Blue Hills Beckon

Welcome to "Blue Hills Beckon", basically a custard of technology, nature, and me.

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.


Remember what mobile phones were a decade back? Well I certainly do. They were those queer "portable phones" that one could carry in their pockets and make calls to anyone without having to connect through any connection. "Wireless", that's the word. At that time, mobiles were made for their basic and principle purpose, "a means of contact even from remote areas." Those small screens, dotted digit screens....

Let us take a look at what mobiles are NOW:
Touch screen, HD, WiFi, EDGE, GPRS, 8MP camera and what not. And look at the irony....you don't really need these services at all. True, today's world is such that people tend to be hopelessly after something they want, but in the process neglect what they need. That's what companies have taken advantage of, and to a great deal that is.

Agreed mobile phones are great, I mean when you show your flashy phone among the crowd, it turns many a envious eye....but that's not the point.

Bottom Line - Yes phones are cool great to have one(sweet...totally), but it isn't entirely essential(remember a world when there wasn't anything such as cell phone?).

Well, we all know about the open-source revolution, and to tell you, it's really going strong... Today, an article that serves two purposes, the open source revolution, and your photo-editing needs as well...nice for a combo ain't it..
(WEBSITE - http://www.photoscape.org/)

"Photoscape" - What is this software?


Well, photoscape is an open source image-editing software. This means it can be freely modified and distributed (but not sold) . As you can see, the interface is really this simple(with the set of tabs on the top, not displayed in above picture). Even an 8 year old would find this a child's play to use.

Here are some Key Features of this program:

  • Viewer: View your folders photos, slideshow
  • Editor: resizing, brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming
  • Batch editor: Batch editing multiple photos
  • Page: Make one photo by merging multiple photos at the page frame
  • Combine: Make one photo by attaching multiple photos vertically or horizontally
  • Animated GIF: Make one animation photo with multiple photos
  • Print: Print portrait shot, carte de visite, passport photo
  • Splitter: Divide a photo into multiple parts
  • Screen Capture: Capture your screenshot and save it
  • Color Picker: Zoom in screen on images, search and pick the color
  • Rename: Change photo file names in batch mode
  • Raw Converter: Convert RAW to JPG
  • Paper Print: Print lined, graph, music, calendar papers
  • Face Search: Find similar faces on the internet
For those people who use Photoshop or some other commercial software for the above purposes, you might as well switch over as this program is free, plus it's very very light. It barely takes time to load, even on a moderately old PC. And the advanced photo tasks such as "Motion Blur" and "Bloom" are simply superb, and are not resource consuming at all.
Hmm, I don't really recommend this program for these sorts of tasks(the picture above), but yes, it does them fine too.

This is an example of the difference it can make in one picture, all with one click(it's that simple, yes!). Obviously, you can notice the change in quality of the second picture.

Here is another example done by me..


BEFORE EDIT

Well, this is the picture before editing. Notice some dark patches in the corner areas of the picture.

AFTER EDIT

And now, the actual picture, vibrant and in all it's glory, just the way you must have seen while clicking it.

Hmm, hope you found this review good enough to make you switch over to this software if you didn''t already know about it...




Okay, I never told any of you but just to break it, I'm a TECH-Addict, Compo-junkie, geek and all other terms you might have come across in this digital world. And also I'm a huge fan of PC gaming. But my computer presently, well lets just say, it's not up to the mark. So finally, after a year of wait, I shall be buying a new computer, by the end of this month!!!!!

The computer has been long over due but it's finally gonna come right after my semesters....yea.........

This is a tribute to teachers on the very very special occasion of Teacher's Day.

Teachers, they are like our second parent(or rather third). We are under the influence of teachers since we are 3 years of age, and let me tell you, even though we don't realise, what we really are today is a bit of every teacher who taught us and left an indelible impression on our minds(parents aside).

"We are what we are because of teachers"


Thereby goes this full form of the word itself:-

T - Talented
E - Educated

A - Adorable

C - Charming

H - Helpful

E - Encouraging

R - Responsible



We love our teachers, we sometimes hate them, we torture them(with screams and late submissions) and we please them(by being quiet and a good child). But we cannot do without them.

::::A small tribute:::


Busy, that word, we've heard it way too often, and mostly from our elders, parents. Never did I understand how they could be so busy as to not listen to me? Or not have any time for us, or sometimes straight away go off to bed. Well, till now I only blamed them for being lazy and boring, but now I'm actually learning the meaning of this word, and through HARD experience.

Let me tell you all that is on me.
1. Tuitions, actually you can call it my second school itself. I spend 16 hours a week there (4 days) studying all that the "gone-by" scientists have left behind. If my school studies is not enough, here's a BONANZA.
2. School, hmm here I do not complain. Honestly school is like a second home and it's a fun place to be.


Well, I know the numericals come out to be only 2, I tell you the magnitude ain't close. I can feel the heat now and I must tell you, it sometimes gets very bad and frustrating. But taking it all as a part of life, I go on, finding the happy moments all the way.

Sometimes I do wonder how did all this happen in just one year, how did I manage to get myself into all this, the thought just stays unanswered...........