Self tagging
2:42 pm - Posted by Sumit Tada - 0 comments
I copied this tag from tgfi, couldn't resist the temptation to write somethign not-boring without making as much effort ;)

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Yeah,some guy living near our home at that time!

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? That's a secret

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? At times, mostly no.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH? Aloo ke parathe

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? No

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yes,but we would fight a lot ;)

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? More than what I want to!

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? YES, PLEASE!!

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I hope so.

10.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? I like most of them.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Only if they wont come off otherwise.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Kesar pista or butterscotch.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Smile, if they have it.

15. RED OR PINK? Red

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? Lack of focus,bluntness.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST ? Many ppl.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? I am not mailing it.

19. WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? None right now.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Scrambled eggs.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Clock ticking and vehicles moving outside,yeah both! My wall clock is loud I guess.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Light green.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? Good food :)

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? My bank's customer care.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? No one sent it, I copied it.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Cricket,but none lately.

27. HAIR COLOUR? Black.

28. EYE COLOR? Black

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No, I wear glasses and I like them :)

30. FAVORITE FOOD? Parathe, kheer, kadhi, namkeen rice,in fact any reasonably good homemade food!

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Four christmases,din't complete.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Blue.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Both are nice when not extreme ;)

35. HUGS OR KISSES? Hugs.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Kheer.

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? ??

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? ??

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? How to be good, by Nick Hornby

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Never used a mouse pad, even when I had a mouse!

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Don't watch TV, but i did watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" on laptop yesterday.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? None...please!

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME??? Seattle or San Francisco, not sure which one is farthest.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Am a humble person :P

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Small village in Haryana

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Everyone


Virtual Machines
9:11 am - Posted by Sumit Tada - 0 comments
To customize a system for my home desktop (see the post below for background), I have decided to use Virtual Box for the testing phase. I have used VMWare for a long time and it really helps to use a virtual machine for testing purposes. Few days ago I downloaded Virtual Box and I am already loving it! Am not sure about the performance differences between the two (both seem good enough). But VBox wins in my case because I can very easily create new VM from the same software, which is free,unlike VMWare, where only the "player" is free and you need to either purchase the costly software or use a free web service.
But, in either case the concept of Virtual Machine is really great. You can keep on working in your current OS and test the new ones and then if you like the results, move to the newer one! Now I have Windows Vista on my laptop and have installed loads of software that I use frequently plus all the bookmarks and settings stuff. So, its really helpful when you can google on the host system while you are tinkering with Linux Kernel on the virtual machine. And then there are times when I mess up the things quite a bit. For such situations I create a backup of the VM after making any big change. So even if things are very bad i just need to reload the VM from the backup!
And finally we can choose the amount of RAM and other resources in the VM, so its a much better way to test software for an older computer while using new hardware. KDE 4 runs without any issue on my Laptop even with all the advanced features enabled, but 


Faster booting
8:07 pm - Posted by Sumit Tada - 0 comments
In last few days, me and my friend Abhishek got interested in the question of how to make our computers boot faster.
Isnt it a bit strange that our computers keep on getting more and more powerful but still it takes ages to boot? I agree that software is also getting more complex as hardware is getting more powerful. But still should our computers take minutes (and not just few seconds) to boot?
We did some search on net and it seems many people are thinking about it. From Arjan van de Ven, who tweaked his Linux to boot in 5 seconds (!!!) to Frederic Crozat, who has worked to reduce the boot time of Mendriva distribution.
gOS Cloud also looks very interesting. They aim to develop a very fast booting Linux based OS that will have just a few applications (Web browser,Skype etc) running at first and then it will load the main OS (which can be Windows/Apple OSX/Linux) in the background, while you browse the web or use skype!
Abhishek is more interested in the gOS kind of approach and I wish he can get something good done soon, but I am thinking on a more personal note and have set two goals for myself:
1. Build a fast, stable and easy to use system for my home.
2. Build a fast, feature rich and nice to look system for my laptop.
My dad and sister use a old desktop with 256MB of RAM and Pentium 4 Processor plus there is no Internet access from that machine. But my sister needs a system that is as media capable as Windows XP and my dad needs a system which is easy to use (for a Windows only user) plus difficult to mess up.
I spend almost all of my laptop usage time on web browser or media player. Apart from occasional miscellaneous stuff like compilers, virtual machines and few big and heavy games. So, I would love to have a system that boots in few seconds, has full Internet and multimedia support and can be expanded if needed. And I can always have dual boot if I really need Windows Vista.
So, keeping these two uses in mind, I will try to optimise my systems for best performance and will keep a record of my progress here :)
Any comments/suggestions are welcome :)