GeekScribes

Farcry 2 features a Mauritian Mercenary!

InF — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:05:02 +0000

Farcry 2 has positioned itself as a very probable candidate for the “Game of the Year” with highly advanced AI and graphics. It was to be expected from the guys that made Crysis and the Cry Engine. If you have ever seen the screenshots of FC2, you know what I’m talking about. If not, then see this video as a teaser.

It’s already out, and you can go and buy/download your copy now itself. It appears to be a game that’s worth playing.

It has not yet reached me, and as soon as I finish it, you will have my review here on GS.

My friend just informed me of something really interesting. Farcry 2 is about you being a mercenary, and progressing through the game doing missions for various factions and everything.

The interesting thing? One of the playable characters is a Mauritian! Yes, you read it right. You can play as a Mauritian, called Quarbani Singh, coming from Port Louis! (Fictitious person I hope!). Apparently, he’s a retired SMF! Thumbs up for detail!

It’s amazing that some big developers like Ubisoft knows about our tiny Island, and even features a Mauritian character! Thank you Ubisoft! I guess it’s probably that one of the developers there visited Mauritius and wanted to let others know Mauritius is great, or something like that. Or there is a Mauritian developer there. Nevertheless, it’s much appreciated.

This will probably boost knowledge about Mauritius among the gaming community, which is not a bad thing. They will get to know how crappy our Internet speeds are, and gamers value speed!

So, what do you think about it? Will Mauritius be better known?

This article comes from GeekScribes

Farcry 2 features a Mauritian Mercenary!

China Channel Firefox Addon: Experience Internet Censorship

InF — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:30:25 +0000

I’ve seen my fair share of Firefox addons. There are addons that can make your browser do virtually anything, including controlling your music player from your browser if you wish, or get live weather info, or draw diagrams, or… or anything else I can’t think of.

Today, however, I encountered an addon in my feeds that I found particularly interesting. It’s called the China Channel Addon.

What does it do? It gives you a taste of what it means to surf the Internet in China.

As you probably know, the Great Chinese Firewall (or Golden Firewall) is used to censor the Chinese Internet and prevent people from looking up subjects like “Free Tibet”. I guess they just get a “Page cannot be found” or “Error 404″ or possibly very long wait times with no page displayed at the end.

Well, this addon recreates this effect. It places you behind the Great Firewall, and allows you to see what Internet Censorship means.

Personally, I don’t find any day-to-day use to this addon. It’s just a curiosity I wanted to share with you.

Now, if ever you are preparing a project or paper on Internet censorship or something like that, you may want to experience this effect first hand, and the China Channel Addon is what you will need.

Any other interesting Firefox Addons you would like to share?

This article comes from GeekScribes

China Channel Firefox Addon: Experience Internet Censorship

Summer time in Mauritius: Pointless?

InF — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:00:39 +0000

At least this is my opinion. You may no agree with me, but after reading this article, maybe I’ll be able to convince you. First, let me tell you that I’m against this measure, even if I’m for the saving of energy and protection of the environment. But summer time? I’m totally rejecting that idea.

What’s the summer time concept basically? In Mauritius, we’ll be moving our clocks forward by one hour. That is, if it’s actually 6 a.m in the morning, our clocks will be showing 7 a.m. This means that people waking up at 6 a.m (without summer time) will wake up 1 hour earlier. You go to work 1 hour earlier, and return 1 hour earlier. This also means (in theory) that you will get to use daylight for 1 more hour per day instead of using electricity.

(DST will apply from 26th October to 29th March at midnight for both).

But according to me, it’s not that simple. Let’s see the case against, since the Government and others are already hammering us all with the case for.

1) How many countries use DST (Daylight Saving Time = Summer Time) in the southern hemisphere?

I say, not loads. And I will back it with a map, which I got from here.

From what you see in the map, loads of Northern hemisphere (NH) countries use DST (yellow), while only very few Southern hemisphere (SH) countries use it (green). Grey areas don’t use DST. There’s a good reason for it. Countries like the UK get sunlight till around 20-21h when it’s totally dark here. So if the people in NH get 1 hour to use daylight, it does make savings. Here, it’s totally dark by 18h30.

2) Can’t see a thing in the morning!

This leads to my second point. We return home 1 hour early. This means that people are able to do more things in daylight, and not switch on the lights. I agree. That’s one hour saved. Now let’s consider next morning. Instead of waking up at 6 a.m, you will wake up at 5 a.m. There is hardly any light so early in the morning. It’s still too dark. What do you do then? Switch on the lights of course! Hell, even the street lights are still on at 5 am!

Finally, the result is: you saved one hour the previous day in the evening, and you use the saved one hour the next day, in the morning. Where’s the savings? I see no saving!

3) People wake up waaaayyy too early

I wake up at 6 a.m. I need to leave my house at 7 a.m to get to uni at 8 a.m since courses start at 8.30 am. Remember the huge traffic jams in Mauritius? Now with DST: I need to get up at 5 a.m (the clock shows it’s 6 a.m), leave the house at 6 a.m, and get to uni at 7 a.m (the clock shows 8 a.m) and courses start at… 7.30 am (clock shows 8.30 a.m)! I HATE WAKING UP EARLY! >.<

Now, that’s for me. But remember that there are people that get up even earlier? I’ve got a friend. He needs to leave home at 6 a.m even with no DST. Now the poor guy needs to leave at 5 a.m and get up at 4 a.m! (Those are real day times. The clocks would show: get-up: 5 a.m and leave at 6 a.m).

That’s still ok. Let’s consider the people who work in fields and agriculture. They work at 4 a.m (real time) usually. Now with DST they need to go to work at 3 a.m (real time, clock shows: 4 a.m)?

What about the bus driver? The first bus starts at 4 a.m (real time). Now it will go at 3 a.m (real time)? The guy needs to wake up at what, 1.30 a.m??

You think this is normal?

The Government says: But hey, you will go to sleep one hour earlier too! So it amounts to the same duration of sleep. I say no! Your body tends to keep a rhythm. You’ve been waking up and sleeping at a defined time since your childhood. It’s not easy to change that rhythm! I bet most of you will just wake up one hour earlier, and sleep at the same time you used to. This means, one hour of sleep lost. This also means that we’ll be walking zombies due to tiredness.

EDIT: Today, DST was applied. Now, it’s 19h45. It’s still relatively bright outside. Like dusk has just ended. Street lights starting to get on. The one hour that people gained will probably be used to do more activities. That’s one hour of activities more. Thus, I guess people’s normal routines will shift by one hour. Dinner prepared one hour later. You watch TV one hour later. And sleep one hour later than usual.

How many times do you hear this: “Enkor faire clair la, nu kaw faire xyz”? Then this “xyz” activity will last till it’s still bright. Till 19h15-19h30. Then you stop, and start your normal activities (which would start at 18h30 without DST). You are already one hour late. See what I mean?

If my reasoning holds, people will be losing one hour of sleep when they go to sleep. It’d be too bright just to go to bed early. People’s body clock are regulated by light.

4) The last time, DST didn’t hold

The last time the government decided to implement DST, it didn’t last very long. My dad tells me there were widespread protests and that people were very tired. I’ll trust him on that one since I was not born yet! If an idea didn’t work in the past, why do they want to re-implement it? I can’t understand that!

5) No research/survey conducted

Joël de Rosnay, the PM’s “Special Adviser” mentioned it on the radios the other day. There was no real scientific research and surveys conducted about implementation of DST in Mauritius. There was no research to gauge the health and social impacts on Mauritians. I doubt any research was even conducted to see if DST would allow energy savings. So, am I to assume the Government just decided to implement DST just because they liked it? Joël de Rosnay is a scientist, he knows what he’s talking about.

Today itself, I heard a Sociologist talking on the Radio Plus. I didn’t catch his name. He mentioned something interesting. When people come home early, they will have dinner earlier, and everything earlier. But this does not mean they’ll go to bed earlier! He mentioned that people will tend to go out more, since they have more time. This in turn will cause an increase in oil/gas consumption by vehicles, mentioning that there are no savings. He’s right about not sleeping early. People are not automatons after all!

This statement just strengthened my view that no scientific research was conducted to decide if DST is required in Mauritius or not.

6) Because other people say DST is pointless

I’m adding this point because I just found a site, Afrol, that usually discusses African news. I’ll quote some parts for you:

The government of Mauritius has decided that the island nation will introduce Summer (Daylight saving) Time, starting in October this year. Mauritius will be the first sub-Saharan African nation to do so, connecting the island more closely to tourist and business markets in Europe. The Mauritian cabinet, in the context of promoting Mauritius as “Une Île Durable”, has agreed to the introduction into the national parliament of the Time Bill, which provides for the introduction of summer time in Mauritius.

According to government, the summer time initiative is expected to “produce gains to the country, reduce global carbon emissions, generate substantial savings in terms of energy production and consumption, and at the same time, reduce the electricity peak demand in the evening by some 15 MW.”

The use of Daylight saving time (DST) is mostly confined to countries located at high latitudes, including all Europe except Iceland and most of North America. In the southern hemisphere, DST is only used in southern South America (notably Chile and Argentina), New Zealand and some parts of Australia.

In Africa, the use of DST is seldom and in most cases counterproductive, as the continent’s location close to the equator produces only very small differences in daylight in winter and summer.

However, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt follow European summer time, while DST earlier was tried out in countries such as South Africa, Madagascar, Botswana, Algeria, Libya, Sudan and Ghana. These experiments however did not last long and no sub-Saharan country now uses DST.

The use of summer time has been controversial in many countries. For business and leisure, the longer time-span of daylight during summer is seen as an advantage, as it may turn out for Mauritius’ large tourism industry. But DST causes problems for the farming sector and other occupations tied to the sun. Claims that DST reduces electricity consume [sic], often an important goal for governments introducing the system, mostly have proven unrealistic.

Source: Afrol

Go see the source for yourself! Oh by the way, the 15MW saved? It’s approximately equal to the power of 15-20 wind turbines! Can you call that savings? And large tourism industry? In a global recession? Let’s see how long the “large” holds.

After all this, what’s the point of implementing DST? The Call Centres / BPOs don’t like it, the people of religion, the students - I bet - will simply hate it, as will the population after they feel the effect of tiredness. So why does the Government persist? Is there a hidden agenda somewhere? Do they want to seem more developed by adopting something Europeans or Americans do? I guess they really want to lose the upcoming elections!

The CEB did mention one thing: They want the electricity consumption peak to shift. I don’t see how DST affects the peak usage. It’ll just shift to 1 hour later.

Till now, nobody could convince me about the benefits of DST for Mauritius. So for now, I’m still against it.

( I really don’t want to go to courses at 7 a.m, with possibly one hour of sleep less each day! )

Anyways, some people are really taking this positively. Let’s wait and see. Either I am wrong and everybody will be fine, or I’ll be seeing a hoard of walking sleepers at UoM very soon. I’ll keep you posted in any case.

Let’s here your comments about DST. If you have written any articles about it, post it in the comments!

P.s: Orange has some instructions to automatically adjust the time of your computers. See their site: Windows XP and Windows Vista. According to some reports, Linux should automatically adjust if you enable the correct settings. See your distribution’s manual for that.

This article comes from GeekScribes

Summer time in Mauritius: Pointless?

PHP - An Overview

Guru — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:36:54 +0000

PHP has been going strong since its very first public release. Today it is among the leading scripting language powering the web; think Google, YouTube, Digg and the likes. You might and might not have got the feeling of dynamism after I have mentioned the previous websites. Yes, you make the ground move. You can turn your old static page into a living one (dynamic), well I am talking about PHP right now. I am not going to bias you into thinking that we have got only PHP for this particular need; we have got asp .net as an example.

PHP is still a young language under under heavy development, with its developers writing and rewriting its core, improving it with each new release. You must be at least aware that we are in the object oriented generation. As from version 4, PHP has object oriented available for you to play with. With now its 5 series it has improved object oriented, but cannot be compared with Java and C++ language object orientation. Yet, it is sufficient for us to write beautifully.

I will now try build up your thinking stream; how you should do it in PHP.

PHP can be embedded anywhere in HTML. For instance we can display a simple text using PHP and html. Before going any further, PHP is used for its logical potential as compareds as the HTML counter part which offers us only the “displaying” ability. PHP does all the processing and its end product is some “HTML” that you will use for displaying. I am sure you must have this part right in your head.

A simple html and php example

Here is a

After running the above snippet in your web server you will have the below html code when viewing its source in your web browser.

A simple html and php example

Here is a simple text

Quite simple? This is the stepping stone. Get the feel of it.

Try to think!!! What will it be like having hundreds of tit bits of php codes in your html. Urhh? Sounds messy? In fact, it becomes real messy. To counter this, you cal use templating engine. May be Smarty? This is the most recommended nowadays. I will talk about it in a later post.

Data is something unmissable for most of our websites. We all want a data backbone to play with. MySql? PostgreSql? Oracle? PHP can interface with almost any database server you can think of, urhh?? it can do so too with a simple access database (not a server). Connectors make this possible for us. We don’t need to know the underlying details.

I would recommend you to use MySql as your back-end. Open-source, free and strong going. And, it has made a reputation on the market.

PHP is a loosely typed language, that is it we do not need to strictly declare a variable in our script. We can do so as we go. Sounds good? Yes, but it is disadvantageous. (I will cover it in another post). We can cast from one data type to another. It just happens smoothly and it makes you mad while debugging at times.

PHP does not comes with a predefined security toolkit that you can just use. But, it comes with functions that you can use to build the weapon to fight evilness.

We are given even more flexibility, we can break down our code into its very own sub modules and include them together to make the whole “thing” or even put it anywhere we want it to.

I guess I have been able to try to build up a new thinking stream. Where you should maybe be heading. We will next be talking about syntax in my post.

In short PHP is a hot enough scripting language to mess with. It is your choice to love or hate it. Keep the reason(s) to yourself.

No Related Post

This article comes from GeekScribes

PHP - An Overview

Student Union Elections 2008: My views

InF — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:57:36 +0000

Hello readers. If you are a student of the University of Mauritius, then you probably know that the Student Union elections are currently taking place. This year, there are a number of parties and individuals, as you’d expect. Each of them is offering us students some hope to improve the campus life. In this post, I’m analyzing the promises of parties, whom many people are considering to be the biggest ones (or at least the two who are advertising the most I guess). These two are: Students Welfare, Students Rights and Students Power. Why they all include “students”? Lol?

Personally, I don’t know any of the ladies and gentlemen in those parties, except one guy in Student Welfare. So you can say I’m not biased towards anybody in these elections. Another issue about me: I generally don’t like politics and politicians. Too many lies. Too many false promises.

For the analysis of main points, I’m confining myself only to the Faculty of Engineering and general student areas. Other faculties are out of my league since I don’t know much about how they work, or the needs of the students in those. At the end, you get some ideas from me, which I think is important.

Let’s start. Student Welfare first, shall we?

As always, there is a pamphlet, filled to the brim with promises. Too much to read in fact. And too cramped. All the parties do this, so I don’t blame them. But hey, make your pamphlets easier on the eyes! ALL OF YOU PARTIES!

Academics: They talk about elimination of red tape. I say it’s impossible. Bureaucracy is invincible, immortal! You don’t kill red tape. Forget it. About past exam papers being placed online, it would be good and quite easy to implement. Just a matter of hosting a few PDF files online. Online means accessible over Internet, not just Campus Intranet like Dolphin is! That’s too lame! Make that area password protected if needs be, but it should be available via Internet.

Library: Update stocks of books? Will I see more recent editions? Considering the lame financial status of UoM, I doubt this is feasible. Let’s wait and see. Concerning extension of loans duration of material in reserve section, this is quite easy to implement. Just some policy changing. Creation of a Media Room? Nice. Hope people don’t turn that into a Cinema room!

Labs: More and better computers? Ahhh stop lying! All parties say that, and at the end, all the computers are still so damn slow! Same goes for “improve Internet connectivity“, “Better maintenance of hardware and software” and “Upgrade all labs with new equipment“. Fake promises here I bet. About the purchase of A3 printers, I saw “Buy more printers and free printing!”.

Sports and Leisure: LAN gaming during holidays? I’M IN! When do we have a LAN night at UoM?? “Increase lockers in Gym” should just be “Increase lockers EVERYWHERE! Lockers aplenty for all!”. “Increase availability of Sports Equipment“. Did you see the price of good quality badminton rackets and shuttles recently? No? Then go find out before writing such things. About the UoM Tracksuits, this would be good. We need more UoM-brand stuff.

Cafeteria: (It’s cafeteria btw, not cafetaria!) This is hopeless. I’m still waiting for more food. Specially more Veg food. But no. “Introduce a chocolate provider machine” which I bet will be empty every time I use it. We also need a mini-cafeteria near Eng Tower! With hot coffee. Hot coffee is a must for all college students.

Increase interaction: Blog space for interaction? NO! We need an official University forum which would regroup all faculties in one place. This would allow much better interaction between staff and students, but also between students of different faculties. This would remove the need for a monthly newsletter and suggestion boxes! Just post announcements and suggestions on the Forum! With a Forum, I guess I just killed most of the points in that section of the pamphlet!

General issues: More sitting accommodation. Yes! I say we turn the Crater into an open-air Cafe! With a Kiosk, tables and all. Regarding the bus shelters, they seriously need improvement. During rainy days, there is hardly enough space for 30 people, let alone the hundreds waiting for buses there! This is a real must. I’d also like the validity period of bus passes to be extended.

FOE: Yes, we need lockers. At last they saw the need for those. Congrats Student Welfare! We’d certainly appreciate the water and coffee dispenser you promise. Specially the coffee dispenser. I bet it would be empty by the end of a single class. Results being posted on ground floor is not really important, but appreciated. Climbing stairs is a good exercise by the way. However, about “new technology for labs“, I doubt it’ll ever happen as long as the financial situation of UoM is not corrected. The photocopy idea is a good one and quite feasible I think. Go for it!

That’s all for Student Welfare. At least for points concerning me directly. Quite a lot of promises, and a few which I think will not be implemented. Specially all those that would require money in one way or another. Unless the SU decides to use those millions they have stocked somewhere for good use, instead of organizing dance parties or whatever. Hell, dance parties in the cafeteria is a lame idea. It’s totally cramped now (with the increase in students) and it smells like a dumpster in there! Find somewhere else to do those! Gym?

Now, on to the other party: Student Rights.

General issues: Opaque door being replaced with translucent? Who cares! The door is never opened anyways. And seeing what you guys do doesn’t increase interaction one bit! Publish expenses monthly? LOL! Why not semesterly? Who would sit there and do that monthly? You don’t have enough work with your modules? The regular seminars will be good for students ending their course and looking for jobs. About the area near library, it really needs to be improved. During rain, there is too much mud there. And there is not enough benches. People are forced to sit on the rim of those tree-boxes. More power sockets for Laptop users in Raised Plaza. Nice one! I’d say “more sockets in lecture theatres” too.

Maintenance of toilets is a must. They emit such good fragrance my nose bleeds! The thing about finding talents is quite a good idea. But why do I get the impression that it will only be about singing? I guess this is only in my head. The ISKCON food stand will be much appreciated, provided the price of food is not too high. Setting up of a SU website? Not enough. As I said above, we need a Campus Forum! More chairs around cafeteria. Yes. Crater into open-air cafe. Just like Student Welfare. The monthly councelling by psychologists is not already available? I thought it was.

Library: Introduction of photocopy machines in Eng Tower. This idea is shared by both parties. I dunno who ripped whom though. “Restore old books for future use“? Lame! Engineering books expire after a while. Their content are updated in future editions, and so future editions need to be bought, not old editions being reused! Lol! Affliation of UoM library with other libraries would be good. We’ll get more books. “Setting up of a groupwork corner“. In Library? No way! Group work implies discussion! Discussion implies noise. Noise has no place in a library! I say, we open specific classrooms in all faculties for use for group works. It’s much easier to implement, and at no cost. “Increase bag shelves” is a must. People keep their bags on the floor, or on the crowded table nowadays. Camera surveillance for bags? Just give the security guard a view of the bags and these would be safe.

FOE: Supply DVD writers to labs. Just supply one or two writers per lab, and it’d be sufficient. “Allow all students to use CISCO labs” is good. This should be added too: “Allow all students to get tons of Virii from there”. Air conditioning needs to be reviewed in Eng Tower and ELT1. It’s either too hot or too cold in those. “Upgrade all peripherals and software in Lab 1.8“, although if this is a must, I smell a false promise again here. There is no money for that. For hardware at least. Upgrading Linux should be free.

Cafeteria: Change the deco? Who cares! It’s the food that counts. Hygene need to be improved though. Student Rights do not mention any Veg food.

Extra-curricular: Music club? There’s one? Outings for each faculty per semester? We already organize that among ourselves. So no need for your help here I guess. Unless you give free transport! Identify different talents. Repeat point here. Regular dance parties? Duh! Waste of time and funds. Specially when these are organized in the cafet. Second end of year party? There are two “end of year” per year now? LOL! It seems Student Rights puts much emphasis on fun and leisure. Too much I should say.

Sports: Buying of sports equipment. More lockers. Water dispensers. Again shared ideas. Again the issue of money not being available.

And finally, Student Power:

First of all, Student Power shares many points with the other 2 I already discussed. So here, I’m only discussing the points that do not repeat. Why? I’m tired of repeating stuff!

FOE: Same old thing about providing new, better equipment. Same answer from me: money. Two interesting points from them: site visits which I really think is important to know how the industry actually works, and what would be expected of us. Then there’s the “Engineering Archive” where we can access past projects and inventions. A sort of museum I guess. This would be both interesting and inspiring.

Senate: Semester-wise exam would be a good thing. We FOE students already do a sort of mini-exam at the end of the semester. They call it a “Test” and do it during “Test week” but for me, it represents an end-of-semester exam. So why not just call it “Exam” and make it count like an exam? So that at the end of the year, we don’t have to revise one whole year of content? Stupid system in my opinion. I don’t know many universities who do End of Year exams. Most do End of Semester exam. Just do your exam and finish off with a semester’s content. It’s easier on the students. So very good point here Power.

Internet connection in all classes is a bit stupid. Just provide campus-wide Wifi. It’s easier for us all. But for that we’d need a good Internet connection which unfortunately is not available yet. Improving sound system. Yes. Specially in ELT1. The system there can be considered dead. The Formal coaching system is great too. It would allow students to get help from 3rd years, and these would act like supply lecturers. Good! “Increase surface area of bus-stop“. Lol at phrasing it. But it’s a must.

Finally. “Covered overhead passage footpath from engineering tower to caravan rouge“. Not necessary. Provide a covered passage from near Pasrelle (Overpass near cafet) to Bus Stop. That area is totally uncovered. And coming from Eng Tower to bus stop, you have no way to remain dry due to that during rain.

Teaching and Learning committee: “Special tutorial provided by lecturers during revision week“. I never had any revision week till now. Lecturers used everything up to last week before exam to clear the syllabus, and at amazing speeds. WTF! “Availability of more GEMs“. Not bad. Wonder what they will introduce.

Website Committee:

“Having an up-to-date STUDENTS’ UNION content on UoM Website” and “Launching a 24hr operating STUDENTS’ UNION Forum for students“. AT LAST! One of them listens to me! But not Student Union Forum! Campus Forum please!

Computer Labs: Removing Pentium 2′ and negotiating new equipment. This would be tough to implement! Updating antivirus is a must! I’m tired of seeing my pendrive infected with virii!

Clubs and Societies: Wow! This party is really listening to me! They are promoting some improvement of existing clubs and favoring new ones. They also have LAN gaming, for which I’m in. But no PC at UOM will be able to handle LAN gaming. I wonder where they’ll get gaming PCs. Then there’s the dreaded “Radio Campus” which I bet will be filled with palab! Keep that away!

Among all the existing parties, Student Power seems to match my expectations more closely than the others. They already have most of the ideas I suggested in their plan. I just hope they implement them. At least they know what’s the difference between a blog and a forum! But alas, no veg food! (Do they all hate Vegs?)

That would be it. The parties seem to have copied ideas from each other and from past promises. Personally, I think Student Welfare seems slightly more promising. Their points are more realistic, and they put slightly more emphasis on studies, compared to Student Rights. I feel that Rights have copied a bit from the past year’s electoral promise, whereas Welfare have managed to come up with some innovative ideas. However, Student Welfare have an professionalism problem. The people in there do not communicate their ideas clearly (they go too fast) and thus fail to convince students when they come to classes. Also, they should dress a bit more formally and classy when they come to talk. First impression counts. I haven’t had the opportunity to see Student Rights or Student Power explain their points yet. So I cannot talk about their presentation performance yet. I’ll update when they do.

Now, here’s some ideas from me:

As I said above, we need a Campus Forum. This is very important to facilitate communication between staff, students and Student Union. Also, through the forum, it’s easier to ask questions. Each course could have a sub-forum, and each course would be a sub-forum of a faculty. These would fall under the Academics section of the forum. Then, when we ask a question about a course, the whole department has access to the question, not just one particular member or members of the staff. We then obtain a broader range of answers. There might be other sections specially for Student Union, or for plain fun and discussion. Like an Online Common Room (chat room?). The forum would also allow students of different faculties to know each other better. We might possibly learn stuff from other faculties, and get to know what their course is about. A forum would be quite easy to implement. Just get some web-space off the UoM server and a database, then just install a free script like PHPBB and secure it a bit to prevent spam and attacks. That’d be it! For people without Internet connection, they can access it via labs.

Now, another issue. Cafeteria. There is just not enough food there. What I’m talking about is food you can take and eat while walking or standing. Cuz who has time to eat! My courses often chain, with no breaks in between. There is not even a lunch time. So we just take a few minutes between courses to eat before going to classes. That’s why we need “quick foods” as I’d call them. One eg. would be the famous “Torsade” or “Pain au choco”, but those are not very stomach-filling. And the sandwiches are too tiny and expensive by the way. And what about turning the Crater into an open-air cafe? Just put tables and stuff there.

LAN gaming? I doubt it will be feasible. Why? Where will the parties get Gaming PCs to run the LAN games? There’s not enough money to buy decent PCs and even get a decent connection, and they plan to get Gaming PCs? Quite laughable I should say. Unless they want us to bring our PCs for tournaments. Then connect it to existing infrastructure there. That won’t be bad. Using a projector for broadcasting tournaments. Yaaay!

Finally, I’ll talk about extra-curricular activities. Personally I’m deceived by UoM. Most universities have loads of clubs like Music Club, Photography Club, Dance Club, Debate Club, Cookery Club or whatever club. Here, we hardly have any active clubs. Hell, the only club I see active is the Badminton Club! What about the others? Because of the lack of clubs, there is a serious lack of activities. Basically, you just come to UoM, study, chat a bit then return home. You don’t learn stuff which would be otherwise important. Eg. With a Cookery club, they might offer basic cooking lessons to those interested. But no, we don’t have any such things. I wonder why there is a lack of clubs. Is it because the procedure to create a club is complex? I dunno. But what I know is that SU should encourage students to form clubs, and provide information and help on how to do so.

That’s it. I think this is one of the longest articles I ever wrote. Please comment! Which party impresses you most? What would you want to see implemented at UoM? What can SU do to improve things? Let’s hear it in the comments!

Ps. Student Power’s Website is here.

This article comes from GeekScribes

Student Union Elections 2008: My views

Google turns 10, Wants to help people with $10m

InF — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:36:42 +0000

September marks the 10th anniversary of the godlike search engine Google, repository-of-the-Internets-and-universal-knowledge *bows*. However, the exact date seems to be a variable! More info on that at Techcrunch.

*Google opened its doors in September 1998. The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake. For more on Google’s history:
http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

Source: Google Support

The folks with the “Don’t be evil” motto want to celebrate their creation’s birthday by helping the world. So? They have launched a project called “Project 10 to the 100th”, or Project 10100. Quite a Googlish-name if you ask me!

Basically, you suggest some ideas that will help the greatest number of people possible, in any way possible (or so I guess). Then, you go on that website above, and post it there. You may even post a 30-seconds video to back your concepts.

Then? Google has put aside $10 million to kickstart the Top 5 ideas it receives. The public will be able to short select 20 semi-finalist ideas, and a board will select the Top 5 out of those.

There are a number of categories in which you can participate, which are (as listed on the Project 10100 page):

Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.

That’s basically it. Now you can go suggest some ideas if you have some, or pass the message around. The closing date for ideas submission is 20th October!

Time for some fun. If you want to know how Google was born, bred and evolved, you can check out this interesting timeline of what Google’s been up to in the last 10 years. Here’s Google’s Tenth Birthday page too.

Seriously, I can’t imagine life online without Google. It’s been saving my rear for the last 10 years now! A big thanks and:

HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY GOOGLE!

This article comes from GeekScribes

Google turns 10, Wants to help people with $10m

Installing GLUT on Dev C++

InF — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:08:51 +0000

We are currently using the GLUT library at University in our Interface Design and Computer Graphics module. We were told to use Linux (Kubuntu) to write and compile our OpenGL/GLUT programs. But for ease of use, I wanted to install the GLUT library on Windows. I am a user of Dev C++ 4.9.9.2. I know it is no longer under active development, but it still remains my IDE of choice for C++ and C on Windows. And yes, I do know about Code::Blocks, so don’t flame me if I use Dev C++.

So here’s a guide if ever you want to install GLUT on Dev C++. Don’t worry, it’s easy.

Note, this guide is just about installing GLUT, not how to use it. I’ll probably have a small guide on that later on, but for now, this (and the Red Book) should get you started.

First, get Dev C++ if you don’t already have it. It’s available on bloodshed.net. Get version 4.9.9.2 (Beta).
Of course, install it. It’s pretty straightforward till now.

After installing it, go to Tools - Check for Updates/Packages.
In “Select Devpak server” dropdown menu, choose “devpaks.org Community Devpaks“
Click on “Check for Updates“. Wait a bit while the list downloads.
In the list, find “glut“, or a compatible GLUT package like freeglut or OpenGLUT (if you know how to use these, else stick to “glut”).
- You might want to filter the results using “OpenGL” from the “Groups” dropdown menu. Else, you might click on the “Update” title bar in the list to sort entries alphabetically.
Then, check the small box on the left of “glut” or other compatible glut libraries. Finalize by clicking the “Download Selected” button. Wait for the package to download and install.
You will be prompted for an installer window. Just read instructions and click Next a couple of times.
Now, check if glut was correctly installed by going to Tools - Package Manager. See if you can see “glut” or other compatible libraries (whatever you downloaded) there.

After you install glut, you can do “File - New Project - Multimedia tab” and see that glut has created templates for you. Quite complex things if you ask me. I tend to stay away from those if I can.

Now, before you use any library, you need to link it, else you will get loads of “Linker errors” and “Undefined reference” errors. Here’s how to link the libraries: (read the Dev C++ FAQ!)

9. How can i use the OpenGL library and others ?

All the libraries that comes with Mingw reside in the Lib directory. They are all named in the following way: lib*.a
To link a library with your project, just add in Project Options - Parameters tab - Linker box:
-lopengl32 (including the - symbol)
This is for including the libopengl32.a library. To add any other library, just follow the same syntax:
Type -l (L in lowercase) plus the base name of the library (filename without “lib” and the “.a” extension). Or you can use the “Add Library or Object” button in the parameters tab for simplicity.

I have these libraries linked: “-lglut32 -lglu32 -lopengl32 -lwinmm -lgdi32” and it works fine for me. You can try removing some of the parameters and see if it still works for you. NOTE: The order in which these parameters are supplied is actually important! If you are using a library, and having “undefined reference” errors, try shifting that library’s link parameter to the front of them all.

That’s if you want to use projects. If you are using plain source files, you can put those link parameters in Tools - Compiler Options. Then put them in the “Add these commands to the linker command line“. Make sure the box is checked too. I’d advise you to create a compiler profile just for OpenGL and glut with those parameters. Don’t mess with the “default compiler” profile. You can create one using the small green “+” button there.

There is usually linking information in the header files (.h files) or the Readme files of libraries you download on the Internet.

Basically, to install a library, you will have to copy some files (ending with .lib or .a) to the “lib” folder and some .h files to the “include” folder in Dev C++’s install folder.

Now, to actually use glut, you have to include the header file with:

#include

To know the exact path where glut.h is found, look inside the “include” folder, again in Dev C++’s install folder.

That’s it. You should now be able to compile and run glut code on Windows using Dev C++. The guide should be clear enough. If there is demand for it, I’ll include pictures too, but I don’t think they are really needed.

By the way, I’m not a glut or OpenGL expert or anything. I’m just studying it, and thought I’d share how I managed to get glut running on Dev C++. I might not be able to answer all your questions, and for that, Google’s here!

This article comes from GeekScribes

Installing GLUT on Dev C++

Where do you get photos for your blogs?

InF — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:53:40 +0000

This is a question that has been puzzling me for quite a while. Especially now, after seeing Shah says “Do not use my pics” or something along those lines. Till now, I had been using Google Images, searching for pictures, and using them. Yep, this implies without permission.

Then when I was blogging on the Olympics, I had to search like mad to get Olympic pics, and I had to settle for pictures that The Guardian and Reuters photographers had snapped.

But then, I asked myself this question: “Ddid I just ripped off somebody’s work?”

Yes, I guess I did. Some guy or lady had to go to the Olympics, sit there for hours, waiting for the perfect shot, using thousands of dollars worth of equipment that they had carried with them. And what did I just do? STEAL THEIR WORK! Oh shi..!

Even then, I tried to redeem myself by posting link back to the work of those people, and giving them credits for the work. But after some research, I found that credits mean nothing. I had just violated the copyright of these people!

There are some sources where you can get pictures which you can use freely. Some examples would be Wikimedia Commons, and Creative Commons Search. For stock photos, there is Sxc.hu and Everystockphoto. Sxc.hu is a great source by the way. Do you know any more sources?

This is why I am posting this. To ask you readers and bloggers a question. Where do you get your pictures for use on your blog? How do you proceed to use these pictures? Do you give credits? Do you link back? Something else? Please comment, and take some time to answer the following poll. Thanks!

Where do you get your photos?

This article comes from GeekScribes

Where do you get photos for your blogs?

GeekScribes

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