Nikhil Dev

Was going through this article and found something that really interested me. This is a short list of some of the things that you can do on a Linux machine but not on a PC or Mac.

1. Upgrade to the newest version legally and without paying money
2. Have the latest version of the operating system run faster than the previous version on the same hardware
3. Easily install and run different graphical interfaces if I don’t like the default setup
4. Install twenty programs with one command
5. Have the system automatically update all my installed programs for me.
6. Install the same copy of my OS (Ubuntu) on multiple computers without worrying about license restrictions or activation keys
7. Give away copies of the operating system and other programs that run on it without breaking any laws, governmental or ethical or moral, because it was all intended to be used this way
8. Have full control over my computer hardware and know that there are no secret back doors in my software, put there by malicious software companies or governments
9. Run without using a virus scanner, adware/spyware protection, and not reboot my computer for months, even when I do keep up with all of the latest security updates
10. Run my computer without needing to defragment my hard drive, ever
11. Try out software, decide I don’t like it, uninstall it, and know that it didn’t leave little bits of stuff in a registry that can build up and slow down my machine
12. Make a major mistake that requires a complete reinstallation and be able to do it in less than an hour, because I put all of my data on a separate partition from the operating system and program files
13. Boot into a desktop with flash and effects as cool as Windows Vista on a three year old computer…in less than 40 seconds, including the time it takes me to type my username and password to login
14. Customize anything I want, legally, including my favorite programs. I can even track down the software developers to ask them questions, contribute ideas, and get involved in the actual design/software writing process if I want to
15. Have 4+ word processor windows open working on papers, listen to music, play with flashy desktop effects, have contact with a largely happy community and have firefox, instant messaging, and email clients all open at the same time, without ever having had to beg someone for a code to make my os work, and without the system running so slow it is useless
16. Use the command “dpkg –get-selections > pkg.list” to make a full, detailed list of all software I have installed, backup my /etc and /home directories on a separate partition, and you are able to recover your system any time, easily
17. Run multiple desktops simultaneously, or even allow multiple users to log in and use the computer simultaneously
18. Resize a hard disk partition without having to delete it and without losing the data on it
19. Use the same hardware for more than 5 years before it really needs to be replaced…I have some hardware that is nearly 10 years old, running Linux, and still useful
20. Browse the web while the OS is being installed!
21. Use almost any hardware and have a driver for it included with the operating system…eliminating the need to scour the internet to find the hardware manufacturer’s website to locate one
22. Get the source code for almost anything, including the OS kernel and most of my applications

Just today I paid off the credit card bill of about 13 grand something tha tI spent towards the Numark total control and DJIO that I shipped to Rachel. She said she is arriving in Hyd on 26th Feb. I just cant wait anymore. I think I will start taking this practise seriously as well. Its better to doing nothing but drinking.

As a band(DTuned) we have stopped jamming. The others dont find time at all although I have all the time. But I will come up with something and record the guitars, bass solos and drums myself. All that Shoheb will have to do then is sing. This way, I am sure we can come up with an mp3 that is worth distributing to people.

Later we can think about composing some more. But as for now, my music is on a low profile. Buying a house if on a higher priority. The next would be getting a job that pays me at least double of what I am getting now from Google(that is what my market value is). My fingers sucked today when I sat down to play. I feel like selling away all my guitars stuff and sticking to serious DJing,. At least I can make some money on the weekends. All the people who have heard me mixing house and electronic said that it sounded awesome. So I think its time to make some money.

When I get my Numark, I will start a range of videos demonstrating the lessons on Traktor with Numark. I am sure there are quite a few people who would be interested in watching them.

I have been waiting for this from a long time. Very soon my DJ console would be arriving and I would be able to have quite some control on my Traktor on the laptop. Till now I have been quite quick with the mouse and handling Traktor DJ Studio, but there are limitations which made me search for a proper hardware interface that would allow me to have quite a lot of control over the controls. I have recently order the Numark Total Control and shipped it to one of my friend on Santa Monica who would be getting it here somwhere around the 26th of Feb. I will then start making some video classes on how to use that console and become at least a bedroom DJ to start with and also how to handle the different genres of music. Stay tuned

Its time. Have to plan the next 366 days in 10 mins.But this is something that I have been thinking a lot for the past couple of months,. There are some serious things that I want to do this coming year.

1. I am going to drink more responsibly.

2. No more smoking(Not even special days).

3. No more drinking and driving.

4. Will enroll into SAP and plan a career around it.

5. Settle the issue of buying a house.

6. Be more professional and refined.

7. Develop extreme patience.

8. Practise music, let it be playing my guitar or mixing on my laptop. Come up with more composition.

9. Shove away the laziness.

10. Extreme workout. Wanna be huge again.

11. Strict diet for the whole of Jan and Feb.

12. Spend more time with the family and atleast one dinner in a month with mom outside.

13. Waste lesser money on buying electronics.

14. Will buy a Mac Book Pro.

15. Invest in Mutual Funds.

16. Maintain a bank balance of at least 2 laksh by the end of the year(Although its tough).

17. Go on frequent biking trips.

18. Dress well and well groomed.

19. Try to get a double promotion.

20. The most important of it all. I WILL STAY SINGLE. Can’t take no more heartache. Been enough of a bitch. That’s it.

This year, I want to make something out of my life. I want this year to be the beginning of a career highway and to be a successful man. I have started believing quite a lot in myself, and I will continue to do that for the rest of the year.

Last week I had a problem, that just drove me mad. This is what happened.

I was defragging my 80Gig iPod, and my desktop at home for some reason froze. I had to hard reboot, but to my horror, all my music, the songs and the videos now do not showup on the ipod. I connected the ipod again and I could see them in iTunes. Even media monkey showed that the music was there on the ipod. The ipod stats also showed that the content was there. Why the hell is the ipod library not able to detect the media. Is it that the library got corrupted. If yes, then there was not way to rebuild an ipod library. So my only solution was to copy all the music off the ipod to my work desktop using Yamipod. After that I had to restore my ipod to factory settings. And then put all the music back on the ipod. I dont use Auto sync. So it was even more tough for me. Things went smoothly until just 2 days back when I connected the ipod again to my home computer. The same thing happened again. All the music appeared to be gone. This time it was nothing that I screwed up. All I did was just update a few albums on my iPod.

This is the time, I had to research on this. I brought out my Compaq 3228AU. Connected my iPod to that and copy just one song to the iPod. Miraculously, the library now showed up on the ipod. So what went wrong??

This is really interesting. What I did not realize was that I had upgraded the ipod firmware from 1.2.1 to 1.2.2 which was the latest firmware for iPod 5G and 5.5G. Now when I connected it to my work comp, the iTunes version there was 7.5 whereas the iTunes version at home was 7.3. There is a major incompatibility between the iTunes earlier to 7.5 and the 1.2.2 iPod firmware update. If you want to stick to an iTunes version lesser to 7.5 you should not update the firmware to 1.2.2. If you want to still use 1.2.2 firmware, you better upgrade the iTunes to 7.5. I think this is a nasty way Apple is forcing the consumers to use the latest versions of software.

I have been able to fix this problem after quite some research. If you are having the same problem, do comment. We will try to fix it together. If you have already fixed it, it would be great if you can share it.

Just a simple list of steps to fix this again:-

1. Upgrade to iPod firmware 1.2.2.

2. Upgrade iTunes to 7.5

3. Connect the ipod to iTunes 7.5 once and disconnect. Or just copy one song so that the library is rewritten.

4. Disconnect the iPod.

Voila!!!!

—–Update——

Just today I noticed that apple has released it Firmware version 1.2.3 for the ipod 5Gs. I have’nt  had any problems till now. but just in case there are any surprises, Will surely post.