Season Of KDE

Having not got selected for this year's Google Summer Of Code, I applied for Season of KDE. Season of KDE (SoK) was set up in 2006 to provide some of the benefits of Google Summer of Code to those students whose projects did not get selected. Season of KDE provides students with experienced mentors and a well defined project, just like Google Summer of Code. SoK does not provide payment to students. Season of KDE doesn't provide the same benefits as Google Summer of Code, but it offers valuable mentoring, along with a vibrant and friendly environment, its more about Passion and of-course a cool T-Shirt. SoK allows us to work on a Cutting edge Project, and helps to take first steps developing KDE software and becoming worthy members of the KDE community. Each SoK student works on their chosen project with a mentor from KDE with experience in that area to help and guide them.

I too applied for Season of KDE. The application procedure was very straight-forward. Soon after getting the --> "sorry we couldn't select you, mail" from Google. I received a mail from a small Google Summer Of Dissapointment community. And came to know about Season Of KDE. Even students have to eat and so SoK participants often have other jobs and can only work on their projects part time. As a result, SoK projects may have smaller scope than Google Summer of Code projects or happen over a longer period. KDE benefits from new additions to our software and our community, and students get a SoK t-shirt, a certificate, some Google goodies and a great experience. SoK can also be a springboard to future Google Summer of Code success, with several past SoK participants going on to secure Google Summer of Code acceptance. Equally, SoK has provided opportunities for students to continue a Google Summer of Code project from previous years.

Having filled out the initial details on Lydia's Blog.
http://blog.lydiapintscher.de/
I received a mail next day, about my Project Details, I had earlier very vaguely suggested a project on Kde Speed Optimisation.

Project : Speed Optimisation of KDE start-up time.

I was Bombarded with a lot of well directed suggestions like, :-

: A possibility would be to help the Platform modulation effort to cut down dependencies.

: Another could be to reduce the number of dependencies that are loaded during startup. That is to convert some   of the static libraries and see if we can load them Dynamically, that may have slight performance issues, but that would greatly reduce start-up time.

  And finally I hope to implement the project as Tom Gundersen suggested :-

: Having a look at how systemd has improved startup speeds of system services, and try to do something similar to kdestartup. The idea is to allow sockets/dbus activation to synchronise daemon startup, rather than explicitly calling one daemon after another is up.

Idealy something similar should be possible (and much easier) for KDE apps/daemons as most desktop things are already able to do dbus activation. The idea would be to start all apps/daemons/services simultaneously as soon as the dbus session bus is running, and if one app needs a service it will block in the call to dbus waiting for it to start. As much as possible everything should be in the first autostart phase.

: The way to go here would to use bootchart and a profiler to find out where most of the time is spent, and then making that code faster. systemd is a system and service manager for Linux, compatible with SysV and LSB init scripts. systemd provides aggressive parallelization capabilities, uses socket and D-Bus activation for starting services, offers on-demand starting of daemons, keeps track of processes using Linux cgroups, supports snapshotting and restoring of the system state, maintains mount and automount points and implements an elaborate transactional dependency-based service control logic.

It looks like these are going to be a great summer, I am so very excited. I hope my project would get selected.

Technorati Tags: season of kde 2011, kde goodies, kde startup speed optimisation, kde sok project

FireFox Tricks, Linux FunFacts & some interesting Doodles

Haven't posted for a while now, for a variety of reasons.. ranging from frustating blogger maintainence issues to depressing exams, practicals and vivas... So, I am back again presenting to you, a few fire-fox tricks that I came across while googling .... they look pretty cool, so just try them & dont forget to comment with your favourite firefox trick....

Type the following addresses in the address-bar, and see the results :-

chrome://global/content/alerts/alert.xul
IT SHOWS Dancing Firefox.

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
IT Opens another Firefox inside a tab in the the existing Firefox window.

chrome://browser/content/preferences/preferences.xul
IT Opens the Options dialog box inside the Firefox tab.

chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/bookmarksPanel.xul
IT Opens the “Book Marks Manager” inside a tab in the Firefox window.

chrome://browser/content/history/history-panel.xul
IT Opens the History Panel in the Firefox tab.

chrome://mozapps/content/extensions/extensions.xul?type=extensions
IT Opens the Extensions window in the current tab.

chrome://browser/content/preferences/cookies.xul
IT Opens the “cookies window” inside a tab in the Firefox window.

chrome://browser/content/preferences/sanitize.xul
IT Opens the “Clear Private Data” window inside the current tab.

chrome://browser/content/aboutDialog.xul
IT Opens the “About Firefox” Dialog box inside the tab.

chrome://browser/content/credits.xhtml
IT A scrolling list of names. The one’s who we must thank for creating Firefox

linux funfacts :-
(1). Linus' (The writter of the linux kernel) favorite programming editor is                   Microsoft Notepad.

(2). Linux® is commonly confused with LINUXOS,released by Linux Incorporated.

(3). Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) has called Linux a cancer on mankind.

(4). Linux® is a compound abbreviation for the full name: Linu Christ. In fact,
      Linu Christ is believed to have run the Church of UNIX. Critics such as Pat
      Robertson contend that the X crosses out Christ.

(5). The bit-system was originally invented to make Linux®'s kernel-versions
       countable. Right now there's 64bit, since there are 2^64 different kernels.
       And the saga isn't even close to coming to an end.

(6). The original kernel source was written down in four notebooks.

A few interesting Google Doodles, I came across from Google India and Google World :-

 

 




  
With the last one being, Google's first ever Doodle.

Hack Your Mozilla FireFox and Browser Wars Reloaded.

Mozilla FireFox is my preferred Open Source Browser, so here I present a minor "tweaking" , which can make Firefox perform up to 40% faster for page transfers. With just a few clicks and some typing, you can experience faster browsing and surfing in Firefox.

                                                        

Here's How its Done :-

1. Open Firefox and in the address bar, type 'about:config'.

2. Click on the button: 'I,l be careful, I promise'.

3. Use the search bar located on the page to look for 'network.http.pipelining' and double click on it to set its value to 'True'.

4. Create a new Boolean value named 'network.http.pipelining.firstrequest' and set that to 'True' as well.

5. Find 'network.http.pipelining.maxrequests' , double click and change its value to 8.

6. Look for 'network.http.proxy.pipelining' and set it to 'True'.

7. Create two new integers named 'nglayout.initialpaint.delay' and 'content.notify.interval' ; set them to '0'.

8. Restart your browser and Thank me, for the difference.

Browser Wars gets Ugly :-
Microsoft says IE9 is "the world's fastest browser", but Firefox developer Mozilla claims IE9 doesn't even qualify as modern. As Mozilla's Firefox4 and Internet Explorer move closer to release, the browser makers are sparring over each other's HTML5 capabilities, lobbing insults and contradictory test results. After Microsoft claimed IE9 achieves 99% compatibly with HTML5, compared to Firefox's 50%, Mozilla Corp. technology "evangelist" Paul Rouget fired back with a blog post titled "Is IE9 a modern browser? NO.

To present a clearer picture of the Browser Wars, I show the statistics of the people who have visited my Blog, you can view it and come to your own conclusion 

 

As you can clearly see that Google Chrome is the Leader in the Browser Wars, followed closely by Mozilla FireFox and Internet explorer is a Distant 3rd.

                           

                                      So the winner in this Browser Wars is :-   GOOGLE CHROME                                                                    Followed Closely By :-   MOZILLA FIREFOX

BROWSER WARS

When it comes to choosing a Web browser today, we're spoiled for choice. Major new release Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4 have brought these two big name browsers to near parity with upstart Google Chrome, which though a relatively new entrant into the browser market has taken the browser industry by storm.
The current crop of surfing software all include plenty of speed, minimised interfaces for a better look at that site you're browsing, and support for the emerging HTML5 standard markup language. Each brings a unique twist, though. The new browser from Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, adds hardware acceleration for graphics-intensive sites and arguably the best privacy tool to prevent tracking of your Web activities by marketing sites. Firefox offers a Panorama view of your tabs and a refreshed version of what's still the most powerful set of customizations, along with the ability to sync bookmarks, history, settings, and more. 

Google Chrome 10 : 

Chrome Instant means your Web page is ready to read before you finish typing the address. This, its speed, minimalist design, and advanced support for HTML5 have deservedly been attracting more and more users to the browser. The latest version adds an improved settings interface, and even more speed and security.

Internet Explorer 9 :

Microsoft's new browser is faster, trimmer, more compliant with HTML5—a major improvement over its predecessor. It also brings some unique capabilities like tab-pinning and hardward acceleration, but only Windows 7 and Vista users need apply.

Mozilla Firefox 4 :

Firefox 4 gets Mozilla back into the game. This lean, fast, customizable browser can hold its own against any competitor, and it offers graphics hardware acceleration. My favourite OpenSource Browser. It has some cool features like in-private browsing and has Chatzilla add-on that allows you to attach yourself to irc-network.

• The Firefox project has changed its names several times. It was renamed from “Phoenix” to “Firebird” because of trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies. Mozilla Firebird then became Mozilla Firefox on February 9, 2004.
•  There is an on-going belief that “Mozilla” and “Firefox” are the same.  And as we discussed a while back, Firefox, adopted its name in 2004.  Mozilla on the other hand, is the one that represents the company, Mozilla Corporation which develops both Firefox and the Mozilla Suite.  The development of the Mozilla Suite ended in 2005 and is now known as the Sea Monkey.
• As an open source, the Mozilla Firefox is not entirely free as other would presume.  Some of its elements are covered by EULA (End-Users License Agreement);

 Now its time for some Internet Explorer jokes (The Beating Bag of Browser)

     

 

So it seems that Open-Source softwares Chrome and Firefox have beaten Internet-Explorer black and blue. Finishing on a lighter note, I came

 across a funny T-shirt, which said :-

                                      and all i could do was, just smile :-)

Downloading videos from You-tube/facebook ubuntu/windows

Having installed Ubuntu, the first thing you would realise is that your beloved .exe file,you use to install applications in windows, doesn't work for linux. Ubuntu uses .deb extension packages to install applications as binaries. Deb stands for debian, which originates from the name "Debra", who happened to be the girlfriend of debian founder Ian Murdock. Debian packages are  Unix archivers that include two zipped archives: one that holds the control information and another that contains the data.

So lets install the first software in Ubuntu, so to install vlc-player you can do either of the following things :-

1.  Open Synaptic application
     Click on System ---> Administration ---> Synaptic Package Manager.
     In Settings ---> Repositories, make sure you have an universal repository activated.

     Search for vlc and install it

2.  Or you can go to the Command line interface and type the following

     commands :-

     % sudo apt-get update 

     % sudo apt-get install vlc

And it should install vlc player for you.

Now having downloaded vlc-player, its time to download some videos too, without using any third-party softwares, now if your browser plays a video, it would have to be downloaded somewhere too, so open YouTube videos in Ubuntu (in any browser), let the video buffer/load completely. Afterwards in your file browser, browse to the /tmp directory.

Now in the /tmp directory, you will have the YouTube video you just saw. Simply copy paste the file to some other place other than the /tmp directory, say Desktop, for example. REMEMBER, you will have to copy-paste the file before closing the browser tab that contains the YouTube video. Closing your internet browser would automatically delete file in the /tmp folder.

But this method doesnt seem to be working, for Ubuntu 10.10, so for this, go to the browser cache "/home/.mozilla/firefox/cache" and you will find the video.

Similarly, for Windows you will have to open explorer and navigate to the following location:

C : Users "USERNAME" \AppData\Local\Temp. Enable 'show hidden files' Option in the Folder Options. In the temp folder look for file which has the name "fla*Some_Number*.tmp". The fla*.tmp file is video that was downloaded to your local cache. Copy the file to another folder and rename it to "Myname.flv ".

Now having learnt to download the video, have fun !!!!!!!!!

                                                          IMAGE OF THE WEEK

       

                      "Software is like sex: it's better when it's free.” - Linus Torvalds