Nayar's Blog

The long awaited Wi-Fi at The University of Mauritius has been officially released since 2 weeks i think. It is a really good move.

As for me, i was concerned whether it would work on linux operating systems. I’ve completed switched to Kubuntu since some time now.

I tried the procedure on https://mysites.uom.ac.mu/wifi/. I managed to connect to wifiprovisioning successfully

But when i open Firefox and when to google.com. It would redirect to some to some page in “uom-wifi-ca.uomwifi.local” but it would stop there. It was supposed to ask me a username and password and give me a certificate.

The Solution?
I booted on Windows 7. Tried connecting to wifiprovisioning. Downloaded the certificate and saved it on my hard-disk. The file name is “certnew.cer”. I switched to Kubuntu again.

I tried connecting to uomstudent directly. It asked for some security fields. I loaded the certificate i downloaded from Windows 7 there. The window should appear like this at the end:-

Connected!

The procedure is a PITA for someone who is not an IT guy. I managed to connect after lots of trials and errors. I would be very cool to officially support Linux OSes. Anyways, i am very happy i managed to connect my Kubuntu. I thought it would have been impossible for a Linux device to ever connect (despite having to download the certificate using a windows device).

The Mauritius Wi-Fi project was approved by the minister last July. Objective: Every one of us can benefit from free internet. There will be a pilot project, whereby 10 Wi-Fi spots will be installed across the island. One in each district and one in Rodrigues. The most common Wi-Fi spots so far are, Mc Donald’s (Port-Louis), Dias Pier (Caudan Waterfront) and Rose-Hill Transport.

While they’re busy making big plans, the University of Mauritius itself doesn’t have a proper Wi-Fi system. We’ve been told that they will soon implement the Wi-Fi system but how soon is now?

We have assignments, research and so on to do, we can still get access to the internet in the library and in labs; but there’s lot of waiting. But what will you do when all the labs are occupied and you have to wait like a really long time before you can use the computers in the library? What are we exactly suppose to do? Use Skype  for group assignment at home?

I probably wouldn’t have written this article if we didn’t have the means to use Wi-Fi. But many of us own laptops, smart phones and tablets. But at some point, these gadgets become useless without an internet connection.

We, the students will benefit a lot from the Wi-Fi, and we can get all our research/group assignment done at the University itself. But how long do we have to wait?
It wouldn’t be so bad if the government think of us first, before implementing Wi-Fi spot across the island. But to be honest, I don’t see it coming anytime soon.

-Echdee

Our first class with Zakobi got canceled as another lecturer was doing lecture in the class we were supposed to work. It is not unusual for Zakobi to cancel any class at anytime.

Afterwards. We did a labsheet on Python which went rather fine.

Then we were supposed to have another practical from 12:30 to 14:30. But since we did not do any theory for the module, the lecturer only introduced the module and the class finished around 13:30. We were allowed to go anywhere we want but on the campus itself till 14:20. She told us to come in her office at that time so as she’ll check who are the one who left. WTF!? This is just abuse of power by lecturers :@

Wanna have our National Holidays and special days get shown in your KDE calendar?

Here’s the way to get it:

You can checkout from SVN here or download the files here (might not be up to date):

svn checkout http://kde-for-mauritius.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ kde-for-mauritius-read-only

Copy the contents of “Holiday Files” to “/usr/share/kde4/apps/libkholidays/plan2″. You will need administrative permission to do so. Open the destination location with this command (kubuntu). Then you will be able to paste the files

sudo dolphin /usr/share/kde4/apps/libkholidays/plan2

Right click on the time widget in the lower-right section of your screen and select “Digital Clock Settings”

Now go to calendar, nect to Mauritius, select “Days Off”

U’r Done!

Notes:

1. This calendar is only valid for Year 2012 only. The following Holidays won’t appear in the following years:

Spring Festival
Thaipoosam Cavadee
Maha Shivratee
Ougadi
Assumption // This holiday did not appear in year 2011. I did not put it reccuring for this reason cause i’m not sure when they decide to put it
Ganesh Chaturthi
Divali

If you know in advance when the above events will occur, please let me know. Events like Eid-Ul-Fitr and Eid-Ul-Adhia are approximated yearly like this:

“Eid-Ul-Fitr” weekend on hijri 1 shawwal // weekend makes it appear as a Day off
“Eid-Ul-Adhia” on hijri 10 thualhijjah // this will appear in green in the calendar as it is not a holiday

2. Send me a list of cultural days which mauritian celebrate such as St. Valentine’s day, Father Laval day and birth of Sir Ramgoolam etc.

3. If you want to help, here’s my project page hosted on Google code: http://code.google.com/p/kde-for-mauritius

Next, i’ll be doing a calendar for the Major activities organised by The University of Mauritius. Stay tuned to the SVN

University of Mauritius will resume courses as from Monday 16 January. Here’s the 2 things i hope have been changed most.

1. No traffic jam from Pont Fer to Ebene.

A beautiful girl smiled at me today. I said to myself:

WTF is wrong with her?

What a stupid update query i wrote in my SQL test today!

UPDATE TABLE Country

SET olympicparticipation TO ‘Y’

WHERE …

I should have written the equal sign ‘=’ instead of ‘TO’. I feel so stupid now :S

In the Python programming test, i came first in my class with a score of 33/40. In fact, i should have got 34 but my ‘B’ was confused for a ‘D’ in the multiple choice questions due my my bad handwriting.  

Portfolio: 12/20

Speech for special occasion: 2.5/10

We had only 1 hour to do 10 multiple choice questions and write 3 structured questions. The time was really tight.

The test is done on paper. This is really absurd. We cannot erase, modify or copy our own codes. Seriously, this is NOT called Computer Programming. It’s a joke :@