Preventing Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI)

I have just been reading this article on O'Reilly about preventing, whats called RSI (short for Repetitive Stress Injury). In simpler terms, RSI is injury caused by repeatedly performing a stressing action. A commonly seen example is use of computers. It stresses various parts of the hands. This can lead to damage to soft muscles and nerves. The article goes on to suggest some easy techniques to ensure that such body parts get enough rest so that the risk of RSI is reduced.

For computer users, there are several applications that can remind the user to rest periodically. One such example is Workrave (see pic).

If this interests you, here's some detailed reading material

8 pixels = millions of dollars

Microsoft has been in tight spots before. Sometimes from upstart competitors like Linux, trying to reduce its market share, with CERTI advising people to "start using another browser" to the very latest
geographical slip-up thats caused microsoft millions !

Speaking at the international Geographical Union conference in glasgow, Tom Edwards (Geographical Strategy Unit, Microsoft), revealed how microsoft ended up offending the worlds biggest democracies - India with a slip up. Apparently, it denoted Kashmir to be outside India. Needless to say, the product was promptly banned - meaning it has to be with withdrawn - costing microsoft millions ! However, it has certainly delighted certain groups which put up a open petition supporting microsoft :)

There have been other blunders as well - read more here ...

India needs to get local !

Mayank sharma rightly wonders, that why a fast growing IT power like India still has such low percentage of acceptance of technologies by non-IT people (see "Why India is struggling with localized language computing"). Given the fact that there are several languages spoken and written in India, very few of them have made it to the localized language list.

Despite several initiatives by organizations like CDAC (Center for Development of Advanced Computing) and FSF-India, there has been a gross disinterest in localization projects. If you feel that there's something you can do about it, Mayank goes on to suggest a good place to start. Read more here ..

As an excercise, (see Step 1) i found out that several indian languages have been encoded by the Unicode standard (namely - Devnagari, Bengali, Gurumukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam) and hey - most of them are indian !

For Step 2, their ISO codes are Assamese (AS), Bengali (BN), Bihari (BH), English (EN), Gujarati (GU), Hindi (HI), Kannada (KN), Kashmiri (KS), Malayalam (ML),Marathi (MR), Nepali (NE), Oriya (OR), Punjabi (PA), Sanskrit (SA), Sindhi (SD), Singhalese (SI) , Tamil (TA), Telugu (TE) and Urdu (UR).

Now as the next step, we need if locale data (language specific info) exists for you a particular language. The name format would be ISOCode_CountryCode (Country Code for India is IN), so for example, the locale data file for Sanskrit should be SA_IN. According to the article we need to search something called a GNU libc sources (a library used by the Linux Kernel - the heart of the Linux operating system). I did just that and i found the locale data for Arabic, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu (hey ! we're missing Sanskrit and Urdu - two of the oldest ones !). As per the advice on the site, i did find others like Sanskrit and Urdu - though not in the form of glibc locale data files. In simpler terms, work is being done of these languages, but is not centralized.

Like Mayank says, i got through most of the stuff in a few minutes, but the major stuff seems to be translation. I never got around finding out what a PO file means anyway. But, the point was made - all that it requires is a little effort from all of us to help translate what stuff means in our mother tongue (thats not asking too much is it ?).

Olympics powered by Linux

Linux - the open source OS, has reserved its place in history by participating in the Olympic Games being held in Athens. Daniel Thomas writes about how the Penguin is helping BBC deliver faster Olympics results.

Here's an extract: "The BBC will receive results from the Athens Organising Committee in an XML format and use SQL databases and HP ProLiant servers to store the information. Red Hat 8 Linux desktop applications will be used on Apple eMac computers to produce moving '3D' graphics, reducing the need for manual data input and graphics production.
..." (read full article)

Kensington Laptop locks *can* be opened !

Security.org recently released a security alert regarding Kensington lock mode 64038 being insecure.

In plain english, that means the lock can be picked with a Bic pen and a pair of scissors with about a minutes practice. Whats more, since the lock-pick method doesnt damage the lock or the cable, the Kensington challenge of "if someone steals your laptop, we will give u $1500" does not apply !

I just changed my mind about buying one :)

Get yer Duke screensaver here!

I found this neat little screensaver on java.com that keeps my second-favourite character (the first ones Garfield!) on my desktop. Cool !!

For those of you who are interested, i also run two java-related user groups - Pune Java User Group (PJUG) and Eclipse-user. If you are a java guy .. be there or be square !

Edit: Updated links and cancelled out old ones.

Clicking away with a newly acquired Digital camera

Having brought a new digital camera, i found out, i began seeing things differently. After the first few shots with my camera - i had fallen in love with it. At the time of posting this blog - the number of photos i have taken since i bought the peice has gone over several thousands ! I cant seem to stop clicking.

I have been receiving several mails from people who read my review on my new camera. Most said that they, like i had been once, in two minds about whether to buy it or not. My review did seem to count. But they say they are eager to see the photos that a common man like me takes with it - rather than the glossy ones that are shown in the ads. So i dipped into my collection and have put up 4 of the ones i think have come out well. They are un-tailored and have been posted as downloaded from the camera. Since they are personal photos, i have posted them seperately on my personal blog - here, here, here and here.

Comments are most welcome !

A wifi connection - from 55 miles !!

Just when i had thought that making a Wifi connection with my laptop from 100 meters was an acheivement, along came this article "Wired News: Wi-Fi Shootout in the Desert" that talks about some teens from Cincinati recorded having established a 551 mile long Wifi connection !! The contest held at Defcon 2004 required participants to setup a pair of computers, get an 802.11b Wi-fi connection working and see how far apart they could keep going until they lost connection. All this had to be done using home-built equipment and commercial antennas (no ampli-s !)

The Guinness world record for Wi-Fi connection stands at 310 kilometers (about 192 miles) Swedish Wi-Fi equipment maker Alvarion and the Swedish Space Corporation. The company did this by using a weather balloon.

The teens were confident of being able to achieved an even greater distance, but said, "but there was no road left."

The prize was a stack of O'Reilly books, Best Buy certificates and über-hacker badges, allowing the teens lifetime admission to DefCon for free.

Doom 3: Open sourced?

Here's a interesting article from Frans Englich "What if Doom 3 were open sourced?". He ponders on the possibility of ID software releasing its latest offering Doom 3 (also being touted as the most advanced game in the world !) to open source.

Not that its not done this before. Quakeforge is a good example of Quake coming to KDE. The author makes a valid point with about ID being one of the few companies who still retains the original passion for the craft itself despite being market leaders.

Personally, i am already waiting for my copy of Doom 3 - and if its open source - the source :)

Your camera's memory card maybe tougher than you think

For those of us who own digital camera's and have used it innumerable number of times to snap and save precious memories, here some excellent news !

In an article in the BBC Technology section (Digital memories survive extremes), BBC describes how the Digital Camera Shopper Magazine put some commonly avialable memory cards through some very rough tests and they came through.

The test included 5 memory card formats being boiled, trampled, washed, kept in coffee and cola, played with by a 6 year old (now THATS rough !). Surprisingly, they say, all the cards they tested survided the tests.

Its nice to know that my memories are in safe hands (err.. cards) ;)