iPhone!! Tastiest apple for me

Hi people, the title might be appearing a bit weird right now, but by the end of this post, you'll find out that its appropriate...

Apple Inc has launched its iPhone on 29th of June this year. It has already sold thousands of iPhones within these few days. iPhone, i agree is the best phone - a combination of features, reliability and affordability. Its about INR 25000 bucks. I mean the fully featured blackberry handsets are costlier than this. So after this basic introduction of the product, I'd like to tell you the feature of the product that has attracted me.

Its not just the looks and affordability that attracts me (in fact I cannot afford one), its the ability to support Safari applications, i.e. basic web based applications. It has opened a new field for me. As I have worked a lot with web based applications, I feel that developing iPhone applications would be fun along with some new experience.

Infact, my last project which I told you about was an iPhone javascript based application. It was basically a game that I developed using purely Javascript. Though it took me around 6 days to write that around 600 lines of code, but in all it was fun. Firstly, it was a game, so an interest arose itself, to work for it. Then when I came to know that it will require basic javascript, I practically jumped from my chair, as I was looking for an opportunity to brush my javascript skills. And lastly, a zest to work for a new technology (referring to iPhone) that was launched 3 days before I picked the project, was really great.

Yes the work is complete now and I am satisfied in true sense. Apart from that, it has helped me gain confidence in javascript and I will be looking forward for some more projects as soon as I get some time. By now you might have acknowledged why is iPhone the tastiest 'Apple' for me.... Signing off for now..

Ruby finally railed!!

Yes finally i have installed and configured successfully the complete ruby on rails application on apache2 server with mysql and phpmyadmin support. I just reconfigured by following the steps mentioned on Ubuntu's site and it worked. I still don't know what was exactly the problem but i m happy that its resolved. Now I can start building my Rails applications.

One more good news is that I have shifted dcetech to new servers, changed the nameservers and now its working great. Faster and more reliable than earlier. And everything is working great. Also I have been given a project that I have to complete by the end of Sunday. I cannot reveal its details, but its a javascript based application to work on iPhone. Well I have almost completed my project and hope to complete it by deadline. Well this was my first such small duration project and it has been fun working so far.

Back on track but still derailed!!

Finally dcetech.com is back on track and MTNL Broadband users are able to access the site again, i guess that mail that I forwarded to the MTNL helpdesk did the magic.The site is up and running back again. In fact I have shifted the databases to point to new ones and have sent the request to shift nameservers too. So probably the work will be finished within a couple of days.


Well finally the much awaited month has arrived and it has revived my download limit, so i feel like download everything that I have in queue, but this time i m gonna do it a bit sensibly so as not to exceed the download limit far again. I downloaded the mysql server and php applications along with apache and configured them to work on my Linux system. And it worked with ease. Also I installed phpmyadmin to make mysql access easier.


So as soon as I thought that my experiments with Linux are back on track, I remembered that I had to install Ruby on rails too. I found a tutorial to install and configure ROR on Ubuntu's site: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RubyOnRails and followed each and every step to install and configure it on my system. But I guess there was some problem with the configuration and I landed up nowhere. Though rails framework is installed properly, and is working properly with WEBrick, but I was unable to configure it with apache2. I searched the ubuntuforums for it but still no success. The people over there are also facing some problems configuring ROR with apache2. May be the configuration is very complicated to be debugged easily.So I was back on track but still no ruby on rails and thus I am de'rail'ed!!


Well I am trying to reconfigure rails to work with apache, meanwhile I am working with WEBrick for the time being...

DCETECH - Our college's community website

Hello people, today I am here to discuss about DCETECH.com - student community website portal of our college. It is a website founded by Vikas Bhargava who once said, "Dcetech.com is an epitome of the energy and unbridled enthusiasm of the student community and it aspires to be the showcase of the best thinking brains in India and the rest of the world.Come Together! at www.dcetech.com."

I have been attached to dcetech for past 2 years and currently I am heading its web management group for the academic year 2007-08. It has a lively environment with active forums and dynamic sections like Writersblock, Technical Stuff. This website does not specifically target only the dceites but is open to everyone who has something nice to discuss. We are presently working on developing the alumni section on the same. And now we are in a process of switching servers. We have found a good deal and we will be switching to it very soon.

This was the current status of the site as of yesterday. Bu today suddenly there appeared a complex problem. I am not able to figure out its source or reason of such behavior. All the people who use MTNL as their ISP, are not able to access the site. It appears that somehow MTNL has removed the domain from their DNS or the data might be corrupt on their Domain servers. Though I have mailed to them about the problem, but I don't expect much from them coz everyone knows how difficult is it to get your work done from a government organization specially when that work is not listed in their schedules.

So just being really positive, i expect those people to look into the matter and solve the problem. Thanks to the proxy sites, that I am able to access the site at least. And I am accessing the FTP and Cpanel via the ip adress of the webhost :) Otherwise I guess when the shifting of databases is complete, and when I officially switch the webhost, then this problem will be corrected itself.

As far as Ubuntu is concerned, its working awesome. I have fallen in love with it. And really, if it weren't of some of the applications( which I am addicted to) that run exclusively on Windows I would remove windows forever. Lets see what's in the bag for me in the next month.

Finally Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn

Yes, replying after a long time, actually I had an accident last Saturday 16 june, a serious one. Though I have recovered from it now, but I had been rolled up in bandages for past week. So as I said, I have finally switched to Ubuntu and I must say, its good.

It has almost every sound and graphics driver preinstalled, so no need worrying about it. The best part was it took only 15 mins as compared to 90 mins for rhel. Though it doesn't have all those addon features but it is easy to use and bugs free. The best part is I am using it for over 1 week and it didn't crash even once. Though twice my keyboard stop responding, but atleast its better than the file system error that I got in Red hat. File system is fine.


That day I came to know that Ubuntu doesn't allow you to login as root by default. You need to configure its settings from user accounts section and reset the new password for root. Well to configure my windows ntfs files into linux partition I relived the problems I faced in Red Hat. This time I did exactly the same as I did in rhel to install ntfs-3g drivers but it didn't help. So I went to ubutuforums for help. Well i must say, a really good site to work out any problem from Ubuntu. So following the steps I was able to successfully mount my windows partitions in read and write mode. Though I faced a little problem which unmounting, that's not the main issue.

Internet connection from pppoe was again not easy. There was no option to connect via this protocol. I mean they have not built the GUI to set up a point to point protocol via ethernet connection, so again ubuntuforum came to rescue. They said that i need to configure it from terminal by using 'pppoeconf'. So now my internet is also working fine. All I am wating now is for new month where I would get my download limit back and I can download some updates for ubuntu and some associate services. Another good thing bout ubuntu is that it starts quicker than rhel. I guess the Ubuntu development group has done a great work this time.

My next attempt is to run apache successfully on it and configure it for php and ruby on rails. I guess it should not be that difficult, coz it provide me with a "LAMP" module which need to be configured. So lets hope that i will not need to shift to any other linux in the coming days. But as long as ubuntuforums remain active, i guess i would not hit a roadblock.

Probably the Last date with Red Hat

So u all will be surprised that I am fed up with linux so soon. Well not really, I really liked linux a lot, its just that Red Hat is not allowing me to register on its online network. And so no updation possible and I am really bugged off finding updates for each and every stuff. I tried a lot to find the update drivers for my display device but have failed so far. And red hat enterprise is not allowing me to download updates from their site.

So possibly, I'll switch over to some other Linux OS. I have an Ubuntu CD. Probably I'll try that. I have installed ubuntu (actually I didn't install it, just used the live cd) . Ya the experience was great and that's why i would prefer Ubuntu over Red Hat. Also I have heard really great review of the latest version Fiesty fawn. Lets see, I will try a couple of days more to find out the display drivers, otherwise I am gonna shift to other OS. Actually it looks weird to switch to other os for just not getting the drivers. Actually the point is that I cannot avail for any type of updates, so probably I should try some free version this time, so that atleast there won't be any problem of online registration.

Ya I did sort out the problem of reading ext2 partition in windows. I found a driver ex2fs, that is supposed to work on win 98,xp, 2000, 2003 but not on Vista, so I tried switching the operating system check off, and bingo! the driver work well with Vista too! So now I can read and write Windows file from Linux and vice versa with ease. For a beginner with Linux I guess its a big achievement ;)

If anybody knows where to find the display driver of linux, please mail me, I need it badly. Otherwise I will have no option other than switching to some other linux. :(

First Date with Linux

Though I had used somewhat Linux previously, but I had never tried to start a combat with it. Yesterday I installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux on my system - I still remember that 1.5 hours long installation, but finally I made it. I had linux installed on my system and that too without errors :)

Though as long as I was checking out its GUI it was fine, but as soon as I tried to find some of my files on my system, I realized that my Windows Vista partitions are not mounted. So I tried to mount them from the shell, but alas i realized red hat don't support ntfs partitions. So I started my Vista (coz so far I was not able to establish internet connection on Linux) and googled the problem. Finally I found out that there a patch available (rpm) to be installed on linux. So i installed that patch in linux and followed the post installation instructions. So that problem is sorted, I can atleast access my ntfs files from linux.

Next biggest challenge was to connect internet over linux. Though connecting internet is very straightforward method in Linux, but as is the case, nothing is simple when I am there. My internet connection uses some bridging method over PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol) . Anyways, so I scanned all types of network connections provided by my linux for it and found one that sounded the same. So I used the wizard to create a new connection and then tried to connect it using the username n pass given to me by isp. Well as in my Windows Vista n XP, it shows a status of "Registering Your Computer" and connects properly. So I expected something of that sort on linux also. So I connected it , it showed the message of registering your computer and the system crashed!!

I never expected Linux to do that, but anyways then I rebooted my system to resume my wrk and bang!! "the file system is corrupt". So again google to the rescue, I found a command to repair the file system, thankfully linux provided me a shell support at that instant. So after a few attempts, i was able to repair my file system though I still am amazed the error that I got was not posted by anyone (i mean I couldn't find a search result with a 'to the point' solution).

So finally I was able to run internet on my system (using the same connection) and have not encountered such a problem again. Today I was trying to port linux file system (ext2) on windows. Though I found 2 drivers for it, but none seem to work on Vista. Lets see, what can be done of it. I am still trying to get over it, and hopefully will do soon. I think that's it for this time, hope to have better dates with Linux in the coming days.