Rss

Wisdom for Idiots

My theory: Wisdom at the hands of an idiot is twice as much as dangerous to a casual idiot.

I’m responsible for what I say, not for what you understand

This is in reference to the “wise quotes” people usually share on Facebook. Do you really think people /teens especially have become more mature with those wise quotes? I don’t think knives can be used as toys for any age group; neither can guns nor nuclear bombs..

// I may be an idiot too but I am afraid when others play with guns.

24Hrs vs Rs 50 Million gov.mu Website

Recently WebCup organized a competition to make a website in 24 hours. Have a look at the websites a team of 4 people had to do in 24hrs only!

  • Ceridian - http://ceridian.webcup.mu
  • Chesteroc - http://chesteroc.webcup.mu
  • Esokia - http://esokia.webcup.mu
  • Extension Interactive – http://extension-interactive.webcup.mu
  • FRCI - http://frci.webcup.mu
  • Elite Business School – http://elite-business-school.webcup.mu
  • Paperboat - http://paperboat.webcup.mu
  • TNT - http://tnt.webcup.mu
  • Team Urban Error - http://urban-error.webcup.mu
  • Wanderers - http://wanderers.webcup.mu
  • Web Thugs - http://web-thugs.webcup.mu
50 Millions government Website

50 Millions government Website

 

Now compare those to our dear 50 Million Government Website: gov.mu. If such websites can be made in 24Hrs, why did the gov.mu cost Rs 50 Million? Food for thought….

When bus “sonnet” doesn’t work

Recently, a bus had a break failure killing 10 people and the Prime Minister didn’t give a ****. I’m gonna raise another issue of public transportation we face daily i.e. the Bus Bell fails.

How people deal with it:-

1. Most youngsters usually walk to the door while the bus is still running. The driver stops at the next bus stop.

2. Some try to press the button and release it suddenly so as it makes a noise. The conductor sometimes notices it and alerts the driver.

3. Older people shout and usually add some “spicy” words towards the driver. (zourer mama) :D

Actions to be taken:-
Policeman could periodically stop a bus so as to check if the bells are working. Wouldn’t this rather be the responsibility of the NTA (National Transport Authority) or where fitness is given etc? I don’t know these things much but checking bus bells are an important thing.

If fitness is given to NTC buses which can have break failures, then i guess we’re doomed to have crappy service at all levels. Why do we need a transport Minister? Just to agree to request because bus owners have been requesting a raise for a long time?

“The price of transport is being increased because the owners of the bus companies have been asking for an increase in the transport fees from quite a long time”. Source

No, Seriously!? Is that all you’re worth?

YouTube is Haraam on Orange’s Mobile Internet packages

For general knowledge, did you know you are not allowed to watch YouTube or any other streaming website on Orange’s pricey Mobile Internet packages? Here’s what it says in the Terms and Conditions:-

The Offer is not to be used for other activities such as non-Orange internet
based streaming services, voice or video over the internet, peer to peer file
sharing, non-Orange internet based video. Should you exceed this limit or if
such use is detected, notice may be given and Network protection controls
may be applied to all services which Orange does not believe constitutes
mobile browsing. This may result in, at Orange’s discretion, your inability to
purchase The Offer, a reduced speed of transmission, suspension of data
browsing services and/or suspension of your account

The data allowance is very little and yet impose restrictions…

More Mauritian Bloggers Needed

Yesterday there was a bloggers’ meeting at Bagatelle Mall. It was very nice.

Mauritian Bloggers Meeting 2013

I realised I’m still very socially awkward guy. Thought university changed me a bit. I can befriend kids more easily than adults. Lol :-D

Anyways, the majority of the bloggers who came did studies in fields related to computers. I think the blogging culture should be spread among non-computer specialist people. Else the blogosphere would be a little bit biased.

Mauritian people need to voice out their opinions. Mauritians do tell there problems on radio but not everybody listens to radio all the time. If you find something interesting, you just can’t share it on Facebook and make a buzz.

“La parole envol, l’ecriture reste”

Making blogs is just as easy as registering for Facebook. It’s done in few clicks. I recommend blogspot for beginners.it’s very nice and has all the features you’ll ever need.

As bloggers, we can create blogs for our relatives and friends. You can contact me if you want a blog (free for personal blogs). I really hope this culture takes off in Mauritius as the media sucks hard.

YouTube Caters for Orange Mauritius: Adds 144p Option

Previously, the lowest resolution in which you could watch YouTube videos on your desktop PC was 240p. Now we have the option to watch it in 144p.
YouTube at 140p

And everyone thought the trend was to go HD >.>

Jobless…

Lost my job as System Administrator at a call center. The reason for this purely personal for my ex-boss and her family. So I’m not going to touch those details. This blog post will be about the things I did and learnt there.

The maintenance job
When I was hired, the network and Windows domain was already setup by the previous SA. I had to do the maintenance: checking if all PCs were operational and were able to make calls through them.

Setting up an Apache server
I had setup an Apache server so that foreign clients could access the local files. Of course, the directory had to be password protected.

The proper port had to be configured in the router so as requests on port 80 would be redirected to the Apache server.

Setting up DynDNS
The company was using Emtel wimax 2 mbps connection. The IP address was dynamic. Negotiating with Emtel to get a fixed IP was taking a long time. So I resorted to DynDNS. It did the job kinda well.

Adding more PCs to the existing domain.
As the company grew, i has to add new PCs to the domain.
Had to create users on the Windows 2003 server. Then configure the Windows 7 clients to have a static IP with the DNS pointing to the server.

Shared planning spreadsheet
The agents were sharing a piece of paper to record their meetings. So i made a shared excel document which everyone could open at the same time to write in their datas.

Moving recordings to new Hard-Drive
Space was not enough on the Hard-Drive to store recordings of call. I had to migrate the recording to a new drive while keeping the network path the same. I did the transition during the night using RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) so as the operation would run as smoothly as possible.

Plans i had in mind for the future
I was planning to write a VoIP program which would be using a database rather than the caller agents have to manually copy/paste the numbers to be dialed from an Excel sheet to a VoIP app. The recordings audio files would have been stored in the database. The operation manager could “validate” calls and hence the recordings would have been available on the internet automatically. But unfortunately i lost the job.

Anyways, i might have done tiny jobs but i learnt lots of things. Learning is what’s important in life. ;)

Finally Succeeded in Setting up a Git Server

Had a long time obsession with code versioning systems. Back in college times, I had seen the MyBB team work using SVN and Redmine. It was amazed by the workflow and issue tracking system: how each bug was reported and a developer would submit a patch to solve the issue.

I had started to read about SVN but then everyone on the web started switching to Git. It made me kinda sad everyone was bashing SVN. Then i started looking into Git systems.

Git in Eclipse

Setting up of the Git server
- Making sure SSH server (openSHH) is installed.
- Created a new user “git” on my laptop
- Disallowed access to shell for the user “git” as it could be dangerous.
- Created a link to the TickVen.git folder inside the home directory of user git so that i won’t have to share the real path to the project with the public (security! ;) )
- Opened port 22 on my router
- Done :)

I’m soo happy to be able to have done this. Now collaborative coding with my team mates would be hopefully much better and enjoyable. No need to go through the pain of manually merging codes. ;)

Mauritius becoming the “landless” island :-/

Ministers say they have injected lots of money in draining systems. Money is not everything! In that case each country would have only a Finance minister who has the job of only injecting money.

But money controls the world. Inject money into project X in-front of the media then steal it from the back stage instead of planning and coordinating the projects..

Ministers allow commercial projects to be built upon ponds and marshy lands. Are there “land” left on our island where water can be absorbed? Our lands are being sold.

e.g. La Patinoire at Curepipe. There was a pond there. But they built an artificial river there that has concrete bottom.

La Patinoire at Curepipe

Water are made to be evacuated quickly when it rains while in summer we crave for water. -_-

While natural calamities do happen, we must do our best to confront them.

Source: No, Seriously? o_O

Source: No, Seriously? o_O

Switching from Kubuntu to openSUSE

Finally made the switch today. The switch was not as easy as 1,2,3.

Firstly, Kubuntu’s USB disk creator doesn’t burn openSUSE’s .iso to pendrives directly. Had to buy a DVD then install from it.

WiFi

Once installed, connecting to my wireless router was a bit tricky. When opening the network widget in the taskbar, it doesn’t detect the networks automatically

openSUSE network widget

 

Had to go to YaST control panel then enable networking from there.

Postgresql

Getting postgresql was a bit of a pain to get it working. It is not as automatic as in Kubuntu. Had to follow this guide to get it working: http://sourceforge.net/projects/epgsql/files/

Then had to uncomment some lines in postgresql.conf such as port number etc.

 

Now, as i got postgres working, i need to continue working on my project. Later will have time to post more about the system itself. Hope i didn’t make the wring decision by the switch *fingerscrossed* :)