Science Addiction

A dormant blog by Devanshu Mehta

Category: Uncategorized

August 6, 2005

Linux on the Xbox: Part I: Reasoning

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?
So a few days ago, I finally decided to sell my Xbox. Purchased in a frenzy of going-to-grad-school shopping, knowing fully well that you can’t get through a degree in computer science without putting in your hours behind the controls of a powerful gaming machine, this black and green monster has served its purpose.

But since then, I’ve graduated. I work full time. The few games I owned started finding their way to “Half.com”:http://www.half.com and pretty soon it had become clear.

The Xbox had to go. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 5, 2005

Is it Wrong to Love Microsoft… blindly?

This is my constructive response to the column at “CoolTechZone”:http://www.cooltechzone.com on the 5th of August titled “Is it Wrong to Love Microsoft?”:http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1645&Itemid=0&limit=1&limitstart=0 To give you a little perspective, I have a WindowsXP desktop dual booted with “Fedora Core 4 Linux”:http://fedora.redhat.com, Windows XP Professional laptop, and “Mac Powerbook”:http://www.apple.com/powerbook/ at home and so have sufficient experience with all of them. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 31, 2005

What kind of a Windows user are you?

“Apple Matters”:http://www.applematters.com has a nice article about the different types of Windows users out there. From “the article”:http://applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/what_type_of_windows_weenie_are_you/

Did you know that every time a Windows user converts an angel gets an iPod? It’s true. So convert someone and make an angel’s day.

Aah, I love being an Apple-snob.

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July 8, 2005

The $100 Computer

According to CNet , a $100 Linux-based computer may not be too far in the future. An Indian company called Novatium has stripped-down home computers in the pipeline that look to take PCs to the remaining 5 billion people on the planet. From the article:

Using Linux applications and software from Jain’s Netcore Solutions, these machines will be tweaked so that multiple people can use them. This would reduce the cost of memory in the server that does the bulk of the computing work for the Novatium thin clients on its network.

The article has ideas for 3 articles worth; it talks about Linux-based computers, cheap/thin computers, networked/grid applications, single-purpose computers and the problem of reaching the less-affording sections of the population.

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June 24, 2005

Firefox Support

Let me give you a lesson in the small part you can play in fighting the battles you believe need to be fought. I am a member of a website called “GoZing Surveys”:http://www.gozingsurveys.com which pays petty cash to participate in surveys. Yes, I know some people may find this intrusive but I like having enough free money for an ice cream in exchange for telling people whether I prefer Johnson & Johnson Q-tips to store brand. Read the rest of this entry »

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June 18, 2005

The Commandments of the EE

This just came up in my fortune on my Mac:

The Commandments of the EE:

(5) Take care that thou useth the proper method when thou takest the measures of high-voltage circuits too, that thou dost not incinerate both thee and thy test meter, for verily, though thou has no company property number and can be easily surveyed, the test meter has one and, as a consequence, bringeth much woe unto a purchasing agent.
(6) Take care that thou tamperest not with interlocks and safety devices, for this incurreth the wrath of the chief electrician and bring the fury of the engineers on his head.
(7) Work thou not on energized equipment for if thou doest so, thy friends will surely be buying beers for thy widow and consoling her in certain ways not generally acceptable to thee.
(8) Verily, verily I say unto thee, never service equipment alone, for electrical cooking is a slow process and thou might sizzle in thy own fat upon a hot circuit for hours on end before thy maker sees fit to end thy misery and drag thee into his fold.

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June 18, 2005

To Break Copy Protection, Ask Politely.

A few days ago, I had written about “a flawed copy protection scheme”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com/2005/06/09/copy-protected-cds/ on the new “Dave Matthews Band CD”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00082ZSP2/galaxyfaraway/ which, if you have autorun enabled, installs itself on your computer and prevents copying. Key phrase is if you have autorun enabled. Also, it works fine on a “Mac”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com/categories/computers/apple/ – so maybe that’s the computer you should use :). I know I do.

Well, there’s an update to that story; apparently with a new technology (believe-it-or-not, it’s called First4Internet!), you can’t transfer the songs on to an iPod either UNLESS “you email Sony BMG and complain”:http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&e=3&u=/nm/20050616/tc_nm/media_music_cd_dc in which case you will get a nice email explaining how to circumvent the copy protection. Great- flawed technology for an unnecessary purpose built by people who tell you how to break it if asked politely.

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June 16, 2005

Oooh MD5

“C-net’s News.com”:http://news.com.com/Microsoft+meets+the+hackers/2009-1002_3-5747813.html?tag=nefd.lede has an article about how “Microsoft”:http://www.microsoft.com apparently had a conference where they invited ‘hackers’ to help them discover security flaws. My first and humongous beef with the article is the usage of the term ‘hacker’; but that’s a whole ‘nother issue for a whole other day. Read the rest of this entry »

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June 13, 2005

Fedora Core 4

I recently installed “Fedora Core 3”:http://fedora.redhat.com on my home PC to replace my old “Red Hat 9”:http://www.redhat.com and was over all impressed with the installation experience. The machine has been running well since, though I haven’t been doing anything extraordinary with it. I wanted to get “Debian”:http://www.debian.org but couldn’t spare the time for a proper custom installation.

All the time I was preparing to install, I knew FC4 was coming out soon- but I stuck with FC3 just because I knew I would never get around to it if I waited. And then I would have been stuck with RH9 still. And then where would I be. So with much fuss and ado “Fedora Core 4”:http://fedora.redhat.com has been released today to the general public; it’s a really good “Linux”:http://www.kernel.org distribution- especially for those who aren’t familiar with Linux (general public), or don’t have time to mess with bits in a more traditional distro (that would be me). I will soon write a full length article regarding my decision to use Fedora at home (pros, cons, other alternatives). Also, if and when I get around to it- my experiences with upgrading to FC4

P.S. “Here’s an easy way”:http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/YumUpgradeFaq to upgrade from FC* to FC4 using Yum.

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June 12, 2005

A Story of Hope, Liberty, Equality and the Pursuit of Google

A few weeks ago “Wordlog.com”:http://www.wordlog.com put out a “request to all it’s readers”:http://wordlog.com/archives/2005/05/19/help-needed-with-google/ soliciting help to get listed on Google. This is a legitimate, popular and very useful (bloggers: it’s a must-bookmark) site for “WordPress”:http://www.wordpress.org users and it was a shame that it hadn’t been indexed by “Google”:http://www.google.com in it’s 1+ year of existence. “This web site”:http://scienceaddiction.com” has been up less than a week and it already has been indexed; “albeit erroneously”:http://www.google.com/search?q=scienceaddiction.com&hl=en. Now after weeks of suggestions, following through on superstitions and some fan action (including a message from yours truly to google about the travesty) “wordlog.com”:http://www.wordlog.com is finally “listed in google”:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=site:wordlog.com a total of 300 times “thanks to a well put together letter by wordlog’s Carthik Sharma”:http://wordlog.com/archives/2005/06/12/now-in-google/. He wrote a letter to Google and it paid off! “Some of the suggestions”:http://wordlog.com/archives/2005/05/19/help-needed-with-google/ he got are ludicrous but others are actually useful for people looking to get listed in Google. In my experience, the best way (unless you are as unlucky as wordlog) is to get linked from multiple reputable locations.

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