Sikher - Open Source Gurbani Searcher

Monday, July 31, 2006

Sikher, the first-ever Open Source Gurbani Researcher is being developed, which will make understanding and reading Gurbani simple through translations and transliterations in multiple languages. The fact that the project is open-source means, that it would be FREEly available for downloading and any developer can contribute to its development by downloading its source code.

Sikher is a cross-platform desktop program designed to archive, search & display the Sikh scriptures using advanced functions. It shall allow the common person to be able to understand and read the messages contained in the Sikh scriptures through translations and transliterations in multiple languages, thereby breaking the language and geographical barrier between Gurbani and the world forever.

For the developers: The features Sikher possesses shall also be of interest to the Open Source community because Sikher is a highly versatile, powerful, visually appealing and functional program. Sikher combines the power of Java, Swing, Unicode and XML to create a powerful, robust and high performance application.

Do support this unique project through any of the following ways:

• Bookmarking http://www.sikher.com/ in your favouritesJoining
• as a developer or translator in the Developers sectionPutting
• a link to Sikher on your website or blog using promotional images and text found in the Support sectionDownloading
• the Sikher 'Look & Feel' Version from hereBuying
• a product from The Sikher Online Donation ShopDonating
• any amount of money directly here to Sikher here

Yipee! BlogSpot Accessible

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Finally, BlogSpot is accessible. The first site i opened today at my office where i'm doing summer training was my blog. And was really excited to see that my blog is accessible now. Posted this on Orkut and got another confirmation that it is working on Airtel, Banglore. I just could not resist to write a post about this and share my experiences of the past two days.

For the past two days, I spent all my time on the internet just getting updates and posting my comments on this issue. I was really shocked when I came to know that BlogSpot has been banned. Even my profile on Orkut contained the message 'BlogSpot banned in India'. I even wrote an e-mail to the President of India and was just planning to file an RTI.

All this was actually due to the mistake of Indian ISPs. The govenment only ordered them to ban 3 blogs on BlogSpot, while the ISPs banned the full blogspot.com domain. The reason being the technology they use. They were not able to block certain sub-domains which is not very hard to do (I can say that because a similar technology is also use4d in my college where they have blocked just certain subdomains of portals like yahoo).

Now the fact lies that we can finally access BlogSpot. So, time to party and have fun.

BlogSpot Banned in India

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

First the news: "The central government, reeling under fierce criticism of its response to the Mumbai blasts, has struck a blow at the online community by issuing orders to block blogs across the country. " - Economic Times

This piece of news has shook the bloggers across the country. Apparently, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has directed all ISPs to block certain websites including some at blogspot.com and geocities.com. Though you can still access your blogger dashboard and post new posts but you won't be able to read any blogs hosted on blogspot.com.

Some ISP officials confirm that they have received a confidential list of sites to be banned. But, there is still no conforming report that all blogs are ordered to be banned in India.

The news of blogspot being blocked was manifestly released by Mridula, when her ISP spectranet showed a "Site BLOCKED !!!" notice on opening blogspot blogs yesterday. Though I was able to access blogspot till last night on my Airtel connection but started facing problems from today morning.

This situation is similar to the one that exists in Pakistan and China. In Pakistan blogspot was banned after the Danish cartoon incident, while in China only limited access to internet is available. Does, the Government of India wants to play the same game in India. What about Freedom to Expression?

So, what can be done? You can file a RTI application under the Right to Information act 2005. For details on how to file an RTI, click here.

If you want to access your blog despite of the ban, visit www.pkblogs.com, a site by Pakistani bloggers to help them view their blogs despit the ban. For example, you can access my blog by typing www.pkblog.com/gsmodi.


P.S.: View the comments to dis post for any updates regarding this issue.

Make Unlimited E-mail Aliases Using Gmail

Sunday, July 16, 2006

If you own a domain name and your registrar or hosting provider allows you to make just a limited number of email aliases but you need more, don't worry. Gmail is there to help you.

What you need is just one email forwarder in your domain account. Make an email forwarder from [email protected] to [email protected]. Set this account as a box trapper (for those who don't know, box trapper means to send all emails from [email protected] to a specific address). So, now any mail coming to [email protected] would be forwarded to your Gmail account.

The next step is to make accounts for sending emails from different e-mail addresses. For this, open your Gmail account and follow the following steps:

1. Click on Settings on the top-right corner of your Gmail page.
2. Select the Accounts Tab.
3. Click on 'Add Another Email Address'.
4. Add the desired Email address, [email protected].
5. A verification email would be send to your Gmail inbox itself as you have already created a box trapper email forwarder.
6. Click on the verification link and your alias is created.

Now, to differentiate emails coming from different account in your Gmail inbox, add filters in your account. Again go to settings and then choose add filters. Add the email address, you created, in the 'To' section of the filter. Now, add a desired label for this email address. Reapeat this step for each email address you created.

Happy Gmailing!!!

Google Affiliated Orkut on MS .NET

Saturday, July 15, 2006

By now, you all must have been addicted to Orkut, an online community running in affiliation with Google. Orkut got its name from its owner Orkut Buyukkokten, a doctrate student at the Stanford University.

Orkut is developed on the Microsoft .NET platform. Its really amazing to see Google affiliating a service build on its die-hard competitor, Microsoft's platform. The choice of .NET platform is obvious because of the features the framework provides to ease the development of web applications and services.

The two companies, Google and Microsoft, are each others major rivals. Microsoft wants a pie of the Google's internet advertisement revenue, while Google wants to end the monopoly of its Internet Explorer regime. Google using .NET technologies seems surprising, giving Microsoft a reason to smile.

Rare SE Secret Codes

Saturday, July 01, 2006

If you are having a Sony Ericsson phone, try this:

On your stand by screen, type the following!

>*<<*<*

<> means right (move Joystick to Right)
* means press * button

You will get a hidden menu! The menu has Service Info, Service Settings, Service Tests, Text Labels etc.

Do try this out.

Works on all SE phones.


There's another code which allows you to lock/unlock your phone with a network:

<**<

A way to (un)lock your cell phone on to the network(subset):
1. Press <**<
2. Then on the display appear and give you two choices: Lock to Network ? and Lock to Network subset? (Use arrow keys to select)
3. Enter the NCK number (code is provided by the SP)
4. You have 5 attemps to do this
5. Then your cell phone will work 'only' with the network
Warning: The Service Provider (SP) Lock menu is used to lock the cell phone to the SP's SIM card. Once the cell phone is locked to a specific operator, if one inserts a SIM card from a different operator the phone will refuse to accept it! The cell phone will however accept another SIM card from the same operator. To activate/deactivate this lock one needs a special secret code that is not available to the end user. Your phone can be locked to a service provider FOREVER by doing this! If an invalid code is entered all five times, the menu will exit and be deactivated! Any further attempt to activate the NCK/NSCK lock Menu will result in the response "Not allowed"! However the NCK/NSCK lock can be recover through a direct clearing in the EEPROM.