My tryst with computers!

Anyone who knows me well will concur that I am a gadget freak. I am particularly fond of laptop computers and love their company. While driving back from work today, my thoughts wandered down the memory lane. It was a good flash back that I wanted to document.

I first operated a computer in 1992. I was in the VIII grade at Loyola Public School. We were taught to program in GW-BASIC. I vaguely remember trying to build an image of a ship, programming a student mark list and couple of other programs. It was fun. We had around 10 computers in the lab. All of them had monochrome screens. There was one computer that had a green screen with black font and that was my favourite. Rest of them had black screens with white font. Coding in GW-BASIC was very interesting. It was programming in its simplest form. Click here for a sample program in BASIC.

After my Class X, I did not get a chance to work with any computer for two years. And then, I joined Loyola College for my undergrad. This was in 1997. Computer Science was not a predominant subject in our curriculum then. I had a natural flair for programming but noticed that I was only interested in the mathematical component of programming. I wasn't too keen on mundane coding. I was more interested in algorithms. It was around this time that the internet fever gripped us. My first email account was with Hotmail. I remember going to an internet cafe and typing an email for 45 min. It costed us 60 rupees an hour to browse the internet. My first email was to my cousin who came to the US in 1997. My second email account was with Rediffmail. I used to have pen friends, prior to the advent of email. When email entered my life, pen friends went out.

By 1999-2000, I became very attracted towards computers/internet. I used to go to an internet cafe twice a week (two hours), which was 'high frequency' then. In 2000, after my graduation, I coerced my mom to buy me a personal computer. I opted for a HP Brio. This was my first 'own' computer. Specs read something like this: Intel Celeron 500-700Mhz, 32 MB RAM, 10GB HDD with Windows 98 (Second Edition). It had a floppy drive, a CD drive and came with a huge CRT monitor. It costed us ~45,000 rupees to get this PC along with a computer table and chair.

I had many PC games installed. I remember Wargasm and NFS. I was fond of another game whose name I cannot recall. I had MS Office and Borland C installed. I primarily used my computer to play games. I was at IIIT for a brief period. I had an Acer computer there with which I did not have whole lot of an attachment. I wasn't motivated enough to translate my interest in algos into programming. Honestly, I had other distractions.

In 2004, I sold off my HP Brio and bought a build-to-order 'assembled' computer. This was a Pentium-4 with 256MB RAM and 40GB HDD. I loved the increased speed. I decided to never purchase a Celeron machine again. By 2004, I became a regular user of the internet (not an addict yet!). We had internet in our house too and browsing became my favorite past-time. Also, it was around this period that I involuntarily gave up reading newspapers. I used to follow news on the web. I was slowly becoming an internet addict.

In 2005, after I came to Cincinnati to pursue my masters, I bought my first laptop. Dell Inspiron. I had to compromise on the price of a new laptop and ended up purchasing a Celeron machine again. But as I was a student with no source of income, I don't think I had much of a choice. Its specs - Intel Celeron 1.4GHz, 512 MB RAM, 40GB HDD. I got it for $450. I used this laptop primarily for school but right from the day I got it, I wanted to get rid of it. Ironically, I had this laptop for the next two years. I joined US Airways before I graduated. For my master's thesis, I needed a powerful laptop as I needed to process huge search logs (~10GB data). It was processor-intensive and my Dell surely could not handle it.

On May 5, 2007 I bought one of my favorite devices to date - IBM Thinkpad. It was a T60. Specs: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz, 2 GB RAM, 120GB HDD and Windows Vista Ultimate. It costed me a bomb though - $1600. It was a huge upgrade from my handicapped Dell. My thesis went through like a breeze. As days went by, I developed a passion for programming in Python. It was partly fueled by my work and partly by the language itself. I still use this ThinkPad and have all the software and apps I need installed on this machine. I also have Ubuntu installed on it.

My fascination with laptops compelled me to sell my Dell and purchase a Sony Vaio for my wife. In Jan 2008, I purchased Sony Vaio VGN-NR110E. It came with an Intel Dual Core processor, 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD. I bought this for $550. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB. This laptop served us good. Sony Vaio was aesthetically beautiful and keyboard layout was very good. Very user-friendly. By Jan 2009, I was kind of bored with Vaio. While I still have my ThinkPad (I foresee hanging on to it for the next 2-3 years), I sold the Vaio and bought a HP Pavilion laptop. This was a significant upgrade again. It had a Intel Core 2 Duo, 3 GB RAM and 250 GB HDD, integrated webcam/microphone and with many other multimedia features. I bought this for $550. In May 2009, I bought another laptop - Lenovo G530 - for my Mom. It is again a Dual Core/2GB/160GB machine.

So, long story short, my tryst with computers will go on. I feel happy when I look at the prices of laptops these days. I am happy because, I can try different laptops whenever I want to. It gives me lot of pleasure doing so. To me, my laptop is more a personal organizer and an internet communicator. I don't have any work-related material in it, but do have all the latest software (including Python 3.1.1 that released yesterday) for my non-work related stuff. I am looking to move further on, to Mac perhaps. In all certainty, my next laptop will be an Apple MacBook. Do you want to continue to MacBook (Y/N)? Y

iPhone 3.0 SMTP Issue. (Fix Included)

I ran into a rather annoying problem yesterday. I was in San Jose, CA and wanted to forward an email when I encountered this issue. The mail that I just forwarded resided in my Outbox forever and I got this error:

"The user name or password for SMTP: @SMTP.gmail.com is incorrect."

Funny part is my incoming mail continued to work perfect and obviously, the user name and password were correct. We thought it was temporary issue. But the error persisted and my annoyance grew in sync with my curiosity. I tried several combinations - composed an email, forwarded an email, deleted my secondary emails (GMail) on iPhone. Nothing worked and my Outbox kept growing. The only significant change to my GMail settings is that I changed my password last week. I updated the password in Calendar (Google Sync) and GMail on iPhone and was able to recieve emails flawlessly. But I did not send/forward any emails after I changed my password.

After playing with most of the settings I tried the 'default' option. Delete the existing account and create a new one. That did not fix the problem either. With some googling, and by digging into the settings I was able to figure out the issue. Not sure if this issue happened in iPhone 2.0. But, here is the fix for 3.0.

Once you change GMail password, we need to update the password in Settings-> Mail. But there is a hidden SMTP field that needs to be updated too. Else sending mails will not work.

Go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Accounts (Choose the GMail account that has this error).

Under 'Outgoing Mail Server' tap SMTP.

Under SMTP, you get to see Primary Server and Other SMTP Servers.

Tap on 'smtp.gmail.com' under Primary Server.

You will see your old password in the settings here (the password will be encoded though). Update this field with your new password and you are all set.

Again, there could be many reasons why this error happened and could depend on the way you configured your GMail account on iPhone or could be a 3.0 specific issue. But this solution fixes the SMTP issue.

Ubuntu - Exciting Stuff!

I have been using Ubuntu for the past three days and it is working like a dream. It definitely doesn't feel like Linux of the past where one had to open a terminal to access a CD. Add/Remove programs, Update manager etc, make Ubuntu feel like Windows. I loved the numerous apps available under 'Add/Remove'. I selected many apps, most of them under Education and Games. My personal favorites are -
1. KBruch: An educational game that works in either freestyle or learning modes and tests your grip on fractions, percentages etc.
2. Kanagram: KDE Anagrams
3. KGeography: Lets you play with world geography
4. Four-in-a-row: Name says it all.
5. FontForge: Typeface editor program.

It is kind of an aberration from what we regularly do and hence the excitement to try them. I had a weird, although not unsual, problem when I first started off with Ubuntu. Ubuntu, like all other versions in linux, prompts for Username and Password before we actually get to use the session. We can choose to bypass this and enable Auto Login by going to:
System->Administration->Login Window.
Under Security Tab, select 'Enable Automatic Login'

All is fine till here, but when we restart, there is an annoying message waiting for you.
"Enter password for default keyring to unlock"

A blunt and inefficient way would be to type in your wireless network key in each time you login. This defeats the whole purpose of having an Automatic login. A second (also inefficient) way would be to have a 'blank' wireless password which would get rid of this prompt and in the process will deprive you of security a wireless network password gives you. I'd bet you'd find some complex workarounds if you google this. But a straightforward way to solve this is:

1. Right click on the 'Wireless Network Connection' icon/applet in the system tray (which is on the top right of your screen).
2. Click 'Edit Connections'
3. In the 'Network Connections' window that pops up, go to 'Wireless' tab.
4. Select the wireless network, and hit on 'Edit' which is on the right.
5. On the 'Edit Network' window that pops up, 'Connect Automatically' box will be checked, as you already chose to enable Auto-Login. If this box is not selected, select it.
6. In the same dialog box, at the bottom left corner, there is a check box stating 'Available to all users'. Check that box.

That is it. You will not get this annoying keyring message again. The only catch in this method is, anyone who logs on the machine can access your wireless internet connection. So, you are totally risk free if you are the only user.

Anyways, am looking forward to an exciting ride on Ubuntu.

iUbuntu - My experiments with Ubuntu

In what could be a major first step in me drifting away from Windows, I got Ubuntu up and running on my secondary laptop. About two years ago, I started using Novell's Suse linux but had to discontinue it due to Dell/Suse compatibility issues and the fact that most of the software I needed at school was pro-windows.

Honestly, installing Suse on Dell was a pain. The drivers weren't readily available and I had to get my hands dirty. And I remember trying out Ubuntu. It gave up on me - my screen went blank and it was tough to figure out what drivers were missing and how to fix it. That was 2-3 years back. I somehow hate the concept of dual boot, don't know why. Though I had it occasionally in the past, I was not keen on having it this time round. So, had Ubuntu installed on an independent machine. I got a used Toshiba U205-S5034 from craigslist. It was a steal for $200. It had Windows XP Media Center with Office 2007 installed on it and the first thing I did was download Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop. Burning the downloaded image couldn't be easier. Got the instructions from Ubuntu's website. And then, did a clean install. The installation process took 15 minutes. That is it. Total time to get Ubuntu up and running was 85 min (download) + 10 min (burning) + 15 min (installing).

I also liked the option of first running Ubuntu from the CD to check for compatibility issues and then proceed with the installation. One thing that I instantly noticed with this version of linux compared to my previous experiences is that the operating system itself has become very user friendly. It gives users the flexibility to either run commands/apps from kernel or through menus. I just started playing with it. Connecting to the internet was as easy as it can be. Just the WEP key and I am hooked. I remember having to struggle to connect to the internet in Suse. But that was three years ago and lot should have definitely changed since then.

I am eager to see what Ubuntu has in store for me. Next steps would be to have Ubuntu on my other laptops too. As of now, I don't see a reason why I shouldn't. I just tried out the default messenger - Pidgin. Need to find a workaround for iTunes. At the outset, the major pros I see using Linux over Windows are
- a different look and feel from the age-old MS Windows
- no annoying 'Live Updates', esp for someone migrating from Windows Vista
- more secure
- lot to navigate and learn
- comes with all basic features, connectivity and open office
Only cons I can think of are the compatibility issues of some apps/software and devices, most predominantly the iPhone. I should be fine though.

Go Ubuntu!

Chrome OS - Google's answer to Microsoft Windows?

Yesterday, Google has come out with two new announcements on its blog. Firstly, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Talk along with Google Apps are out of beta. Though it may not mean much for the company itself, it is definitely an eye-turner for corporates who may, to date, have restrictions in purchasing a beta product. As Google made it very clear, there would be no dearth in innovation in these services though they remove the beta tag. But, the second announcement, shook the tech world. Chrome OS. How you look at the word 'shook' depends on whether you like Google or not. An OS from Google's stable was due for quite some time but the timing of this announcement is slightly suspect.

I am a pro-Google guy with keen interest in all of their apps. But I find it so unlike-Google that they made an announcement about a product that they plan to release in late 2010. Stealth has always been Google's strength. You never know what to expect. But, somehow I feel Google kind of reacted to Microsoft's BING. In case you did not know what BING stands for, it is But It's Not Google. There have been some media reports and news articles how BING actually started eating into Google's search territory. It could be true. It could be false. I personally feel that the initial reports describing BING's share are biased. Users definitely have an urge to try out BING and that could have impacted the search shares. We will know the real picture in some time.

Coming back to the timing in which the announcement is made, it may be because Google wanted the spotlight back. It is more like an announcement to Microsoft. If Microsoft can challenge its territory, so can Google. That is the message. For now, we can ignore the fact that Chrome OS will initially be targeted at netbooks. The next logical step would be personal computers and enterprises. Odds are in favor of Google, given its brand image and innovative products. But, Microsoft is not underprepared. It already has plans for Gazelle - a web browser as a multi principal OS. Check this link. That Chrome OS announcement followed Microsoft Gazelle doesn't auger very well for Google.

I am pretty sure Chrome OS is not a vaporware. But how Google tackles Microsoft in the coming days will be pretty interesting. To date, Google doesn't have a quality rival in its flagship product - search. Microsoft could break that. Could.

Roger Federer - An Alpine Craftsman.

Roger has done it. He eclipsed Pete Sampras' 14 grand slams record in style. And one statement which was sort of a question till today became a grand statement - Roger Federer is indeed the greatest tennis player ever. I have been following tennis for quite sometime now and have watched almost all of Pete and Andre. I watched matches from the past - Bjorn Borg, McEnroe, Edberg and others. Two characteristics that set Federer apart are the ease in which he plays either from baseline or serve-and-volley and his ability to improvise at big points. His all-court expertise is what has transformed him into such a threat. And all these coupled with excellent agility and control.

It is difficult to compare players across different eras but I think it is definitely alright to assess their games in relative context. And it would be blasphemous not to mention Rafael Nadal when you speak of Federer. Nadal made Federer clamber in his quest for tennis immortality. Twice Nadal stopped Federer from reaching the golden slam (four grand slams in a year). And stopped is an understatement. Nadal was ruthless against Federer at Roland Garros in 2007, 08 against a motivated Federer. If Federer has retained his World Number One after today's one, a lot has to be attributed to Nadal's injury too. Nothing to undermine Federer's greatness. Again, being fully fit and agile is part of being a tennis pro and hence Federer has to be congratulated. Kudos to him.

It is nice to see Federer to see at the top of the pack. But I'd rather see Federer compete and work to win rather than have walk-overs. I'd rather see him battle out with Nadal or others from the crowd than see him decimate them. And that is why we need Nadal back. My gut says Nadal will come back stronger than before. He plays tennis of the highest intensity and quality and is more a slogger as opposed to Federer who is an architect. Nevertheless, a slogger versus an architect is more enthralling to watch than an architect versus an architect or a slogger versus a slogger. My thoughts go out to Andy Roddick who has played the best match in his career. 14-16 in the final set is too close. Andy was just points away from a well deserved Wimbeldon crown. He was awesome and never gave up. The fact that he dropped his serve only in the last set indicates fatigue.

Anyways, today is Federer's day. Other have to wait.

Windows Se7en

In case you haven't noticed, Windows 7 Release Candidate is up for grabs starting today (5/5). Click here to go to Microsoft's Windows 7 website. At the outset, Windows 7 looks promising and may stand up to insider's talk - has all the eye candy of Vista without its bugs. Windows 7 will be a great product if it is anywhere near this aforementioned description. I think so because I have been using Vista since May 2007 and I should admit I haven't had much of headaches with it. Some of the User Account Control prompts are indeed very annoying. Though one can disable this feature through Control Panel, I'd hate to see the red 'X' shield in my system tray staring at me, as if my computer is prone to attacks. And there were some compatibility issues when I had to use my old HP all-in-one printer. My biggest complaint is the number and frequency of updates available. Almost every other day you will have a bunch of updates waiting to forcibly install on your machine. After 3 years of existence, one wouldn't expect these many 'Automatic Updates'. These installations (Remember Step 1 of 4 50% complete) extend the boot up time which gradually annoys users. But I think that is how it should be. I was surprised with Mozilla Firefox's updates. I have the automatic updates turned ON in my browser and I have noticed frequent security updates being installed. If a Mozilla browser would need so many patches, it is easy to understand that an operating system from Microsoft's stable will need infinitely more.

Anyways, there may be lots of other issues with Vista which I haven't experienced because I use Vista only at home for leisure. And the possibility that Windows 7 may address most of issues Vista has is encouraging news. Coming to the Windows 7 RC download, make sure you read all 'need to know' facts. Personally, I do not have the patience to toy with my existing OS, back up my data and in a way be a laboratory rat for Microsoft. On the other hand, the free version is valid through June 2010 and this is tempting. It feels good to have a peek at Windows 7 as is with any pre-release software. Still, I'd rather wait for the fully baked cake.