Blue Hills Beckon

I had bought an Altec Lansing 2.1 Speaker set last year. This was my first 2.1 speaker set and I had never used or heard properly speakers with woofer(especially in my own house). The new sound levels were amazing, I mean compared to a pre-historic 2.0 Creative, this baby was like "O' sweet honey" to my ears, literally.......

But pretty soon I got a li'l bored of the exaggerated bass and sounds of the new speakers. Then I began looking for solutions in the internet, and my sights fell on SRS Audio Sandbox. I never even imagined how good this piece of software could be. The presets "WOW HD" and "TruSurround" worked like a charm on my entry level baby and yet, my speakers now produced sound that was crystal clear, and a league ahead of it's own self.

Here's a description of the software:-

" SRS Audio Sandbox is the ultimate audio enhancement software for the PC. Experience amazing sound tailored to any PC speaker configuration - headphones, stereo speakers, or surround speakers, all with the click of a button. Users simply select their audio content (e.g. music, movie, game or voice) and then choose from many presets (i.e. rock music, classical, jazz, country, etc).
For users who want even more customization, SRS Audio Sandbox lets you personalize your audio through the use of advanced controls, which provide deep, rich bass, restore the clarity to vocal and high frequency sounds, provide 3D enhancement for stereo and mono content, and more.

Best of all, SRS Audio Sandbox allows users to experience surround sound on their PC, regardless of their speaker arrangement, even over headphones. SRS technology is able to overcome the physical limitations of poorly placed or small size speakers, delivering the best entertainment experience available on a PC.

• SRS WOW HD – improves the audio performance of compressed and uncompressed audio by expanding the size of the audio image in the horizontal and verticle sound field and creating a deep, rich bass response. The patented techniques in SRS WOW HD also retrieve information lost in the mixing process to create a more natural audio experience

• SRS TruSurround – accurately reproduces multichannel content over two speakers for a realistic surround sound experience

• SRS Circle Surround II – creates multichannel surround sound from any audio source, including mono and stereo, when played over a 5.1 or 6.1 speaker playback system

• SRS Headphone 360™ – delivers true 5.1 surround experience over headphones
• 
  

I don't think the person needs an introduction. He is known worldwide, and more lovingly, as the father of India, if not the world.

Gandhiji was born on October 2nd 1869, and his birth was no less important that of a god's. The first person who followed "ahimsa" or non-violence beyond any other's dare, and the person who achieved the impossible all without the use of force, but with just the power of truth.

His famed Satyagrahas are still remembered, and chapters of him in our textbooks can be found all over the world's different history books and other texts as well. It was this man who made possible the independence of India, and also winning of equal rights for blacks in South Africa before.


Even now, after 61 years of his passing away(1948), we still remember this father figure and idol and shall always try to follow his principles throughout our lives.

It was just another day. I was going to the football ground. Everything was the same, the people, the trees, even the squirrels. Except...everything did not go according to what happened daily. Just ahead of me, I saw an aged woman slip and fall.

I immediately ran towards her..at first a little stunned..and my mind praying the hurt's not too serious. On reaching her location, I noticed blood, dripping from right beside her eyes. In my horror, I was transfixed, rooted to the spot. Then I somehow regained sense and asked the dadi(english translation grandmom) to stay there while I get some water.

I ran towards the field where I played, hoping someone had brought water. None had, but fortunately, I found an unused bottle lying there on the ground. I picked it up and sprinted across the field, crossed the road, and reached the other side to a tap, where I hurriedly filled the bottle.

Having done so, I rushed back at the quickest of pace, jumped over the entire entry gate(not too high but nonetheless), and ran like an olympian gold medalist to the spot where I saw dadi fall. But, by the time I reached there, she was nowhere to be. Another person said that dadi has gone already.

I silently prayed that she be alright....and went to play my football game.

Well guys, today's article was written by me long long ago(few years), but I dug it up and I am posting it today.

“Hardly anybody follows world leaders though everybody pretends to admire them.”

Every word of this sentence is absolutely true. World Leaders may appear very popular and give many speeches in front of eager crowds, but hardly anyone remembers or even pays attention to what he or she says. Everywhere, there are examples of such cases starting from our very own Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela to Martin Luther King Junior. These people had great personalities and fought very hard for a good cause but nobody followed their teachings seriously. They only did so in their presence to show that they followed and admired them, etc.

Mahatma Gandhi was a leader who did not use violence to fulfill his responsibilities, works, or demands. Everybody talks greatly of him even now in front of others, but they don’t mean it by heart and have never actually followed his teachings and policies. Many people have started acting like “Munnabhai” from “Lage raho Munnabhai” and have described themselves as “Gandigiri” fans, but all is just a put up, a way to attract attention or to just joke around and have fun.

Martin Luther King Junior fought for equal rights in favour of the blacks. All the blacks supported him in his struggle to gain equal privileges and rights for the blacks as whites enjoyed. But no longer do the whites remember what he said and what were the circumstances when they started differentiating them from the blacks and have started this discrimination again. Mentioned below is based on a true incident:

One day, in a commercial airlines passenger flight, a white woman aged around fifty was seated with a man of black ethnicity. The woman was rather uncomfortable being seated beside the black man. After several minutes of disturbance between both the people, the airhostess came forward to settle the disputes.
The white woman immediately said, “Who have you made me sit with, beside this disgusting black person. By heavens get me another seat this instant.”
The airhostess, rather alarmed after all this, went to discuss with the captain the present situation. After several minutes, the air hostess returned. She straight came up to the black man and spoke,” Please get your hand-baggage and follow me. A first class seat awaits you. And anyway, you wouldn’t want to sit any longer with a person of such disgusting personality.”

Everybody was surprised to hear her comments but immediately erupted in applause for her good deed.

Such is still the condition for those people. But some are there who still follow the old leader’s teachings that have actually helped the society greatly.

Nowadays, the generation is changing as well as the attitude and thinking of people. They no longer think of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders of the past as any out-of-the-ordinary people. They no longer believe that their advices and teachings remain of any value now. All this is collectively leading to a slow downfall and disruption in the society which finally harms us people.

The situation is getting worse day by day and not any improvement can be seen at all. Why, after a few years, I think that people would no longer refrain from openly insulting past world leaders in front of others. The situation is getting from bad to worse. The corruption level in the country is increasing at an alarming rate. Steps have to be taken now before it is too late. Need for more supporters and followers is increasing. Those who still believe in the teachings of the great people of the past have to be brought forward so that their teachings and advices can be taught to all again. We have to begin respecting our present leaders too because they are the one’s who are going to play an important role in making the future of the country, along with the rest of the population of the country.

“We have to start respecting our past for a good present and to form a beautiful future!”

Well, these days I'm extra pro-Open source, as having used them, I'm totally convinced of their functionality, and use. And what more? You no longer have the guilt of using pirated software....which mind you was made by some developer's hard work.

Today, I shall discus the various Linux Distros which are available to all of us, yet we don't know. I mean, sure you've heard of uBuntu, and Mac users would say, "Ha, I've seen more ugly birds", but then there is a uBuntu modification Distro called "Linux Mint" too. Now that's a new one right. Well step in for more.

1. uBuntu - The people's Linux

One of the most popular linux distros, this is an immediate choice for linux first timers, and let me tell you, it works like a charm. And the best part, it even supports windows applications via a virtual application.

This distro is known for it's simplicity, and also compatibility. Yes, it's requirements are very little. SO if you have an old PC lying in your house, fire it up with uBuntu.

Installation and installing applicatios too is a charm. I would put it this way, "A ten year old would find it easy."

2.OpenSUSE

Wowie, feel like whistling don't you? This one's an absolute charm. Although resource consumption will be more, however, it's basically at the same level, and I guess the widgets make up for the increased hardware demand.

3. OpenSolaris

Now this is a project which has picked up my interest too. Apparently Solaris uses(this part is for geeks) the ZFS File System which was develpoed by Sun itself, and it can store 18 billion billion times more data than 64-bit file systems(ZFS being 128-bit).

OpenSolaris was not developed to win any beauty contest, but it's main target was companies, and server systems. With it's host of features ranging from full multi-processor support to native virtualisation, this OS is packed to the rim.

So this was the short round-up of Linux OSes, hope you gained some useful knowledge.