FOSS.in 2009, Dec 1-6
{long read}

I just attended FOSS.in. I presented a talk there on Fedora-ARM

Here are few of my impressions...

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

It runs on a Linux kernel, so its probably just another Linux distribution.

I always thought the Chrome browser is a step to take-on Microsoft by making the OS irrelevant. Maybe this is just a stepping stone towards that...

Good news is its going to be Open Source. I hear the Android code base is really really huge and it takes leaps to get it up and working (I may be wrong, haven't tried it myself.) A good read here: http://lwn.net/Articles/331908/

Given that I wonder how easy it would be to build/update...

Anyway, interestingly they call it a Chrome OS, like firefox OS? Kinda makes the purpose clear?

Fedora-ARM 11 is now available!

Details: built for ARMv5 EABI, soft-float, little endian.

Currently there are packages from three yum groups: Base, Core and Web-Server.

A yum-enabled pre-built root filesystem is available along with instructions for working with known platforms (currently Qemu, Sheevaplug)

The Fedora/ARM architecture wiki page has more information:

We started of a blog for Fedora-ARM contributors. You can find the blog over here:
http://fedora-arm.blogspot.com

Currently we are in the F-11 bootstrap phase. Once that is done, expect to see some technical problems and probable solutions for new packages that we attempt to bootstrap on ARM.

Recently I completed Video lectures for Operating Systems course in association with TiVyMedia Technologies. The site is still under development, but the videos can be obtained shortly from :
http://www.e-nalanda.com

कुंभारासारखा गुरू नाही रे जगात
वरि घालितो धपाटा, आत आधाराला हात

आधी तुडवी तुडवी मग हाते कुरवाळी
ओल्या मातीच्या गोळ्याला येई आकृती वेगळी
घट जाती थोराघरी, घट जाती राऊळात

कुणी चढून बसतो गावगौरीच्या मस्तकी
कुणी मद्यपात्र होतो रावराजांच्या हस्तकी
आव्यातली आग नाही पुन्हा आठवत

कुणी पुजेचा कलश, कुणी गोरसाचा माठ
देता आकार गुरूने ज्याची त्याला लाभे वाट
घट पावती प्रतिष्ठा गुरू राहतो अज्ञात

- ग. दि. माडगूळकर

For all the crowds from India:
If you aren't a registered voter, please register yourself, and make sure you vote! It is time that the IT-class starts exercising this right and create a difference.

Also, do spread the word, blog about it and let more people know:

Online registration can be done at:
http://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in
http://www.jaagore.com

A CEO from my previous organisation mentioned something to me that he had experienced in the dot com bubble burst. He was a CEO then too. "Running a company, is a lot of responsiblity. As the company grows, so does the dependency of a lot of families and their economies on the company. A mistake you make does not only affect you but the families of all your employees. And that is 'responsibility'."

As the global economies are spiralling down, companies are being conservative.

If you can't live without amputing your arm, left without an option, you'll opt to do so.

I remember when we had to hire a couple of freshers in one of the really small startups I was working for. While I did that, the first thing in my mind was to hope that the company stays around for at
least 1 year, since that is a sizable experience for the freshers to start their career with. And I made them fully aware of the fact too, since like all freshers, they had multiple options to consider.

I understand that running a business means you have to take hard decisions. And hard decisions are bitter. If worst comes to worst, of course, you have no option but to trim down. But "hard decisions" or
"business decisions" are certainly not the way to shrug away from the responsibility. A workforce cut is a particularly bitter experience. But there are ways in which you can alleviate that.

The relationship between employer and employee is mutual. If you treat them as family, they treat you as a family and the whole thing is good for you, your employees, your product and your customers. (I am not
exaggerating, there are companies that go out of their way to ensure that their strongest asset, the employees, are comfortable.) And the way you trim down tells a lot about your character and that of your
company. It shows whether you treat your employees as family, or as cattle. And if it is the latter that gets revealed, well, all those employees who have fortunately saved their asses this time around, take a warning cue from the event and do the neeful.

I have already covered phishing in few of my earlier posts here:

• Phishing: bisexybiotch [ http://kerneltrap.org/node/5819 ]
• Firefox phishing protection [ http://kerneltrap.org/node/7098 ]
• Yahoo joins the game [ http://kerneltrap.org/node/7103 ]

I just received an email from 'security@axisbank.com' indicating me that

--------------------------------------------------------------
Security Alert:

Attention! Your AXIS Online Banking Account has been violated!

Someone with IP Address 81.102.72.19 tried to access your personal account!

In accordance with Axis Online Banking User Agreement and to ensure that
your account has not been compromised, access to your account was limited.

Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved.

Please follow the link below to resolve this problem:
http://somelinkepresenthere

Thank You.
----------------------------------------------------------------

With logo and all completely there... Sounds pretty official. The problem is, I don't have an Axis Bank account :-)

So I thought ofcourse this is phishing. This can immediately be found out by hovering your mouse over the link specified. Usually, the href tag points to the real phishers website, whereas the contents of the "a" tag is the string of your bank's website. It was confirmed this is certainly a phishing site.

Then I thought lets go where they are really pointing me to and see what is happening. As I clicked it, FireFox Phishing Protection kicked-in and informed me that this site is reported for phishing attacks. Now that was good! Protection from some real danger! I wonder what happens when you open the link in IE....

Anyway, this kind of phishing detection is black-listing based phishing detection. It works, as we just saw, but it doesn't work on zero-day attacks. For it to work, people have to report this site to be a phishing site. And there is a window, between the site coming up and people reporting that site. And the window is sufficient for the phishers to gain access to vital account information of many many innocent people.

That reminds me of a project guided by the Dreamz Group by Amey. The project had a browser plugin. They had come up with a bunch of rules or suspicions that you can detect on typical phished websites. If the rules/suspicions match, a warning is displayed. For example, what we did above by hovering the mouse pointer is one such rule. And solutions like these raise the bar quite a lot. I am not sure if there are any commercially available solutions for these. But there certainly should be some around.

This is old news by now. But recently I came across quite a few people who are suffering from various problems because of repetitive stress. Goggling for ergonomics is going to give you tons of results. So here's a quick summary of what I do to avoid these problems (hopefully !).

1. It is a problem. If you aren't suffering from it now, you'll later. Unless of course you are taking measures. Obviously your muscles and bones give way after sitting, typing, using the mouse for 8 hours a day, 6-7 days a week (Everyone is browsing on the weekends). And not just your muscles and bones, but your eyes too.
2. Adjust my seat such that my feet touch the ground. And try to make sure there are right angles (90 degrees) at my ankles, knees, waist, elbows. The shoulders are not crumpled forward.
3. My monitor brightness is as low as is possible and the contrast is not too high. But such that I don't have to strain my eyes to read. While I am programming or using the shell, I keep the monitor settings on dark background, white/grey foreground, thus reducing intensity that my eyes have to deal with all day long. I read a lot of studies commenting on what the best combination should be. But there doesn't seem to be any consensus yet. I am currently experimenting with green-on-black
4. Take my eyes off the monitor and look at some distant object. Thus eyes are exercised.
5. Wash my eyes at least once in a day. With the ACs on, eyes tend to become dry. To avoid dark circles, Baba Ramdev suggests, filling your mouth with water, and then splashing water on your eyes.
6. Drink a lot of water. I try to drink at least 2-3 ltrs. of water while in the office. This doesn't include water from other sources like fruits etc.
7. I use an ergonomic split keyboard
8. Do yogasana. Running and gym is good, but you need something that exercises all the muscles of your body. Yogasana help me do that. Your neck, back, spine, fingers and thighs get a lot of strain. Not to mention your mind and your brain.
9. I take frequent breaks. I am very rarely sitting at my desk for long periods of time ;-)
10. Include hand and leg exercies, stretches, shrugs etc. in my daily routine

This is a good way to start the new year!

For a long time now I have been planning to write up a documentation on Linux VFS. There are quite a few documents available on the topic, but my aim is to try and present the reasoning behind why things are the way they are. Many documents say what the "vfsmount" structure is, but very few say, why was the structure introduced, and what problem does it really solve (Discussed in a previous new article here).

This document is an attempt to address that. I have been spending bits and pieces on it since a long time now. It is far from being complete. Nonetheless, here it is in an as-is format.

http://linuxvfs.googlepages.com/linuxvfs.html

Hopefully I can find time to actively contribute towards this in the coming year.

If you have any suggestions/comments/corrections/documentations, please mail them to me at:
kedars --- at --- gmail --- com

One year, that is how long it has been since my last blog post.
And its also that time of the year when you resolve to keep your blog posts flowing in the year to come :-)
Quite a happening year for me! Nonetheless, hoping to find some more time for writing in here in the coming year!

Oh and btw,
A Happy New Year to all of you!!!

Ben stiller's Night at the museum, this is one hilarious movie! In the first half the things are just picking up, but the second half is super! I like it.

Interestingly, the English version hasn't been released at all in India. All Indian releases are dubbed in Hindi, with the name "Museum Ke Andar Phans Gaya Sikander" And it isn't just another run-o-the-mill dubbing (which usually sucks). This one is impressive. The dialogues go with the spirit of the movie and lot of customisation for the indian movie-goer's. It shows those extra efforts, to get it just right.

Is this an acknowledgement of the large Indian market? Is this the beginning of something new? Given the fact that the releases in both the languages were so synchronised, it might well be...

for i in *.jpg
do
    convert -quality 85 $i converted/$i
done

The convert(1) program for quick image uploads...

Act 1:
2 Nov, 2006:
Microsoft and Novell make a deal

"Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. today announced a set of broad business and technical collaboration agreements to build, market and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft products work better together. The two companies also announced an agreement to provide each other’s customers with patent coverage for their respective products."

http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1196&locale=en_US
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+makes+Linux+pact+with+Novell/2100-1016_3-6132119.html?tag=nl

Act 2:
Nov 16, 2006:
Ballmer implies Linux infringes on Microsoft intellectual property

Linux "uses our patented intellectual property"...

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/108806.asp

Act 3:
Nov 20, 2006:
Novell Disagrees

"We disagree with the recent statements made by Microsoft on the topic of Linux and patents. Importantly, our agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property. When we entered the patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell did not agree or admit that Linux or any other Novell offering violates Microsoft patents."

http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/community_open_letter.html

Act 4:
Nov 12, 2006:
Samba Team Asks Novell to Reconsider

"For Novell to make this deal shows a profound disregard for the relationship that they have with the Free Software community. We are, in essence, their suppliers, and Novell should know that they have no right to make self serving deals on behalf of others which run contrary to the goals and ideals of the Free Software community."

http://news.samba.org/announcements/team_to_novell/

Nov 21, 2006:
Open Invention Network takes stance on Microsoft-Novell deal

"Through the accumulation of patents that may be used to shield the Linux environment, including users of Linux software, OIN has obviated the need for offers of protection from others."

http://openinventionblog.com/#000011

Nov 21, 2006:
Scott Handy, VP, IBM:

"Microsoft is coming to terms with the fact that Linux is an unstoppable force in the marketplace."

"We aren't sure what Microsoft's intentions here are, but IBM has long asserted that we don't see the need for this coverage. To our knowledge, there has never been a patent suit against Linux, and it is our view that legal claims, if they exist, should be settled without involving end-user customers."