Happy Diwali

This has been a belated Diwali, but then everything is running late now a days. So are the wishes.

Times Higher Education – Top 100 Universities.

This year 2009’s top 100 universities has been listed.

India finds no mention in the list. Where are we? Why do we not feature in the top 100. Two of Singapore Universities find a place. For a small country like Singapore, this is a huge achievement. None of the other South Asian Countries have a mention.

National University of Singapore is at 30th place.

Nanyang Technological University is at 73. Great work Singapore.

See the full list here.

Floods in Andhra

The floods in Andhra have been massive. Reading news reports gives only a partial glimpse of the scene. I was trying to see some photos of places that I have seen 15-25 years ago. Those were calmer times. I had been in Vijayawada as a small kid during the massive cyclone of 1977.  After that I think this should be the big thing there.

I have posted some photos.

This is Prakasam Barrage. With all gates photos. This is an internet photo download. I am not sure from where.

Gandhi Jayanti

2nd Oct is the birth day of Gandhiji. He was born in the year 1869 in Porbandar. Gujarat has produced a wide array of brilliant people in India. Gandhiji wrote a book called My Experiments with Truth. It can be read from here. All should read it. Gandhiji lived truth. We all think truth as a verb. Something that has to be practiced. What happens when you practice something? Imagine 10+20 operation. We instantly know it is 30. We don't calculate. Because when you do something so many times over and over again, it starts to become natural. Gandhiji practiced truth so much that truth started to follow him. Instead of he telling the truth, what he told became the truth.

Operating Systems

Every time we think of operating systems, Windows, Linux and UNIX quickly come to mind. There are many more out there. I am talking about OS at the desktop level. Mostly home and small business users. Not about the enterprise.

There are two schools of thought. One are ok with Windows, others are not. Those who are not can also be classified to two groups. One who wants everything on Linux. They want the OS and applications all on Linux. This potentially means rewriting applications or finding equivalents. Getting accustomed to the user interface etc.

The other are those who like the windows interface, but are looking for alternative to windows OS. A new OS that looks like windows, can run all windows applications unchanged. ReactOS is one that addresses this category of people. There is FreeDOS as well but that tries to replace MS-DOS. Now some of you might think, MS-DOS? But let me tell you, lots of applications like Cash Registers, Inventory applications still run on MS-DOS. For these people FreeDOS is a boon. Not for the home users. No one will replace his/her XP with FreeDOS. But ReactOS is different. It is aiming to replace XP/2003. Just replace the OS. All applications will just run normally.

Do read more about ReactOS. As mentioned on the site, OS is still in alpha. (there is plenty of time).