This is more of a note to myself, but anyway:

If you need to change your MSN Instant Messenger password or login address, go to

https://accountservices.passport.net

Users of gaim will find this useful, because gaim doesnt have a built-in password change option, and not everyone uses Hotmail accounts for their MSN account (I don’t, for example).

Oh, and this is also the place to create an MSN Messenger account for yourself without using Windows or the MSN Messenger client.

Was looking for some Creative Commons licensed stuff using Yahoo’s Creative Commons search.

Just for kicks, I typed in “bangalore” and was quite pleased with results.

So then I did a search for “bangalore rock music group” and was *even*
more thrilled.

Last year, I was subject to an irritating bout of solicitation by an organisation that wanted me to write articles for a publication they were launching. This campaign went on for three months, ending finally in August.

Starting in June 2004, I received more than a dozen individually addressed emails and faxes (in this day and age???), following up on this. I was in Germany for most of that period (initially because of my speaking at a conference there, then to deal with the death of my uncle). I wrote back to the people taking such great pains to telling them about this, and that I was not available, or in a state of mind, to write articles at that point. Their reply to this was a demand to send abstracts of articles I intended to write for them immediately.

When someone behaves the way these guys were behaving, I tend to get suspicious. On my return to India, I dug into the background of that organisation, and what I came up with didn’t smell of roses. The credibility they claimed appeared manufactured. I asked people I trusted, and they sort of hemmed and hawed, and let me know that it may not be too hot an idea to get involved with that company.

I finally ended this thing when I received an imperious sounding phone call, demanding to know why I had not sent in the article that I had “committed to”. It was a bad day that day for me – and when I got this babu-sounding person on the line talking to me like that, I lost it and told him what he could do with his company and their publication. While I accept the biological impossibility of the suggested act, I felt a lot better after that, and the harrassment stopped.

A year later, I find my gutfeel vindicated. Not very nice people, it appears, and their methods appear less than acceptable.

“Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

The trick is, of course, to make the job more lovable.

This involves talking to people, letting them know how you feel, and what you really want. If that does not achieve anything, then you know what to do, but it is worth giving the talking route a shot.

Talking need not necessarily mean sitting down face to face. You can write a letter, put down your innermost feelings. That forces people to read your points before sitting down with you.

Often, the problem is simply a failure to communicate.

[Update] As numerous people pointed out to me, the following would be apt to remember. It is ironic that *I* forgot about this!

Read the rest of this entry…

Been feeling a frog in my throat for the past couple of days. Woke up last night with raging fever and a violent throat-ache. Actually, a violent everything-ache, but the throat is prominent.

I knew what was coming next, and sure enough woke up this morning with a laryngitis. Couldn’t get a single sound out.

Of course, we all know that it never rains but pours, so add to that the fact that our colony’s electricity transformer blew spectacularly last night, resulting in a night without power – it finally came back this morning at 11am.

So I couldn’t talk, chat, mail, read, browse, sit, sleep or eat.

This promises to be one of those days that my mommy warned me about when I was younger.

On the positive side – with less than 36 hours left for closing of speaker registrations and talk proposal submissions for FOSS.IN/2005, we have (at the time of writing this) 110 speakers registered, along with 139 talk submissions. And registrations are still pouring in.

What really thrills me is that I am finally seeing what I have been longing to see – talk proposals from the FOSS community, on FOSS subjects (both technical and non-technical). And almost all of them from India.

Since FOSS.IN is about FOSS in India and the Indian FOSS community (as the name of the event implies), this last bit is of primary importance to me personally. This is what I have worked for all these years – getting Indians involved in FOSS not just as users, but as developers and contributors. This is the primary objective of FOSS.IN.

A number of people had expressed worry about their intended talks being insignificant in the face of the many FOSS gurus who will also participate in the event. Here’s something that I had posted to the mailing lists a while back:

A word about the “Guru Shishya Syndrome” that seems to be keeping many people from submitting talks:

The GSS is a situation when someone doesnt want to participate as a speaker when a well known personality is also speaking on that subject. For example, someone who wanted to give a talk on foo doesnt register his talk because the primary developer of foo will also be speaking at the event.

This is ridiculous. Even if Linus Torvalds were to come and speak at the event, do you really think that he would cover *every* aspect of the kernel in his talks? He couldn’t do that even if he tried – it would take many people to cover the various aspects of kernel development.

And every little bit counts. Even a 20 minute talk about how to optimise a Postgresql database, or how to efficiently patition a linux or freebsd installation disk, or how to slim down your kernel. Remember, for every person who knows a little bit about something, there are thousands who do not, and would be grateful for that little tidbit of knowledge that you thought to be insignificant.

Speaker/talk registrations close Saturday night, the 8th of October. If you want to be part of this huge Indian “FOSS coming of age” party, you still have time to chip in with your talks, workshops, tutorials and BoFs.

It appears that, after a short discussion on their internal mailing list, Phenom decided to take part in a rock competition at the IISc. Prelims were last Thursday, and they made it into the finals, which happened on Saturday.

I don’t know how many people read one of my earliest diary entries here, but in it I wrote:

I maintain that at a contest like this (with competition in “mindless metal mode”), you could probably win and walk away with all prizes by simply plugging in a few clean guitars and keyboards, shelve the multi-effect pedals, add some reverb, and give the audience some good music. You’d stand out like a sore thumb, but then that’s the point – if you stand out, you get noticed.

With Phenom competing against five metal bands (pretty tight ones, who really knew their stuff – including the highly rated Myndsnare), the result was almost a given – not only did they walk away with the top prize, they even grabbed the best vocalist and best guitarist awards.

Not bad for a group that hasn’t taken part in a competition for ages. And of course they were tight as a drum – with vocalist Mark completely blowing people away both with his singing and his stage presence. And as always, Phenom clearly had fun on stage – no nervous, worried looks there. They were good, and they knew it.

Good stuff.

Now if only they’d get off their lazy butts and get their new material together that they can put out another CD. While I love their five existing songs, I am getting a bit tired of being able to predict their setlist. Come one guys, you can’t be that lazy!

Just a few days after opening FOSS./2005 Speaker Registration, we are already nearing the half century mark in terms of speakers registering. This is fairly astounding, given how long it took in previous years.

However, while Indian industry (e.g. software companies) and international speakers are registering in great numbers, I am pained to see that the Indian FOSS community is lagging behind. I attribute it to the usual “I’ll register in the last moment” syndrome we have seen before (people we asking for extensions this year even before we opened the registration! , but it bothers me none the less. October 8th, the last day for registration, is just around the corner.

What we are looking for is talk, workshop, tutorial and bof proposals from people already using FOSS technologies, and who are willing to help others to learn about those technologies as well. The scope this year is vast, and not just Linux, but all sorts of FOSS technologies, including BSD, FOSS on other platforms (including Windows and MacOS), FOSS-based services, FOSS in education, FOSS in eGovernance, etc., so there is no area that is excluded.

We are especially interested in case studies – people who have deployed FOSS stuff in lieu of proprietary solutions, and what their experiences were (good *and* bad). Also, students who have worked with FOSS technologies and know how to deploy them to thge benefit of their schools and colleges, should use FOSS.IN to speak to their institutions to make them aware of what their own people can do for them.

And we are looking for non-conventional applications – sound and music on FOSS platforms (a personal “hotspot” for me, as you should know by now , movie rendering and animation, school time table management, transport management, applications that use external services (such as Google Maps), etc.

One factor that often hear is “What can *I* talk about? I am no guru, no super hacker – who would be interested in my elementary stuff?”

Remember that story from the Ramayana? When Lord Ram was building the bridge to Lanka, he got help not just from the monkeys and the big animals, but he noted the importance of even the small squirrel, who would carry small portions of sand to the bridge to bind the rocks.

No effort is too small, no presentation is unimportant, no experience is a wasted one. If you have done something in the FOSS arena, then there are thousands of people who have not, and who love to hear what you did. Don’t be scared by the presence of the “giants” who will also be there at the event – they are all people like you and me, and they all learnt from others as well.

President APJ Abdul Kalam had said in 2003:

“The most unfortunate thing is that India still seems to believe in proprietary solutions. Further spread of IT which is influencing the daily life of individuals would have a devastating effect on the lives of society due to any small shift in the business practice involving these proprietory solutions. It is precisely for these reasons open source software need to be built which would be cost effective for the entire society.

In India, open source code software will have to come and stay in a big way for the benefit of our billion people.”

Are we heeding his call to action? Are you?

If yes, then you should let the world know – FOSS.IN/2005 is the biggest FOSS community oriented event in India, and possibly one of the biggest in the world – what better platform could you look for to let the world know what you know and what you have done in the Free & Open Source Software field?

Register as a FOSS.IN/2005 speaker.

Now.

Heads up, all @ Bangalore!

The next BLUG meet is this Friday, the 30th of Sep (just in time to avoid becoming the October meet

Details here.

Come only if you enjoy meeting friends, eating good food and yacking about anything FOSS.

Heh – lots of stuff been happening over the weekend.

The FOSS.IN/2005 Speaker Registration opened, and we already have 25 speakers signed up. And though I can’t yet tell you who they are, there are some really well-known names in that list.

What we are waiting for now is for the Indian speakers to wake up and start registering. Remember, speaker/talk registrations close on October 8th.

Then Planet FOSS.IN happened. It lets the “interested parties” know who is building, supporting and contributing to the event. Of course, these are not all the people – there are plenty more, and they will be added on as they let us know their blog feed URLs. Once speakers are selected, they will be added on as well. damn, that’s going to be a massive planet! Many thanks to Shreyas and Gopal for setting it up.

For those who don’t know what a “planet” site is – it is essentially an RSS aggregator that collects all the latest posts from member blogs. This is a pretty hot concept, and has been implemented by many projects all around the Internet. You should also check out Planet FLOSS India.

Mini meet happened on Sunday, causing greater clarity on hackfests at the event, and the Modus Operandi that will be used. Good stuff – someone will probably mail the list with details.

One pointer at just how important this event is to people can be seen in how much energy some people are spending discussing it – even if it is just to diss it. IAC, if you are interested in knowing what this event is *not* about, check out The Eyeball Trap.

And on the personal front – I spent Sunday stripping down my 1980-vintage Ibanez AR50, cleaning it up, putting on new strings, fixing some of the electronics, etc. I have some tunes in my head that need recording, and I hope to do that this week.

…people in glass houses should not throw stones.

I will re-address the issue in the first week of December, but believe me – it will be an eye-opener for many of you.

Have faith.