My first time lapse video

I finally bought myself a tripod and immediately decided to put it to good use. What better way to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon than to take snap pictures, all 116 of them. All the shots were taken in a span of about 2.5 hours at regular intervals until dusk and squeezed into this 14 second video.

Some good cloud activity near the mountains would have made this video less boring but I was out of luck (where's the snowstorm when you need one ?). Well nevermind, maybe next time.

My Yahoo Id nuked

Okay, time to make this official, my yahoo account is gone. Don't ask me how this happened, I wish I knew. I woke up one fine morning to find out that I cant log in....and yes, I did try the ever so helpful 'forgot your password' link, that didn't do the trick. So all of you who know me personally, its time to update your address books to my new gmail id--the first initial of my first name and my last name.

Although it can be a little heartbreaking to lose an email account that I had for about 8 years, it is also a fact that the only people who emailed me on this account on a daily basis, without fail, were nigerian scammers ('Hello I am winston mabutu, son of kingston mabutu of zimbabwe who died...', sound familiar??). So in a way it is a relief. But then I wasn't too pleased to lose my buddy list on yahoo messenger.

So as of now, until I figure out a new yahoo id that is a little comprehensible (which as most of us know can be a mind bending exercise), the most reliable way to reach me is via gmail... and through this website of course :).

Back in Colorado

It had been a hectic last few weeks. I finally moved back to Colorado last month ...and all the hassles of moving, a new job and settling into a new apartment left me with little time for anything else. The dust having finally settled, I can now chill out and enjoy the view from my patio with a cold one in my hand.

Speaking of chilling out, the memorial day weekend was a blessing. A trip to the mountains coupled with some whitewater rafting recharged my batteries, for sometime at least. Plan to do it again sometime soon. Meanwhile I have added some new photos. More updates soon

Linux Reloaded

Having been locked indoors for the past few weeks by the long Illinois winter, I decided to indulge in what was once a favourite pastime in grad school, Linux. Most of my spare time during those days were spent toying around with this free operating system; from setting up network servers to writing my firstrudimentary (and buggy) device driver, I had tried it all.

But while linux under-the-hood was fun, desktop linux was another story, especially when it came to handling multimedia. Audio and video support was limited and watching streaming video on the internet was still a pipe dream. And god forbid if your machine had partially supported hardware (which in all probability it did)- you would have to go through endless 'download-build-configure' cycles before your fancy audio card showed any sign of life. Worse, if you didnt do something right, you ended up with a huge core dump and a hung system.

Needless to say, configuring linux for the desktop was painfully time consuming, and after I landed a full time job, using Linux as my primary OS at home was out of the question. My old linux box was relegated to the role of a router and an ocassional webserver.

But that might just change.

Reading rave reviews about the linux desktop being finally ready for the consumer, I had to give it a try again. Linux has progressed quite a bit in the last couple of years and the current flavours are a far cry from the version of RedHat I used to use, with Ubuntu arguably being the most popular. I however chose Fedora Core 6 because of my RedHat bias. Installation of the OS is easy, even for a layman, and installing extra packages is even easier, thanks to Fedora's new package installer, the deliciously named yum.

Post installation, the first thing I did was to pop in a music cd, fully expecting a 'device not found' or similar error. Instead I was pleasantly surprised by the sweet sound of music. Not only was my sound card detected automatically, there was finally a driver for it that actually worked !

Encouraged by this, I decide to go a step a further and try playing dvds. So I install VLC, download the codecs and load a DVD. What I experienced was impressive. The audio and video quality was great and did not have any of the chopiness that I had encountered earlier. I played the whole dvd without any problems. Watching internet video too has become easier with plugins available easily. And the fresh new look of Gnome makes the overall desktop experience all the more pleasant.

But what I liked most was Beryl-the 3D window manager for linux, which takes the desktop experience to a whole new level. If are a fan of eyecandy effects, then check out beryl. Even if you arent, you will still love it for its desktop cube, if not for anything else. This video posted by a beryl aficionado should convince you. Like everything else in linux, beryl is completely configurable, so you can change and tweak the effects to your hearts content.

Overall, I am more than satisfied with the new Linux Desktop features and am starting to use it almost everyday at home. I am also holding off plans to buy a laptop until I check out the linux supported laptops promised by Dell. So like me, if you are reluctant to shell out a couple of hundred bucks for the Vista upgrade and wouldnt mind getting under the hood a little bit, try out linux, you might just get hooked.

The First Update

Now that the easy part of starting my blog is over, here comes the hard part - updating it on a regular basis. For those of you waiting with bated breath for the Shillong page, I finally completed it last weekend. It includes a photo gallery of my school St Edmunds.

Meanwhile, I have received a lot of complaints that the videos are not viewable and keep loading forever. This seems to be a recurring problem with YouTube and the only solution is to try again again at a later time. I am however researching different video hosting options and until I find something better you will have to bear with the whimsical YouTube.

Comments(3)

Online At Last!

Alright!! after months of plotting, planning and scheming, I have finally launched myself in cyberspace. Not quite sure what I am going to put up in here but looking at all those websites/blogs popping up everyday..and people actually reading them, I thought it would be cool to have one for myself too. Besides, what better way to keep friends and family updated on what I have been upto lately...sure beats having to write a zillion emails.And who knows, someday this might make me rich..LOL!!.

Contentwise, it might be a little lean for now, but hopefully I will keep updating it on a regular basis. For starters I have organized the pictures that have been long buried in my hard drive and put them up for public display. In tune with the broadband age I decided to put up a few video clips as well which I hope will help make things a little more interesting.

So go ahead and feel free to browse through my website if you have nothing better to do. And dont shy away from writing comments. Hate mails are also welcome :).