Saturday, September 24, 2011

Chingum Boy Jokes Audio clips

94.3 MY FM airs the notorious quackster of the quacks...'My Chingum Boy', a concept so comical and amusing to the point of making anyone laugh is truly set to be an outstanding entertainment for all. The character is a kid who always speaks his heart out and makes anyone smile.

Listen him here:





Thursday, August 4, 2011

Apple IPad wireless connection problem at WIFI hotspots and hotels

IPad has problems connecting to WIFI hotspots that throw an authentication page upon first HTTP request from the browser. Such WIFI hotspots use http page redirection in-order to read login credentials from the user. On IPad, the WIFI gets connected, the IP-address is leased, but the browser does not allow surfing, neither does IPad show the WIFI logo on the top left corner.

The problem is Apple's foolishness in doing the Internet Connectivity Test. Whenever a IPad gets connected to WIFI, it does an Internet Connectivity Test, by trying to fetch, "http://www.apple.com/library/test/suc". If the HTTP response is 404 Not Found, IPad assumes that it has been successful in reaching Internet. In case of WIFI hotspots, the http response returned is HTTP 200 OK, or HTTP 302 redirection. Upon receiving this non-404 response, IPad foolishly assumes that it is not able to reach to Internet.

Until IPad, rectifies this problem, the solution is that the WIFI router should whitelist "http://www.apple.com/library/test/suc".

Another ugly solution is to add "apple.com " in /etc/hosts file. This will take apple.com to the wifi hotspot's web-server and assuming that there is no file like "/library/test/suc" on the WIFI hotspot webserver, you will get a 404 not-found, and IPad will foolishly assume that it has got connected to internet.

PS: Just found a router called Cyberoam Netgenie which has a workaround for this problem.

Rejoice!

Monday, February 28, 2011

Dilemma - Switching Job

This is just for reading pleasure. I got it in my Inbox…


A survey reported that professionals who regularly changed their jobs are more confident and financially secure than their counterparts. To find out the truth we decided to have a conversation with some of our friends. We began with some professionals who had changed their jobs a year ago.
This is what one had to say:
“I started my career in a company and worked in the same company for 10 years. During this period I developed very good relations with my seniors, HoD and also with admin dept. This created a sense of security in my mind and I started loving my company. During this period I came across many job opportunities from other companies and also from foreign lands. But the sense of security was so deep rooted in my mind that I never bothered to even attend a walk-in-interview. Forget about thinking of going abroad. I watched many of my colleagues resign and join other companies on a higher salary and a higher position. Some even went abroad and are settled there.
Meanwhile I also saw some young engineers almost 5 years junior to me joined my company with same pay as what I was earning. It was then I was disturbed and started looking for alternatives. I had good relations with my HOD and also with administration dept so I decided to put up my case against this “injustice”. Everybody showed sympathy to me but nobody took any action, all that they would say were “we will revise your scale in the next appraisal”. I had faith in my company so I waited for the appraisal and to my shock I was given only an average increment the same was given to the new chaps too. The same story repeated the following year. It was then I decided to quit.
But leaving was not so easy. I had many of sleepless nights before I actually resigned. I had built a shell of “sense of security” around me and it was very difficult to break. Worse I had lost confidence that I would be able to adjust and perform in a different environment. But later I found out it is not so difficult to get adjusted to the new environment. I am happy now that I earn better and have a good position.”
This is just an example. Many professionals we talked to had a similar
experience.

WE CONCLUDE THAT WORKING IN ANY COMPANY FOR MORE THAN 7 YEARS HAVE FOLLOWING DISADVANTAGES:
  1. You are taken for granted by the company.
  2. You get used to working in an environment which is unique to that company this makes you less confident for taking up new opportunities.
  3. Personal growth is hampered as there is very little new to learn after 5-7 years.
  4. You become complacent reducing your own market value.
  5. The only benefit it offers is so called “security” (And that too is imaginary)
HERE ARE SOME BENEFITS OF CHANGING THE JOB REGULARLY:
  1. You join the company satisfied with your needs ( pay and position) and on your own terms.
  2. Work in a different environment and learn to negotiate different problems and situations.
  3. Often you get a chance to attend a new course/seminar thereby increasing your professional knowledge.
  4. You are always conscious about your performance keeping your market value intact.
The professional companies do not operate on emotions. They are least
bothered about your loyalty all they want is performance. You won’t be
awarded anything extraordinary for your loyalty. It is always performance
that counts. If you are in a company serving for too long then the chances
are you not one of the best performers because of the inevitable
complacency.
Also such people presented with an opportunity of lifetime are incapable
to grab it. It is impossible for these people to break their shell of
“security” and grab the new opportunity. The situation is worse for the
people who have worked for more than 15 years in only one company. They
can’t even dream of quitting their job – it is like fish out of water.

  FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR JOB….

       NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY…..

I didn’t say resign from your job right now but keep this in mind.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

How to verify if a company or LLP is registered in India

Here's a website, using which, you can verify if a company or LLP (Limited liability partnership) is registered with Indian government or not. The website is:
http://mca.gov.in/

Direct link to the search page:
http://mca.gov.in/DCAPortalWeb/dca/SearchCIN.do
 

Friday, January 28, 2011

Record speaker audio on Ubuntu

Ever wondered about recording audio playing on your computer speaker? Well, I did. There was this ringtone which i could play from a website but could not download it. So here you got and record it to your local file. I am using Ubuntu 9.04 (Karmic Koala). This has also been tested on various flavors of Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10.

On the command line, install the following packages:
sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-utils
sudo apt-get install sox 
Open up your favorite editor (e.g. vi /tmp/record.sh) and paste the following code in it.
#!/bin/sh
WAV="$1" && [ -z "$WAV" ] && echo "Usage: $0 OUTPUT.WAV" && exit 1
rm -f "$WAV"
# Get sink monitor e.g. alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo.monitor
MONITOR=$(pactl list | grep 'Monitor Source:' | awk '{print $3}')
[ -z "$MONITOR" ] && echo "Failed to fetch sink monitor" && exit 1
# Record it raw, and convert to a wav
echo "Recording to $WAV file ...Press CTRL-C to stop recording"
parec -d "$MONITOR" | sox -t raw -r 44k -sLb 16 -c 2 - "$WAV"
Save the file. I saved it in /tmp/record.sh. Change the permissions of /tmp/record.sh to 755.
chmod 755 /tmp/record.sh
/tmp/record.sh /tmp/filetostore.wav
Now play any song from your favorite website and  run /tmp/record.sh /tmp/filetostore.wav, it should record  the audio in wav format in /tmp/filetostore.wav.

The output file is in wav format. You may use audacity to convert the output file into the formats of your choice e.g. mp3. Audacity is available in ubuntu repositories and you can install it using: apt-get install audacity.

Enjoy!


Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Cyberoam IPSec VPN client on linux

My struggle of connecting my Ubuntu-9.04 (Karmic Koala) to Cyberoam's ipsec VPN is worth a mention. Cyberoam provides a road-warrior client for establishing VPN connections from Windows, but nothing for Linux based systems.

So here you go. On Cyberoam:
  • Logon to Cyberoam GUI
  • Click on the following menu on left panel: OBJECTS --> Hosts
  • Click the ADD button
  • Add the local network (behind Cyberoam) that you wish to access over VPN and give it a name. See the snapshot below. The local network behind my Cyberoam is 192.168.0.0/20, I named it as 192series. Press OK.

  • Click on the following menu on left panel: VPN --> IPSec
  • Press the ADD button. Follow the steps as per below snapshots.
  • If everything went well, you should see the following screen.
  • The Red button should turn green after pressing it.
  • Now you need to allow the VPN connection in firewall. On the left panel, click on Firewall --> Rule. Click ADD to add a rule to allow traffic from VPN to LAN. Do the same for allowing traffic from LAN to VPN. Here's a snapshot:

Here, you are done with the Cyberoam part. Now turn to your laptop or desktop:
--------------------------------------------------------------
 
On your laptop or PC:

  1. Install the openswan package from the default repositories. For debian based systems:
    apt-get install openswan
    For redhat based systems:
    yum install openswan
     
  2. Add the following configuration to your /etc/ipsec.conf. Change the network parameters as per your network scenario.
    conn roadwarrior
            rightsubnet=192.168.0.0/255.255.240.0
            auto=add
            type=tunnel
            right=<your_cyberoam_public_ipaddress>
            left=your-laptop-ipaddress
            leftnexthop=%defaultroute
            authby=secret
            keyingtries=3
            compress=yes
            failureshunt=drop
            dpddelay=30
            dpdtimeout=120
            dpdaction=clear
            pfs=yes
            ike="aes128-md5-modp1024,aes128-sha1-modp1024,3des-md5-modp1024"
            esp="aes128-md5,aes128-sha1,3des-md5"
     
  3. Add the following line in /etc/ipsec.secrets
    %any <your_cyberoam_public_ipaddress>: PSK "<pre-shared-key which you defined on cyberoam>"

  4. Load the connection in ipsec by using the following command on command line.
    sudo ipsec auto --add roadwarrior
  5. Start the connection and test if you are able to reach the local network behind Cyberoam.
    sudo ipsec auto --up roadwarrior
    ping 192.168.13.102

    That should get your VPN up and running. In case of problems, you may contact Cyberoam Support at:
    http://www.cyberoam.com/contactsupport.html

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

openwrt-x86-ext2.image in qemu on linux

I just downloaded the openwrt firmware and wanted to mount it in my ubuntu laptop. Here's the trick:


Get the starting offset of first partition in the image:
startsector=`fdisk -lu openwrt-x86-ext2.image 2>/dev/null | grep openwrt-x86-ext2.image2 | awk '{print $2}'`
Set-up a loop device to access the file offset as a block device, assuming 512 bytes sector size: 
losetup -o `expr $startsector \* 512` /dev/loop0 openwrt-x86-ext2.image
Now, mount the device to a directory:
mount /dev/loop0 /mnt/
To unmount the device:
umount /dev/loop0
To delete the loop device:
losetup -d /dev/loop0

To run the image under qemu with 128 MB ram and single network card:
sudo qemu -m 128 -hda openwrt-x86-ext2.image -net nic,model=ne2k_pci -net tap,ifname=tap1,script=~/qemu/qemu-ifup.sh