Windows - A virus ???

The one thing i do everyday religiously is browse the web and figure out what is new in linux. Needless to say i come across comparison with M$ (windows ..if u didn't figure it out ;) ) at various levels. I do have a few points to say from my side too. I was reading about what virus does and have seen uncanny resemblance in what windows does. Herez a small peek-view

1. Virus are known to perform haphazardly and block all your system resources for its own usage.
Windows works the same way. somehow i always ran out of system memory as the OS was doing something "more important" thing of its own.

2. Virus replicate themselves.
Well once problem starts in windows, a reboot is the only option, or the problem just keeps on growing !!.

3. Virus usually reside inside a piece of code and get activated when the code is executed.
Official Windows come in packaged form,that you buy ,and once you run windows ...

4. As i mentioned, Virus hog the system, making u to buy new software.
Windows does that all the time :-D .Though its not just software up gradation but also hardware in some cases.

5. If anti-virus fails, reformatting the file-system is the best known solution against virus.
In windows, sometimes i feel formatting and reinstalling things is the only option available :p

Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences:

a. Viruses are well supported by their authors (You can actually see the signatures of the proud owners)

b. They run on most systems (Sometimes viruses are made cross-platform )

c. Their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature. Some serious man power is utilized in creating virus !!


So from the above differences mentioned, i conclude:

Windows is not a virus. It's a bug




ha ha !!!

Googlization of google

Every Software Engineer believes in GOD ... yeah got it right ..Google Oriented Development .

We all know the success story of google, two college students starting it as a project which today rules the internet. However not many would know how google's web page used to appear previously .

The first thing to catch anyone's eye is the fact that google boosted of indexing ~25 million pages. Last heard, this number had risen to some billion pages .

Another insight, when google was still a Stanford research project, it was nicknamed BackRub. It was called so because google implied a technology that checked backlinks to determine a site's importance and hence the name .

The site also has a special note saying ""Google is research in progress and there are only a few of us so expect some downtimes and malfunctions." Imagine today google going down !!

Lastly, i really think google's webpage still resembles its first layout. If you remove the text part from its predecessor, it will almost come down to what google's webpage looks today (If you excuse the logos i.e. ). Simplicity .. isn't it ?

scratchbox in hardy

One sunny morning, i decided to upgrade to hardy on my desktop.I upgraded , and it started to rain (literally ..its raining now in pune :) ).

Starting scratchbox gives the following error in hardy:

Welcome to Scratchbox, the cross-compilation toolkit!


Use 'sb-menu' to change your compilation target.

See /scratchbox/doc/ for documentation.


Inconsistency detected by ld.so: rtld.c: 1192: dl_main: Assertion `(void
*) ph->p_vaddr == _rtld_local._dl_sysinfo_dso' failed!

Inconsistency detected by ld.so: rtld.c: 1192: dl_main: Assertion `(void
*) ph->p_vaddr == _rtld_local._dl_sysinfo_dso' failed!

Inconsistency detected by ld.so: rtld.c: 1192: dl_main: Assertion `(void
*) ph->p_vaddr == _rtld_local._dl_sysinfo_dso' failed!

The work around for this that worked for me is as follows :

Execute the following commands:

# sudo sh -c 'echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/vdso_enabled'
# sudo sh -c 'echo 4096 > /proc/sys/vm/mmap_min_addr'


The explanation i gathered is that the first echo enables video support. The virtual memory "mmapped" page size is set to 64K.Therfore compiling inside scratchbox won't work. Hence the second echo.



If any1 has more insight about the same (other method / reason ) , feel free to enlighten me about the same :).

Geek Code

The other day i came across this cool geeky thing and decided to give it a try.

My geek code is as follows :

GE/IT d- s:+ a-- C++++ UL+++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N+++ o+ K++ w--- O M V PS+ PE+ Y++ PGP+ t+ 5++ X++ R+ tv++ b+++ DI+ D++ G++ e++ h r--()>+ y



ok ok ... to understand what that means u need a geek decoder ( now how smart is this :) )

You can find a geek code decoder right here.

speed up menu popup in ubuntu

I came across this cool hack which helps to fastens the menu popup in ubuntu. Add it really works :)

Create a .gtkrc-2.0 file in your home directory and copy:

gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0
in the file. Now relogin and experience the difference :-D

Bluetooth wonders

Long time back i had decided to blog regularly ( daily !!! ) . The time frame increased to weekly, then monthly. So now after almost two years ( yeah, it has been that long that i am working, unbelievable isn't it ?? ) i have decided to come back to this battle field to fight the unwon war . Listening to music, i have now decided to write about bluetooth. Why this ?, arre bhai .. its my blog ..i can write about anything :-D

I actually have bought Nokia N73 lately, and my tryst at getting my photos transfered from PC to / from mobile brought me more closer to this technology. So herez how u do it on linux.

1. Bluez-utils / libs is the user space package that is needed to get bluetooth apps running. Get that installed

2.Check whether bluetooth is "on" . fire the command "hciconfig -a" to check output. No output from this command means, no bluetooth hardware available.


3. Next time to scan devices. "hcitool scan" does it .Bluez now has a rich set of dbus API's and i decided to use them.

Bluetooth protocol follows simple steps ..viz search, select , pair , connect , do your work, disconnect !!

As simple as it would get ;)


You can use GUI apps that does all those things with a click or use the dbus APIs (for the "ohh i need terminal people) and get things done simply.

Gnome has the gnome-bluetooth package whereas the ever reliable KDE has the kbluetoothd (my favorite :) )

You can refer this FAQ. Also the wiki is worth reading.

Adios ;)