Say if you want to try out different desktop managers after you are already using a desktop.You can do that by opening up a command prompt and doing "restartx" as root and it will present you with multiple choices of the desktops which are installed on your machine.Also this works both in console mode and in X environment.

posted at: 22:36 | category: /linux | permanent link to this entry

Have you ever found the need to keep all the thousands of files which you use in a single file.
On Linux there is a way to do that.So essentailly you can have a virtual drive in a file which has an entire filesystem.
And to Linux it does not appear any different then an ext3 on a actual physical hard drive or a partition.
The implications of this are very huge, so for example you want to share some data with any one which has hundreds of files etc or you want to just backup your entire filesystem.
Here is how to achieve this

dd if=/dev/zero of=mydatafile bs=1 count=1 seek=1M

Will create a file of one megabyte in size, but with only one byte 
actually stored on disk.

The convert that file into a ext3 partition by issuing the following command

mkfs.ext3 mydatafile

It will give a warning,say yes and let it proceed.
 
mke2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
sparse-file is not a block special device.
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y

Then you can just mount the file as a filesystem/partition anywhere with the following command

mount -t ext3 -o loop mnt/mnt_point  mydatafile

Now you can just do anything in the /mnt/mnt_point and then you can even move it to another machine 1 single file and you have all your data there.

Another example is dd if=/dev/zero of=mydatafile bs=1024 count=1024 to create a file of 1MB though it is not a true sparse file, the better definition of this file would be a virtual drive of fixed size of 1MB.

posted at: 16:18 | category: /linux | permanent link to this entry

Have you ever felt the need for more openness about your company and being able to comment on your compay,companies culture , or share your grievances of your company or say that your company at good at various things.
Do you want to rate your CEO ?
Wanna know what others make in your company.
If the answer to any of the above is yes then there is a website which might interest you.
It is appropriately named as http://www.glassdoor.com

posted at: 14:44 | category: /general | permanent link to this entry

We all want to avoid being spammed but at the same time we want to reveal our email address to people who need to contact us.recaptch solves that problem very easily and just by adding about 4 lines of code you can hide your email address from spammers and reveal it.
Another cool benefit of recaptcha is that you are helping "reading" books that is when some books have faded and are being scanned , you are helping solve the faded text.Read more about it on their website.

posted at: 00:41 | category: /general | permanent link to this entry

There is an article on Yahoo @ http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=Atm.KMBqoZ2JlyDnF3OMn2Z72PAI;_ylu=X3oDMTBiZ3MwbHJsBHBvcwM0BHRhYgMw/SIG=12koilksg/**http%3A//us.lrd.yahoo.com/SIG=118bjsg14/**http%253A//gmy.news.yahoo.com/v/9240050 which talks about 4 day workweek of 10 hours.
I strongly disagree with the benefits of this because I feel that it might work in the case of hourly paid workers but it is dangerous for software professionals(who are not paid by the hour) working in high-tech industry because i feel that this is just an invitation for employers to ask employees to work 40 hours in 4 days and then the weekends.

posted at: 03:45 | category: /worklifebalance | permanent link to this entry

There are various ways in which you can help the various free/open source communities by donating your free unused internet bandwidth for perfectly legal content which can use some help in distribution and reducing the charges for the mirrors who provide free services in the spirit of free beer/freedom.

• Run a search portal by running the Yacy client more details @ http://www.yacy.net/
• Download a bittorrent client like Vuze/Azureus and then help distribute legal content from various websites like
• Debian ISO images
• Knoppix
• List of Legal Torrents website @ http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Legal_torrent_sites
• Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents
• Download emule client from Emule Project and you can download and help distribute lot of legal content from the following websites
• Legal Content from emule-project.net
• Free/Open source software @ http://bitzi.com/society/FLOSS_Free_Libre_Open_Source_Software

posted at: 05:03 | category: /pleaforaction | permanent link to this entry

I have finished Yacy setup on my home computer and it is functional at http://bhavesh.gotdns.org:9000
Here are the live stats of my search portal

posted at: 04:35 | category: /worklog | permanent link to this entry