Want to see yourself on a magazine cover?

Have you ever wondered how you would look on a magazine cover?
I discovered some sites which let you do such that:. You can try them out just for fun or positive reinforcements to remind you what you have to achieve still. :-)

• http://www.magmypic.com
• http://meonmag.com
• http://www.oncoverpage.com
• http://www.bighugelabs.com
  

There are a wide array of magazine covers which you can choose there including Time, Playboy, Vogue, Graduate, National Geographic and a host of others.
Just upload a photo of yours there, choose a magazine cover and voila, it shall appear. Its that simple.

Virtualbox: Virtual Machines on your OS

Virtualbox is an open source software for emulating one software on another which I recently discovered. To put it simply it allows you to calculate virtual machines on your system. This means that you can install one OS within another. For example you could have a virtual machine with Windows XP on your system. This is what I did. I did this on a Debian Lenny system and am telling how I did it here.

First ensure that you are updated with the debian lenny repository.
1. apt-get install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-source virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6-486 module-assistant
This will install the necessary software including the 486 image. Install appropriate module as per your need and ensure you are in that kernel after reboot.
2. module-assistant prepare
This prepares your module setup ensuring that your headers package is alright because this is the one against whom all the modules are compiled.
3. module-assistant auto-install virtualbox-ose
This installs the necessary modules.
4. modprobe vboxdrv
This loads the module.
5. Open the virtualbox software and follow the gui for making machines. Put type as XP. Ensure you have allowed CDs mounting. You can add XP installation CD and install it.

The new version allows shared folders also. In virtualbox you can decide the shared folders. These can be accessed by settings in My Network places.
1. go to 'My Computer' in WinXP and click on 'My Network Places'
2. select 'Choose another network location' and click 'Next' in service providers.
3. Browse to 'My Network Places' >> 'Entire Network' >> 'VirtualBox Shared Folders'. Here you will find the folder that you shared earlier using 'Devices' menu in VirtualBox VM as '\\VBOXSVR\...' Choose that folder and then click 'OK' to exit. And 'Next' to continue
4, Give a name to it and you are in business!
you may also need to install the guest extensions for that machine.
This gives the stability of linux underneath and an unstable XP inside. It runs really fast on my system!
Virtualbox is an open source software available for Linux, windows and Mac OS X also. But remember its an an x86 virtualization software package developed by Sun Microsystems. So will work on x86 and amd64 machines only.

Talk and Walk

All talk without walk is meaningless. IBM recently had a set of Ads with the tag line Doing it. In one particular one a lady, presumably a high executive is showing their innovation stations and says lots of things. In another one a lot of people are supposed to be "ideating" on the floor but haven't ideated about how they will innovate. At the end the tagline comes saying about stopping talk and start doing. IBM claims to show you how to do it. (no pun intended).
It brings up a very important point. Many people across cultures, jobs and races talk more and work less. This is detrimental to our progress as a civilisation and ultimately manking. We need to be helping each other to become better as a manking. I had read this book called "The Sigma Protocol" by Robert Ludlum (grab it. a good one). The villain makes a very valid point at one place (although i didn't like his solution's implementation!). The tragedy of mankind is that experts in each field have a great learning curve and often when they really become the experts their body is old. So they have very few years to actually give quality work. (Very true. Most nobel prizes are given to scientists for their work done at young ages in their old ages!). This is a global problem.
The only solution for this is to maximise the little time we do have and thus increase the global quality work output.
So help others. Share all that you know (US can start with sharing military and nuclear technology with India ;-) for example). This will help all of us get strong.
So stop talking and start doing.

Rumour Mongers

There is one more tribe of people I don't like. They are the rumour mongers.
Some people love making gossip. I believe that its a myth that women make more gossip. Men make their own sort of gossip without even realising they are gossiping.
But what really gets my goat is malicious rumour mongers. They make unwarranted, absolutely false gossip which causes damage to others. Please refrain from doing this. It is a character flaw in my opinion.
Make the world a more wonderful place by being nice to all. Life is short. Spend your time in making something of it rather than indulging in gossip.
Small people make gossip. Grow up.
This particularly makes me angry when it comes from people in high positions and journalists. People in high positions must live a life of dignity. Journalists should never forget what they owe to the people. In the fight to make ends meet they should not tamper with the very fundamentals of the job. Much of the breaking news on news networks these days are too broken. They create a controversy out of totally different comments made by celebrities. Anyone with average intelligence can make out their fibs. Whom are they trying to make fools of? They should behave more responsibly and give good short news. There is enough happening in the world to more than fill the 24 hours.

Obstructers

The success of any nation is determined by how hardworking and cooperative the people of that nation are. I believe there are intelligent people everywhere. Not all countries are born with opportunities but any country can make opportunities for its own people. There are many countries which are great examples of what a country can become if its people are good. Israel, singapore, japan, germany are just some of the examples for this. They have gone from being in very bad state to being world leaders in various fields.
The biggest reason for this in my opinion is that the people are very hard working, visionary and support each other. Even if i cannot do something but help another who can do it I would be doing a big service to the community.
Unfortunately that is not true in many cultures and it never ceases to annoy me. People don't do things themselves also and obstruct others too. I will not do and i will not let you do also. You have a fresh idea which is very different , revolutionary and does not fit my ideas. Therefore I will obstruct you. I will not encourage you. I cannot come to your level therefore I will bring you down to my level.
This is the attitude these people have and I find it very disgusting.
May their tribe reduce.

Indore to Delhi: What happens at an airport?

I recently travelled by a Deccan flight from Indore to Delhi. While I was at the airport I realised many first timers may not know the airport procedures. Hence, I thought I'll mention them here.
1. When you reach the airport go to the departure section.
2. Keep the ticket handy because you will need to show the guard to get entry. If somebody is accompanying you they may need to take a separate ticket. Note however that visitors are not allowed beyond a point.
3. There will be a checking machine for your main luggage. usually they will put tags on your luggage here. (Each airline or a group may have a common checking point. Its a X-ray machine basically. Put your luggage at one end and receive it at the other).
4. Then go to the airlines counter for "check-in". What basically happens here is that you give your luggage and ticket. They prepare your boarding pass and give it to you. They will also weigh your luggage here probably. If it exceeds the limits you have to pay something extra. Seat preference if any can be given here. (A window seat means you can look out of the aircraft better. Being in an aisle seat means you can walk if you want without disturbing anyone).
5. Then go to security where they check you and the hand luggage (with a similar X-ray machine).
6. Then wait in the lounge near the gate where your flight boarding shall have to be done. On being announced show your boarding pass and go to the bus which takes you to the aircraft.
7. Before entering aircraft they will see your boarding pass.
8. Sit and tie your seatbelt. Now you are ready for the flight. The airhostess may give some instructions here after welcoming you about seat belt etc.
9. In Air Deccan they give a complimentary small water bottle. Reading material is also available including the day's paper and some other inflight material. Food has to be paid for during the breaks. In other airlines food maybe complimentary.
10. Keep your seat belts on till you reach. The takeoff and time before landing is the best time to see out of the window. Especially at night seeing the city below can be very humbling.
11. On reaching get off the aircraft and get onto the bus. It takes you to the terminal.
12. Find out at the terminal where your flight's luggage will come. Collect it and leave.
Thats it. your journey is through!

Manual Configuration for automounting your ntfs and fat32 partitions

This is a problem I faced earlier when winduhs partitions were not automatically shown to me. I have the bad habit of keeping all songs there and wanted it automatically mounted. I didn't find a comprehensive clear solution anywhere which told me everything the way I wanted it. So I am mentioning it here to help others.
For doing this you shall need to be root.

1. As root run a 'fdisk -l ' to recognise the partition numbers and types. Note these. The listing on my system looks like this:-

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1274 10233373+ 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda2 * 1275 5950 37557418+ 6 FAT16
/dev/sda3 5950 10030 32768000 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda4 10030 17931 63470630 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 10030 14103 32721920 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6 14104 15378 10238976 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda7 15379 15499 971901 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 15500 17931 19535008+ 83 Linux

The Device boot mentioned in first column is the partition number you want.

2. For all vfat partitions make a new entry in the /etc/fstab file as follows:-

  /dev/sda3       /mnt/f          vfat    users,rw,auto,iocharset=utf8,umask=000        0       0

The above means that the partition /dev/sda3 should be mounted to /mnt/f. It shall be a utf8 charset and shall be accessible to all users. You must make the /mnt/f directory too after making the entry in the file.(Thats 'mkdir /mnt/f' as root in case you didn't know).

3. For the ntfs partitions which you want read write the ntfs-3g driver package must be installed (Debian etch users can get it from backports.org). Once that is done make an entry like this:-

  /dev/sda2       /mnt/c/dev/sda2       /mnt/c          ntfs-3g defaults        0       0

The above means that the ntfs partition /dev/sda2 shall be mounted to /mnt/c.

4. Repeat the same procedure for all the partitions that you have. Make sure that the mounting directories are created by you.

5. After next reboot all ntfs and vfat shall be mounted in r-w for all users! (Ignore the warning about utf8 you get in bootup for vfat. Thats the only charset that works).

6. Incase you have a multiboot with many linux distros where you want another distro's ext3 partition also mounted make a similar entry:-

/dev/sda8 /mnt/g ext3 users,rw,auto,umask=000 0 0

7. Last but not the least if you want to use linux partitions in Winduhs please use the ext2(works for ext3 also) driver from www.fs-driver.org

Hope this helps someone. If you have problems, please comment.