Prince of Persia

I am not talking about the movie. I am talking of the game that we used to play on DOS. Some of us still like to play this game. But unfortunately our Mac’s and Windows would not run it for us. So how do we do it?

There are two ways.

1. If you are using VMWare then you need to download a VMAppliance, called Nostalgic and run. Your favourite games are all there. Now click here to know more about the appliance.

2. But for lesser mortals there is another way if you are not running VMWare. You need a DOS emulator. DOSbox is the solution. Go to this place and download the DOSBOX. 0.74 is the latest stable version. Next download your game, in our case Prince of Persia from here. With a little effort you can locate more games.

So it’s time you need to rush and rescue the princess.

E-Books Converter

Many of us like to collect e-books. Most of them are in PDF format. But if you are the person who like to read the e-books on other devices like, iphone, android phones, tablets, nokia phones etc, then you might want to convert the books to a format that is friendly with the form factor (screen dimensions) of the device.

There is one excellent software, I recommend highly, called calibre.

So what to do now?

a. download the software from here.

b. Install and run it.

c. Select a PDF. Convert it to epub format. Use iTunes, and bring the epub to iphone, and read it there.

A good place to start is with the hundreds of manuals in PDF format that we read everyday.

Browsers maturing.

So finally customers are having an upper hand while surfing internet. All these years, we had no choice. The browsers were driven by companies needs and less by privacy. It was not un common for sites to collect information with or without our consent. And the list of browsers was very much limited.

Firefox 4 and IE 9 have finally passed the control to us. The basic question is now like this.

a. Do we want sites to collect information on what we are doing on the net? Obviously the answer is NO. These two browsers allow us to browse freely. At least we are not bothered on who is tracking our movement.

b. Do we want Ads to keep coming up when and where we like? Definitely NO again. These two browsers let us do this. Try surfing any site, news paper, blogs, e-commerce and a host of sites with videos come up and running. And you are in a meeting, and this video starts to play with audio.

What about other browsers? Safari, Chrome etc etc. They are not yet there. So what should you do next.

a. Update your browsers if you are using IE or Firefox.

b. Move to these browsers if you are using others.

And drill down and make your settings. If you want to know how, then I will post that too.

Manoj Purohit - Rest In Peace

It has been an extremely sad today today. My cousin brother and a dear friend, Manoj Purohit passed away. We stayed together in 1994. I stayed at their place when I had shifted to Mumbai looking for a job. We used to go together to the town. And then for the next couple of years, I stayed a stone's throw from his house. We spend quite a time together.

And he got married, got a son. And all the time we were together. I left Mumbai in 1998 and then it was a touch and go meeting. The last time we met together was in 2010. That time I had been to his place, and we had dinner together.

He never expressed any feeling outside. He took everything to his heart. After my Aunty passed away in 2003 he took the loss to his heart. He did his business. He achieved a lot of success and made a lot of money as well.

I pray for his soul. And God give strength to his immediate family on this great loss. Bye Manoj.

Analysis 2010

2010 had lots of surprises. I have written this to let you know what has affected me. There were lots of things that I liked to include here, but then on a second thought I decided to leave them aside. The list is not in any order.

1. My friend Vivek Kalla interest in music really surprised me. I used to think he was a part time singer. But seeing him as a  judge and mentor in the Marwar ki Awaj, really impressed me. I have given links to some of the you tube videos at the end of the article.  Vivek Kalla is very knowledgeable man. He is down to earth, and means what he says. You don’t see him using foul language. With a great sense of humor a gift of gab, he is no wonder famous.

2. VSP or Virtual Storage Platform, is a new Storage Box, released by Hitachi Data Systems. The box got released at the end of Sept this year. It has not only changed the rules of Enterprise Storage, but also put some freshness in the Enterprise Storage Market. Forward thinking, the product will be a milestone when history of Storage will be written.

3. iPAD brought a lot of changes this year. My kids moved over to it. The laptop lost respect. Tablet became the new darling. Many times in our life and our career things become so much routine, that we false assume we have reached the peak. And then there is a iPAD and suddenly all our whitepapers, best practices, notes, become outdated.

4. This year I delved into the depths of photography. It was a touch and go relation all these years. This year was when I started to understand and analyze photos. Buying equipment is easy, getting out a piece of art from it is difficult, but comparing two pieces of art is the climax.

5. Though being an Apple fan, I started to code in Android. Vikram should be thanked for the interest. As Android apps started to be developed and ported to the device, and they started to run gave an immense sense of satisfaction.

6. At the personal front with families and friends, this year had nothing to offer. Relations went bad, friends got lost, trusts eroded and loneliness crept in some times. At this time it is difficult to say whether the pit has reached and more has to be travelled.

7. Pokharan, Ramdeora, Bhadariyaji, Tinwari, Jodhpur, Bikaner and Phalodi were a dream come true.

8. Loss of Atmandaji was deeply felt. One more link to my Grandfather and Grandmother has been lost. But meeting both my Nanaji, Bachraji took back to the golden days.

 

There ends this year.

 

Links.

1. Kallaji.

 

 

 

3. iPAD

 

 

4. Photography.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-photography/id294540619

5. Android.

 

8 Atmanandji.

Common Wealth Games 2010

The Commonwealth games start today. This is the 19th edition of the games.
The last time I attended the games was in 1998 when they were held in 1998.
It was in Kuala Lumpur and I had gone to see the Hockey Match at Bukit Jalil.

Even though there have been stories of all wrong reasons in the media regarding
the games, but still I feel it is a reason to be proud of. The main reasons are
- no country has withdrawn
- the games have not been delayed.

Now the games have to be conducted well. It would help for a few things.
- be a test if we can go ahead and conduct the olympics.
- new infra would help young players to have world class amenities.
- we will be known in the world, that other than IT we can do many more things.

We have already seen a lot of improvements in terms of
- T3 at Delhi Airport.
- Wider highways
- Green Busses etc.

So let us enjoy the spirit, love the games, and hope for the best.

Virtual Storage Platform

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) announced the Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) today.
It is an important event in the storage industry as a whole.
There are lots of new features, both in terms of hardware and software.

Wishing all the best of the success of the box. Please see the link.

Read More here

Swami Atmanandji (2006 Photo)

Swami Atmandji Amar Rahe

I am posting this email, I received today. It is a sad news. I knew Swami Atmanandji from my school days. I have some photos of him, that I will post. I met him last on 4th Sept 2010. He was frail. He had not been keeping well for quite some time. My father has been very close to him for long. He will miss him more than I do. But then that is the truth of life. Atmanandji is now back with his Gurudev. Swami Hariharji Maharaj.

We can take solace in Gita Ch2 Verse 23

नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः।
न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः।।
nainam chindanti śastrāNi nainam dahati pāvakah.
na cainam kledayantyāpo na śoshayati mārutah..


---------------------------------------- email contents here--------------------

23-9-2010

VERY VERY URGENT

(BY EMAIL)



IMPORTANT SAD COMMUNICATION TO ALL THE HON’BLE TRUSTEES OF GEETA DHAM TRUST AND THE HON’BLE MEMBERS OF GEETA ASHRAMS AND BLESSED DEVOTEES LOCATED IN INDIA AND ABROAD.



Dear Hon’ble Trustees and Hon’ble Members and Blessed Devotees,



JAI SHRI KRISHAN JAI GURUDEV



We are extremely sorry to convey very sad news to you regarding the unfortunate sad and sudden demise of Most Respected and Revered Swami Atmanand ji Maharaj, a Senior Disciple of His Holiness Gurudev Maharaj Shree and Hon’ble Trustee of Geeta Dham Trust, and accredited Hon’ble Member of Geeta Ashram, Headquarters, Delhi Cantt, and Geeta Dham who had been very ill for quite some-time, and who has very unfortunately passed away this evening in Jodhpur Hospital. Any further programme in this connection will be conveyed to you soon.



Whereas, we are very sorry to convey this sad news to you at this hour, we thought it necessary to apprise you with the latest situation about Revered Swami Atmanand ji Maharaj’s health as he was very unwell for quite some-time. We all pray for peace to his departed Soul and pray to His Holiness Gurudev Maharaj Shree to give him shelter and take him under His Holy Lotus Feet and render to him Divine Place in the Heavens.





Yours in the Service of

Guru, Geeta and Gopal



(G.K. Wattal)

Hony. General Secretary




Geeta Ashram
New Delhi
India

-----------------------------------------Hari Om Tatsat---------------------------

No Blogging for a while

For almost two months I have not posted any thing.
I was thinking on some projects.

But sure enough some things of interest managed to do.
I had a old laptop. Old means almost 6 years old. It
is a pentium with 256MB of RAM and 40 GB of HDD. But yes
there is wifi. I had purchased this laptop when I was in
Malaysia. Brand is no brand. It looks like a Taiwanese Brand.

So did not know what to do with it? Tried OpenSolaris with
a bit of tweaking but it refused to go beyond the live cd.
Reason, not enough resources. Tried Ubuntu 10.04, but some
how it failed to get in all the drivers.

Finally managed to make it work with ubuntu 09.04. It has
gone with 0 issues. Works fine.

What do I use it for?

Currently I have downloaded the GNU compilers for C. So good
for doing some old stuff.

T20 World Cup

We are out of T20 World Cup.

It is so pathetic that we are not able to reach the top 8.

We have an IPL. We play so much cricket yet somehow are not able to reach the Top 8.

I think some of the reasons are as follows.

- you don’t see the players motivation to win. I am sure in IPL itself they would have plenty of money, got a lot of name and fame. So the driving force is missing.

- Too much of cricket is killing the sport. It is more of a commercial rather than sport.

We played three games and lost all three.

 

What happens next?

There will be press conferences. People will blame each other. News papers will print, what they understand and what they like. And the game, people behind it, players all remains the same.

Alas………….

Kavi Sammelan in Singapore

Tommorow there is a Hasya Kavi Sammelan in Singapore. Sh.Surendra Sharma will be coming. Any one interested please see this site. http://www.charkula.com/

Google Street View

This is how my house looks like.

View Larger Map

Interesting Video

THE BEAST FILE: GOOGLE from Hungry Beast on Vimeo.

Eden Gardens : India is back at No.1

India return SA with the same coin by defeating them with an Innings and 54 runs to spare. In my previous post I wrote that it is not win or loss but the margin that counts.

In this test, Indians came out hard on SA, knowing that a loss would bring them to No.2 in tests. It is good to rise in rankings in your home country, but to come down is definitely not encouraging.

 

Any way this has been a encouraging news this week after all the sad news of loss of life of Jawans and Villagers in naxal hit violence.

Just like cricket in all aspects of life, we need confidence.

Nagpur Test. What a defeat.

South Africa Beat India in the Cricket test at Nagpur by an innings and 6 runs.

It is not the matter of win or loss, each game has it. It is the margin that counts.

1. South Africa had just two bats men who scored almost all the runs.

2. India had 22 players who could not score that many runs.

3. And we have the best batting line up. :(

4. No comments by the players after the loss.

5. We lost in four days on a batting pitch.

So let us rethink next time on cricket and our players who cannot deliver when it is needed most.

Oracle completes SUN Acquisition.

Jan 27th 2010.

Oracle completed the acquisition of SUN.

We need to see in future how Oracle goes around deciding on the vast technology and portfolio resources that are with SUN. Which products are prioritized, which products are going to be dropped, which will be re-bundled. It will be difficult to satisfy everyone, customers, employees and itself. The next few months will be news for the technical prints and journals around, speculating and analyzing.

 

But somewhere deep in heart you feel that if a giant like Sun, that drove technology for so many years, not being there gives you the sense of how technology companies are so un sure. What about the small companies? You are everything today and nothing the next day. An important lesson to be learnt. University scientists create technology and the universities are there long after the scientists have left. Scientists in the Companies create technologies and the companies are long gone before the Scientists leave.

         

Wish you a happy 2010

Wish all of you a happy 2010

My hopes for the new year.

1. There are some decent movies in this year. 2009 was pathetically hopeless.
2. Movie actors do something meaningful rather than promoting themselves on TV.
3. Quality of TV soaps is at 1 on a rating from 1 to 10 (worst to best). Hope it
comes to 3.
4. Technology adoption in Indian universities improves.
5. Prices of essential commodities come down to 2000 levels.
6. Politicians need to prove they are honest.

Vivek Kalla. The Singer.

Here is a clip that I got from Gopal Ranga. It is the singer Vivek Kalla. I knew that he is an expert Hardware Engineer. Did not know that he sings so well too. I am yet to get information on when and where this was recorded. But it is simply nice.

For those in Malaysia

Any one interested in attending the Geeta Jayanti Celebrations at Geeta Ashram should take advantage of the 18 day celebrations going on in the Geeta Ashram temple.

Please read. Do attend and make it a huge success.

 

GEETA ASHRAM MALAYSIA

Lot. 6 Lorong Utara B, Off Jalan Utara

46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor D.E.

Tel/Fax no: 603 – 79564267 Website: www.geetamalaysia.org

4^th November 2009

TO: ALL DEVOTEES

GEETA JAYANTHI CELEBRATIONS

11^th to 28^th November 2009

We have great pleasure in inviting you to participate in our annual Geeta Jayanthi celebrations at our Ashram. Beginning with the 1^st chapter of the Bhagavad Geeta on 11^th November, one chapter a day (in serial order), will be recited and explained ending with chapter 18 on 28^th November, Geeta Jayanti day.

Our daily program during this period will be as follows:-

7.00p.m. - Bhajans / Aarti

7.30p.m. - Guru Vandana

Recitation of Chapter 12

Recitation of Chapter of the Day

Geeta Aarti

Welcome Address by Host

8.00p.m. - Discourse on Chapter of the day, either

a) In English for 30 minutes followed by

Hindi discourse by Panditji for 15 minutes;

OR b) Full commentary in Hindi for 45 minutes

with simultaneous translation in English

8.45p.m. - Concluding Bhajan, Announcements, Aarti

9.00p.m. - Prashad, Preeti Bhojan (dinner)

Please come with family and friends to participate in this special event. The divine blessings thereof will surely embrace, purify and charge the human spirit from within.

JAI SHRI KRISHNA!

The Management Committee

GEETA ASHRAM MALAYSIA