP + Inkscape combo is awsome tools in graphic designing

For more than 3-4 years I was almost idle in graphic designing. Being a passionate art lover, I had done many personal stuff print based graphic designing. Occasionally I worked for some friends also. Those days I was an ardent fan of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker etc. before getting into the GNU circle of thoughts. When turned into Free and Open Source (FOSS) tools, I gave up such proprietary software for my personal use. Its a painful feeling when giving up something which you liked most, after you realize there was an evil associated with it. Just like you realize that your lover has a wrong relation with someone you hate. It will take a long time to cop up with the situation.
So was I. I did nothing for 3-4 years. I could not even think on working with GIMP / Inkscape / Scribus etc. Finally in the last days of 2011, I decided to do something and started my self-training with Inkscape. The very first project was a family calendar. Since 2006 onwards, I used to design our family calendar with marked up birthdays and wedding anniversaries of my family members. All were designed with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. On 2009 when I stopped using proprietary software, the calendar project also discontinued. And after a long time, now I am doing the same thing with Free and Open Source alternative software. Started the project in the mid December 2011, I had only few days left to print the final output before the new year.
The maximum paper size my printer supports is 308x446 mm (A3 Express). That's why I chose the calendar size 151x146 mm. So that I will get twelve months in both sides of an A3 express sheet. With this size I can easily get 6x8 mm space for the cutting marks.
Fortunately Inkscape has a default script for making the base calendar. In the top menu you can choose it from Extensions > Render > Calendar. So easy, so simple - Thus the main part of the project was done in the first 5 minutes. The next thing is cropping photographs and other images and files. I had already shot some photographs of my little daughter Maria with my Cannon Powershot A3100 IS digital camera. All the images were taken in Black and White mode, because I really like the preset B&W tone in this camera. The photos were cropped in 15.1x5.013. The time-consuming part was marking the birthdays and anniversaries. All of the ingredients ready, I started cooking.
Just before Christmas, I got the final prints and it was so cute. The prints were taken in 300 GSM normal paper with no lamination and then bound with loop wire binding. I took 12 copies. The cost was just Rs. 76/- ($1.5 aprox.) per calendar.
Post script: You may don't believe, within two days I mastered the software - Inkscape. Truly nice and intuitive graphic software I have ever experienced. GIMP also was far more easy than I expected. The entire design experience was so thrilling. It energized me to stay tuned with Free Software. Just watch some of the png files I have done with these GPL licensed free software, and if you are interested, upon request, I am happy to share the editable svg files too.

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : Flap

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : January

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : February

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : March

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : April

I shot the image of Maria which I placed in April calendar, only with a candle light; there were no other ambient light sources. I woke up her in the midnight from the sleep and took the photo. (My mom scolded me enough to do this midnight madness :-) waking up a little kid and shoot her photo in a candle light). Just notice how I removed the candle light from the center area of the image. If you are photoshop user, you would say "Its easy guy", so do I tell you, "in GIMP also its too easy dude"

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : May

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : June

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : July

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : August

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : September

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : October

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : November

Calendar designed with Inkscape and GIMP : December

External links

1. Inkscape official page
http://inkscape.org
2. Inkscape tutorials
http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/suggest-a-tutorial
http://diwaneayyari.wordpress.com
http://diwan-e-ayyari.blogspot.in/2008/03/how-to-create-valentines-day-hearts.html
http://chrisdesign.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/creating-real-fire
http://troy-sobotka.blogspot.in/2008/04/inkscape-tutorial-2-text-and-simple.html

3. Portable inkscape download
http://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/inkscape_portable

4. Other helpful links
http://openclipart.org
Inkscape vs. Illustrator

Manaveeyam Technologies launches Ubuntu powered Dell Laptops and Ubuntu Support

Kochi, India 29 February 2012: Ubuntu powered Dell Laptops with Manaveeyam’s advantage gives you an exciting laptop experience like never before. Laptops are now available to people and business from Manaveeyam Technologies at realistic prices. The range of laptops along with complete support delivers a fast, secure, compatible, accessible and sustainable computing. With over thousands of exciting applications, these laptops enable you to do more than what you do.

Current trends show a decrease in overall productivity due to vluable time being wasted on dealing with viruses and malware. Manaveeyam’s laptops are virus-resistant and lets the user work effectively without worrying about anti-virus solutions and formatting.

“Ubuntu’s founding principle is to remove the barriers of access to computing for everyone”, said Mark Shuttleworth, founder and product strategist at Canonical.

“The Ubuntu powered Dell laptop is a great-looking, easy-to-use, secured, virus-resistant, intuitive and helps you to stay connected and stay ahead of latest technology even on low resources. These laptops are great for social networking and email. Comes with the full featured office suite - LibreOffice, speedy and safe web browser - Firefox, with built-in-security. You can manage your photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games, video conferencing, learn from tons of educational software and many more...”

Full feature Ubuntu powered Dell laptops

The essential laptop for every day use, Dell i3/4GB/320GB is packed with full options at affordable price. The latest i3 performance processor, high on RAM with 4GB, large on storage with 320GB HDD, on-demand intel graphics performance, virus-resistant, powered by full feature Ubuntu Desktop with built-in-security, high portability with 2.2kg/ 2.37kg and an IT department for you with 1-Year In-Home Warranty with CompleteCover. The 14.0”/ 15.6” screen starting at Rs. 29,000.

The Manaveeyam Advantage

 The manaveeyam support lets you take complete control of computing. We provide a comprehensive and flexible support package, migration and training to people and business on Ubuntu certified hardware. We let customers take advantage and experience the best and the latest in open-source technology which lets them stay connected and stay ahead.

About Canonical
Canonical provides engineering, online and professional services to Ubuntu partners and customers worldwide. As the company behind the Ubuntu project, Canonical is committed to the production and support of Ubuntu – an ever-popular and fast-growing open-source operating system. It aims to ensure that Ubuntu is available to every organisation and individual on servers, desktops, laptops and netbooks. For more information, visit www.ubuntu.com.
Canonical partners with computer hardware manufacturers to certify Ubuntu, provides migration, deployment, support and training services to businesses, and offers online services direct to end users. Canonical also builds and maintains collaborative, open source development tools to ensure that organisations and individuals can participate fully in innovations within the open-source community. For more information, visit www.canonical.com.

About Dell India
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. Dell OEM Solutions helps its customers find more balance between execution and innovation with dedicated OEM resources, industry-standard hardware and global services and support capabilities. Dell helps its OEM customers improve their time to profit and run their operations more efficiently for increased competitive edge. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

About Manaveeyam Technologies
Technology powered by Values! Manaveeyam Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (MTPL) based in Kochi, India puts people first by delivering an affordable, sustainable, secured, easy-to-use green computing technology to people and business with creativity and innovations of the best of open-source community and companies. For more information, visit manaveeyam.in. Call: Sameer (+91-9995717112), Mathew (+91-8086733733), Sreekanth (+91-9895181906), Manoj (+91-9847446918), Thomas (7736780769)

Cost effective Portable Broadband Internet

Many friends frequently asks about a smart / cost effective way to access internet in their laptop. There are lot of portable Broadband Internet Service Providers world wide. Here in Kerala there are Reliance, Tata Tele-services and lots of mobile service providers have introduced such broad band internet services. But when and performance matters, there is very little options in Portable Broadband Internet Services. Very recently I was happened to know a comparatively-good option in Portable Internet. This particular internet connection is based on EDGE technology in mobile phones.

What is EDGE

EDGE stands for Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution. It is a digital mobile phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates as a backward-compatible extension of GSM. It is also known as Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS). Basically EDGE is a superset to GPRS and can function on any network with GPRS deployed on it, provided the carrier implements the necessary upgrade.

TATA-DOCOMO's EDGE based internet plan

Yes. In Kerala, Docomos internet plans are so cheep. Rs. 48/- for 2 GB download per month. If you are using it with GNU/Linux operating system its performance is really great. A file can be downloaded 15-30 Kbps which means you have a bandwidth of 120-240 Kbps. And most amazing is, if you have a good signal strength, you will get a stable internet. Please do not compare the speed with leased lines and fixed DSL lines.

Instructions for TATA-DOCOMO internet using with Gnu/Linux
As the old times, what we did for dial up connections. We used wvdial. Yes! wvdial reloaded.

Use wvdialconf to set up the modem.

nano /etc/wvdial.conf and add the following things

Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET"
Phone = *99*# [ Phone = *99# for normal phones | *99***1# for Nokia phones]
Password = internet
Username = internet
Baud = 57600
stupid mode = 1

TATA-DOCOMO provide Linux support for GPRS!

Last time when I called TATA Docomo's call centre, they told me that they can support GPRS users in Gnu/Linux platform. However, there will be minimal issues you will face when you use such a connection through Gnu/Linux. Here is a list of the issues I faced

I am using a dual sim phone. There may be conflicts of default SIM.

The service provider has to send us a configuration sms which has to be installed in your handset. If the configuration file corrupted, you won't be able to connect the internet.

Here is a sample of /etc/wvdial.conf

[Dialer Defaults]

Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET"
Modem Type = USB Modem
Baud = 57600
New PPPD = yes
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
ISDN = 0
Phone = *991#
Password = internet
Username = internet

Interaction with RMS

It was on 9th of September 2010. I was anxiously waiting for this day to attend the function in which Richard Matthew Stallman delivering a speech at St. Joseph's College of Engineering and Technology, Palai. The speech was great. I Started from home very early along with my friends at ILUG Cochin. We reached there some hours before the speech. The function was organized amazingly by the Computer Engineering Students. The students started a FSUG (Free Software User Group) in their college and they named it as Swathanthra.in
RMS explained concepts and philosophy of the revolutionary os GNU/Linux. His two hour lecture was really great. He talked about Free-software. He talked about freedom. The ceremonial funny drama had taken place here too, RMS wore a black gown and an old CD as cap and said “I am St. Ignucius of the Church of Emacs and I bless your computer, my child. Long may you run.” In the Q&A session, I wrote a question to him and he answered it very passionately. The question was this -" you totally against to Open Source initiatives and FOSS. The question is asked in the background of a project like OPEN DRM". He answered that he is not AGAINST. Whatever the term may be, the core issue is FREEDOM. After answering the question, he added that "This is a good question". And I did know that he may comment something good to that question, because I have read there were a project like "Open DRM" was in serious consideration in some open source communities, which RMS clearly expressed his strong disapproval against such stupid projects. Even there were some Open Malwares! That question can be extended to such distros like Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL).

After the speech, ILUG Cochin got a chance to meet RMS in person. We took some photographs with him. Anyway, it was my first experience with such an eminent person in the Free Software Community, and the experience was great.

How to recover your grub?

In a GNU/Linux installed system, the default boot record is handled by GRand Unified Boot Loader or GRUB. Originally written by Erich Boleyn, Grub is considered as one of the best boot loaders available. In many circumstances, a boot record can be changed, i.e., another OS installation is one among them. For example, if you install /upgrade Windows 7 in a GNU/Linux installed machine, the GRub will be replaced by Windows' own boot record. From that point you will not be able to load GNU/Linux from your system. Because Windows' boot loader will never load another OS. However, you can easily recover your grub with only two or three lines of commands. It's very easy, it's not so techy. All you need is to have is a Live CD/DVD of GNU/Linux such as Knoppix. Here is the way to recover your grub.
Note: This weblog is written for Debian based text mode GRub recovery
1. Boot the system with Knoppix
2. type fdisk -l Hit enter to get a rough idea about your partitions and corresponding file systems. And just note down the Linux file systmes in a piece of paper.
3. Type grub
4. Type find /boot/grub/stage1 Hit enter
Note: If you get error message (Error 15: File not found) try another location as,
find /grub/stage1 Hit enter You'll probably get a reply from either of these commands just like (hd0,6)


Note: (hd0,6) is an example. hd0 is the drive; ,6 is the partition.
5. Type setup (hd0) Hit enter
Note: you only give drive number only; not the device number
6. You'll see some lines of codes like
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists ... no
Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists ... yes
Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists ... yes
Checking if "/boot/e2fs/stage1-5" exists ... yes
Checking if "/boot/e2fs/stage1-5 (hd0)" exists ...
17 sectors embedded succeeded
Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0)(hd0)1+17P (hd0,6) /grub/stage2 /grub/menu.lst"..
succeeded
Done

IF you can read this message, your grub has recovered.
Now reboot your system.
Remove Knoppix CD.
Boot your hard disk.
Congratulations.
You have recovered your GRand Unified Boot Loader.

andLinux. A great step to Linux-for-all

As an ardent Linux fan, I was always behind Debian for more than last 5 years. I loved the free software concept. And I tried my best to use only free software. As a graphic designer, this would not been always practical. So I had to make compromises several times. I am working in an advertising agency, where they are using only Windows client machines to do the graphic part. I was the person who initiated to move the network system under Linux (Debian). Everybody were happy in using a trouble-free networking environment.
But I had to use Windows to run some graphic software like Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash etc. Even a dual boot system has its own limitations. It is not practical to switch your system frequently. I was dreaming of a virtual Linus inside Windows, just like Wine. There may be a Line as a counterpart for Wine, I thought and even I googled for Line. I heard about cygwin. Tried to load it to run fontforge. However I kept a Knoppix 5.3 DVD always in my table draw. Whenever I want for Linux, I load it.
One of my favourite Linux applications was Kmymoney2. This software taught me the way to track my income and expenses and helped me a lot to control the spending. I could use Kmymoney only in my home because it does not have a Windows version (but Gnucash has). I inspired many of my friends about Kmymoney and some of them got in tune with it. One day Mr. Saju George (he was my teacher in Debian) called me up and told me that a link has been forwarded to my inbox. The link was of a new distro of Linux which can run inside Windows so that I can use Kmymoney2 in my office computer.
I downloaded it and installed it immediately. Great. Everything was really great. It was not a Virtual Machine as I expected. It was a clean Linux. You can add packages with apt-get install. I installed Kmymoney with its console. But a problem. To run andLinux, you must have admin rights in Windows. Normal user can only get the FLTK console only. I tried all the possible methods, but could not run in normal user mode. But still I think, this can be configured soon. I am really happy anyway. Its a great step in spreading Linux to commoners...

Tanatos.m or Sality Virus attack: Here is a good solution

Disable system restore service before you start these steps.

1. There is a utility supplied by trendmicro. Its name is SysClean.com. Download SysClean.com from here
2. There are virus pattern files from Trendmicro. Download those Virus Patterns Information here. Note: Download all available virus patterns and download it to one single folder where sysclean is located.
3. Download Spyware Pattern here (somewhere at the middle of the page)
4. Put all files in one folder
5. after downloading reboot your system
6. Boot your system to Safe mode as System administrator
7. Run SysClean.com from where you save it
8. Don’t do anything while the cleaner is in process.
9. After its finished scanning and cleaning open report file to see the viruses.

Administrative privilege in DOS in Windows XP

There are two simple methods to get administrator access in DOS shell in Windows XP. Both methods are too simple and there is no confusions or complications in it. Quite simple. Here is the steps

Method 1

1. Start -> run -> type "cmd"
[DOS shell comes]
2. Type the following
runas /user:computername\administrative user name cmd
eg: if computer name is "system1" and administrative user name is "administrator" then the command will be
runas /user:system1\administrator cmd
[a new DOS Shell will appear and you can execute your administrative tasks]
;-) Too simple, eh?

Method 2

[May be you'll laugh when you read out this one!]
1. Go to c:\WINDOWS\system32\
[click on the "Show the contents of this folder"]
2. RIght-click on cmd.exe and select "Run as..."
[Give administrator user name and password]
Too too tooo simple... ;-) ...?

Just going to enter in the FreeBSD World

A couple of days, I wandered from sites to sites in the internet. After an hour or two, as always, I fell down in the subject - Open Source. This time I was searching for Unix evolution and finally I reached in the FreeBSD project. I called Saju, my Linux guru, and he told me that bsd is fine, but hard to manage. Almost all experts in the internet say the same opinion. Considering the comparison between Debian and Freebsd, most system administrators conclude that Debian is better in management.
But I always loved the bsd devil. I love its horns... I started download from the official torrentz link. And I am planning to experiment it with a free 10 GB Hdd which is now using as a backup disk. I have also created a sticker for the DVD just exactly as freebsd.org shown in their website. If you want to download it, here is the link.

ORKUT; A FUNNY TROJAN ATTACKS!

Recently some of my friends called me to fix their orkut from some devil obsession!
I thought it might be something silly. But that was a Trojan activity. I found that there was an mp3 file which lets the sound is playing at the end of the Display of the following lines
" ORKUT IS BANNED,Orkut is banned you fool`,The
administrators didnt write this program guess who did?? "
:: REMOVAL INSTRUCTIONS ::• Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to open Task Manager. Then click on the Process tab.
• Delete the SVChost.exe file that comes with system's user name.
• Ignore the warning messages while doing that.
• Go to C:/Heap41a using RUN option and delete the contents of the folder.
• Now you will be able to use Orkut without any hassles.