Downloading from Rapidshare using WGet
By · CommentsWget is an extremely powerful command line tool to download files. Apart from the ability to use it to do recursive, relative downloading and thus leech complete websites for certain specific file types, the usage of wget can be customized to achieve various objectives.
When I am on windows, I use a great tool for downloading rapidshare files called the free download manager and this is something i missed in linux. So here it goes.
First you need to save your login information into rapidshare. (yes, a premium account).
#!/bin/sh
wget \
–save-cookies ~/.cookies/rapidshare \
–post-data “login=<USERNAME>&password=<PASSWORD>” \
-O – \
https://ssl.rapidshare.com/cgi-bin/premiumzone.cgi \
> /dev/null
This simple script has to be run once and this will save your account cookie on your computer.
Now, we need the script to download the files using wget into a particular location. Lets assume that location is “/home/bijur/hack/dwnld/”.
#!/bin/sh
cd /home/bijur/hack/dwnld/
if [ -f /home/bijur/hack/dwnld/down ]
then
mv down down_in_progress
wget -b -nd -q -c –load-cookies ~/.cookies/rapidshare -i /home/bijur/hack/dwnld/down_in_progress
echo `date` >>/tmp/down-sh-log.log
echo “Ran and downloaded the following:” >>/tmp/down-sh-log.log
cat /home/bijur/hack/dwnld/down_in_progress >> /tmp/down-sh-log.log
echo “———————————” >>/tmp/down-sh-log.log
fi
Let us save this script as .down.sh. (The . In the beginning of the file makes it a hidden file). The script checks for the existence of a text file “down” in the folder. If it finds one it will launch a wget for all the links in that file.
Third, we do not want to be launching this script every single time. So we can either have this as a nautilus script or a cron. For simplicity (and sticking to concepts already known 
), lets use a cron.
On the shell launch the command “crontab -e”. This if launched for the first time will ask you to chose for your favourite editor and launch it. In the crontab file enter the following line:
*/5 * * * * /home/bijur/hack/dwnld/.down.sh
Thats it!! Now everytime you want to download a set of files. Simply create a text file in the directory “/home/bijur/hack/dwnld/” by the name “down”. Within 5 minutes, you should start seeing action!
Note: This script was developed by me about 3 years back and was posted on my blog then. Since then I have lost that blog and have posted this merely as an attempt to save this piece of code.
Kochi is growing
By · CommentsThe small sub-metro of Kochi (Ernakulam) is growing. I agree, the pace of growth is incredibly slow. The political situation in Kerala, the most educated state in India, has not helped. Achieving 100% literacy enables Malayalees to see through the political veils of all parties: left, right and center. Perhaps it is this perceptive ability of Malayalees that has made sure that none of the political parties have ever ruled Kerala for more than 5 years (one term). This has had its bad effects in terms of development. No projects for infrastructural development gets completed in this green state. Smart City, Kerala’s very own IT park, has been in construction for the past 5 years, and yet, it remains an unfulfilled dream. The number of Hartals (strikes) or Bands (also strikes, but now illegal) is also affecting progress. The sheer effect and number of these strikes are a matter of great concern which the government and the political parties should work on reducing if we are to be more productive.
But there is hope. There are several reasons why I say that.
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The population in Kerala is 100% literate. People read the news, even if in local languages, they are up to date about the world. It is not rare to run into a tea-shop discussion about Obama’s health bill or the Copenhagen summits. Everyone has an opinion and no one is afraid to air them.
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The population is free and secure. In a survey conducted a couple of years back of all the cities in India, Kochi rated as the safest city in the country. The Kerala Police is efficient and effective with lots of good officers. The population is free with strong faith in democracy and liberty and anything that challenges these are challenges on Malayalees as such. The strikes and hartals are in a crude way the demonstration of our free will and liberty. ( maybe a little too much)
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Kerala is the state of religious secularism. Kerala has a very diverse religious population. This could be because of higher education, malayalees live together in harmony and peace. Everyone celebrates Onam, the traditional festival with sadyas. Muslims and Christians invite all their neighbours for Eid feasts as well as Christmas feasts. The depth of secularism doesnt end there. The cultures of various societies have amalgamated over the years. A simple example being the concept of thali being absorbed into Muslim rituals during marriage and muslim women, like their hindu sisters wear the mangal sutra throughout their lives. I would personally think that the fact that these thali’s are made of gold has a little effect on that decision as well.
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The Keralite expat population is another reason. There is an old joke that when Neil Armstrong supposedly “stepped” on the moon , he was greeted by a malayalee selling tea on the moon. A joke that reflects the fact that wherever you go, you’d find a malayalee. I was quite surprised to meet a Malayalee Professor in my University in Barcelona in Spain!! This is a fact. And another fact is every malayalee expat i have spoken to in any country misses home. They want to go back. There are practically millions of malayalees hoping for the Smart City to start functioning to go back home. And typically malayalees are extremely well educated and are very keen on continued education. This would mean that given an opportunity to return, the skilled labor market in kerala would be extremely lucrative in terms of efficiency and brain power.
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The Kerala education system. Kerala has several high quality engineering colleges, medical schools, law schools and art schools. The basic education system is powerful, the schools are extremely competitive. Of the youth population of Kerala, a considerable percentage of students write the common admission tests for engineering. When I wrote the exam, there were 400, 000 people writing this exam for a little over 5000 seats. This is almost the size of Iceland!!
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Fine Arts. Yes, thats what you read, fine arts! Kerala has world famous universities like Kalamandalam which are schools educating people in music, classical dance, fine arts, karnatic and other forms of art. Malayalees have traditionally been keen followers of art. Kathakali, mohiniyaattam, ottam thullal, kuchipudi are just a few forms of art that are still being followed in the state. These have lead to the growth of the malayalee population as a culturally sensitive, creative and ingenious population. The malayalam movie industry has long known to produce classic drama and real story driven movies. One of the more popular tv series in Kerala now is “Idea Star Singer” which unlike other reality shows of singing talent, is based on real talent. The judges get critical over the ragas, thalam and pallavi, the songs are ripped apart and because of this the malayalee population now is regaining the interest in classical music.The ability to appreciate and cultivate art as a group is a great asset for any civilization. Without this ability, it is impossible to have long term sustained growth.
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Medicines: Kerala has one of the highest life expectancies in not just India, but also the world. According to recent statistics on gapminder.com, Kerala has higher life expectancy than Washington D.C!! A healthy population , thanks to Ayurveda and capable medical fraternity, goes a long way in growth.
What Kerala needs is one Chandrababu Naidu. One leader who can step up and lead. Use five years not pulled down by party politics. Kerala has everything that would take to make highly developed cities, its the political will that is lacking. But despite all of this Kochi is growing. The international airport i am sitting in right now typing this is clean and tidy and efficient. It’s not as big as the Chennai or Mumbai airports, but for the traffic it is having to face, its huge! There is a lot of potential to expand in size if needs be. The roads to the airport was great. Its difficult to maintain this infrastructure during monsoons, but this roads are great now and hope they stay. There is a new Metro rail coming up which would link up the city to the airport. This would again decrease a lot of traffic on the roads. The container terminals and the roads that came up as a part of the GIM( Global investors meet) is also up and coming. In another five years, Kochi might have the necessary infrastructure to challenge any big city in India. All in green, lush Kerala.
From Pagan to Schrödinger’s cat
By · CommentsTravelling through from the west to the east, and travelling through the realms of quantum physics the metaphysical, the religion, the space, the validity of time. Sure there comes a time in everyone’s lives when you sit back and question faith, sure there comes a time when you question the teachings of your teachers, the time when you are being shot down in class simply because you ask the questions that should not be, but the essential question here is “What is faith?”, “What is time?”.
Reading through, Werner Heisenberg’s “Physics and Philosophy” and Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time”. Also bought other books “Guide to make millions in poker”, “Crowdsourcing” and “The Genesis Secret”. More about the latter books some other day. Today its all about religion and science. I am not going to repeat whats in the book here, but the questions that stick to my mind are “What is time?”.
If the universe is expanding and billions of light years in radius, there surely must be a point in the universe, who are witnessing the big bang as we speak? They being so far away that if d is their distance and c is the speed of light and t is the estimated time (years for us since big bang), then there must be a point in the universe c*t light years away from us, where the light created from the big bang just reached. For this to be true, of course, the universe has to be expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light. For the universe to be expanding at a speed greater than the speed of light, there must be enough energy to propel this mass outward, thus implying the universe must be undergoing mass energy conversion of about (m/c) for every m mass propelled at the speed of light. Consuming energy at this rate, would consume m every light year and thus lead to the collapse of the m. Thus we can safely assume this is not happening. We can probably safely thus conclude, that the universe is probably expanding at a speed much lesser than the speed of light.
This conclusion is important, since this would mean, there is a time Tb which represents a time for us (earth) for us in this universe from which point, for this given universe, there would be a point in time in the past, no matter how fast we travel within the universe, that we will not be able to travel back in time. It is only within this time Tb that the universe can be essentially theoretically co-existing.
What does this mean for faith and religion? Beyond that time Tb in the past or future there is incredible uncertainty. Hasnt faith and religion always been a measure and method to mentally pacify the uncertain? Kiekagard, a devout Christian, rightly mentioned, religions have a factor of unknown and necessitated the “leap of faith” for religions to have any reasonable sense whatsoever. This phychological factor, possibly through upbringing, that has embedded within your subconcious is the basis of religion. Man’s dependence on “the supernatural” as way of consoling your own self that there is an entity that will help him out or will watch over him or will get his rewards, presents if he is “good”, pretty much like our childhood stories of santa claus or the tooth fairy. As we grow up the stories just get more and more believable (according to the level of your knowledge i.e.).
There are some stories in religion that we can directly discount right away are the story of genesis, (the creation) thats common between Islam and Christianity and Judaism (probably it was originally some folk lore among the desert dwellers). These have been proven false by Science. There are some others that are waiting proof, like Jesus respawning, a virgin (Mary) getting pregnant, prophet Mohammed curing people, Moses splitting the sea etc.
I am sure we will have scientific discoveries that will imbue faith in the real truth within our lifetime itself and I cant wait, till then what is needed by both the believers and the non-believers (or believers in science) is understanding. Understanding that the generation that has been brought up with these faiths need to know that there is a supernatural, because their sub-conscious cannot survive the challenges of this life without that mentally stabilizing factor. The younger generation that is not having to go through the etching of the dependance of the supernatural into their subconsious are actually emotionally, mentally a lot self-dependant and thus a more stronger. This could be just another stage in evolution or maybe science will verify what stories, knowledge and writings over 2000 years old (and may i add partially compiled by the men in power) to have ground. So until we know for sure, it is not like for us scientifically inclined to reject any hypothesis and thus we must be open and understanding. The believers thus must also understand that this is a natural process. Man learns and accepts what makes most sense to him logically. Giving man the ability to make this choice is what defines a free society.
Linux Thinkpad overheating problem? Try this!
By · CommentsEver since my Jaunty upgrade, my thinkpad t61 has been running extremely hot! At a point it even hit close to 100 degrees C!. This seems to a bug in the kernel mainline and hence might affect all distros.
Here is a quick fix for thinkpad users. From the kernel version 2.6.22 kernel is using thinkpad_acpi to control the fan/temperature/power. First you need to load this module with an option to modify the fan settings.
For this first run the following command:
$ sudo echo “options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1″ >> /etc/modprobe.d/options
$ sudo rmmod thinkpad_acpi
$ sudo modprobe thinkpad_acpi
The last command loads the thinkpad_acpi module with the specified options.
The fan values can be controlled/viewed on a linux system by simply reading the file /proc/acpi/ibm/fan for e.g.
root@EntePC:~# cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
status: enabled
speed: 4998
level: disengaged
commands: level ( is 0-7, auto, disengaged, full-speed)
commands: enable, disable
commands: watchdog ( is 0 (off), 1-120 (seconds))
root@EntePC:~#
Please issue the following command so that we can disengage, the control of the fan and set the fan to go at full speed.
$ sudo echo level full-speed > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
Once this command is issued, if u cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan you will see an output as shown above. Please give it some time for this output to show the fan rotating at full speed.
This is a temporary solution and is in no way a fully acceptable long term solution. For the long term, the solution seems to lie in the updated kernel 2.6.30 version. Below you can find the steps required to do the following.
First you need the infrastructure to compile a kernel.
sudo apt-get install libc6-dev kernel-package libncurses5 libncurses5-dev
Once you have this, download the kernel source and copy the .bz2 file to /usr/src
$ cd /usr/src
$ sudo bunzip linux-2.6.30.1.tar.bz2
$ sudo tar -xf linux-2.6.30.1.tar
$ cd linux-2.6.30.1
$ sudo cp /boot/config-`uname -r` ./.config
$ sudo make menuconfig
This shows a configurable user screen. You can simply exit this screen and everything should be fine. Once this is done, simply type
$ sudo make-kpkg –initrd –append-to-version=-avallark kernel_image kernel_headers
Now wait for the whole process to complete. Make sure your fan is running at full speed at this time, cos this is a heavily CPU intensive process.
Once the whole process is done, the system automatically creates two .deb files in the parent directory at /usr/src.
Follow the below steps to complete
$ cd /usr/src/
$ sudo dpkg -i linux-image-xxxxxxxx.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-xxxxxxx.deb
Replace the xxx with the actual file names from /usr/src directory.
Verify the /boot/grub/menu.lst to see if the new 2.6.30.1 linux image has been picked and reboot using this kernel and you should have your troubles resolved!
Update: Anyone who does not want to follow the above steps to sit and compile everything here are ubuntu’s kernel updates :
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30.1/linux-image-2.6.30-02063001-generic_2.6.30-02063001_i386.deb
and
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30.1/linux-headers-2.6.30-02063001-generic_2.6.30-02063001_i386.deb
Save battery on your HTC Dream/G1/Android Phone
By · CommentsI was pretty much concerned about the battery drain on my HTC Dream/G1/Android phone, so I did some research and came up with the below. These settings should help reduce battery drain and even make your phone a bit faster.
Usually you would have been stuck, but with an open source phone, you have an answer
Researched various settings to save battery life on a linux kernel and finally compiled the below settings.
There changes are to be done to /system/bin/user.conf
This file by default is read-only to modify do the following
$ su
# mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
# vi /system/bin/user.conf
once you have vi you can edit the file and save it.
The changed parts are given below.
VM
laptop_mode = 5
dirty_writeback_centisecs = 1500
———-
compcache — disabled
———–
linux_swap_en = 1
——–
CPUscaling_min_freq=192000
scaling_max_freq=524000
sampling_rate=4000000
powersave_bias=100
up_threshold=25
The VM Changes
1. laptop_mode: When laptop mode is enabled, the kernel will try to be smart about when to do IO, to give the disk and the SATA links as much time as possible in a low power state. Laptop mode works by submitting all future pending disk IO (such as pending VM cache writebacks, as described in the VM writeback time tip, above) at once, when the kernel has to do an IO to the disk for any reason. By submitting future planned IO right away, when the disk is powered up anyway, the assumption is that this IO will no longer need to happen, so the disk can remain in a low power mode longer.
2. dirty_writeback_centisecs: The VM subsystem, in the Linux kernel, buffers writes to files that applications perform for a period of time. This caching allows the kernel to group consecutive writes into one big write, and to generally optimize the disk IO to be the most efficient. The kernel, by default, will start writing out data to disk after 5 seconds, so, if a power failure or kernel crash happens, at most, 5 seconds of data would be lost. Since we run on battery, we can, hopefully, set this to a longer time of 15 seconds.
3. compcache is enabled by default on this ROM of size 32MB. If you have a third partition disable this and enable that partition which would be of the file system type linux-swap by default, thereby avoiding the need to process two layers of filesystem logic of 1 from linux-swap to ext2/fat32 and then 2nd from fat32/ext2 to disk.
4. sampling_rate: this is how often you want the kernel to look at the CPU usage and to make decisions on what to do about the frequency. This is by default set to 200000, which I think is a bit too sensitive for a phone, hence I have doubled this amount to 4000000 as an experiment. Not sure till how much we can increase this, but it would be worth the test i guess. You will understand more why when we talk about up_threshold.
5. powersave_bias: set to 0, which pretty much doesnt really use this feature. in a range from 1 to 1000, if you set the powersave bias to say 100(or 10%) the cpu runs at 100-10% of the required scaled frequency and if this is enough then it is set at that. Hence as an experiment set it to 100 (or 10%).
6. up_threshold: This plays together with the sampling_rate. This is an additional check for the kernel to scale the cpu frequency if the load of the cpu goes beyond a certain percentage as specified by the up_threshold in between the sampling rates.
Hope this was helpful.
The Apple Identity, Supremacy and the Ultimatum
By · CommentsApple is perhaps one of the most fan-followed technological company there is. Everyone who owns a mac cannot stop talking about it. Its all a part of the deal. Owning a Mac book is no longer having a computer, its elevating yourself to another plane of existence. All this apple and Steve has obtained through some impressive marketing of the Apple/Mac World. If you look at it objectively, what they really have is a laptop, a music store, an mp3 player and recently a phone. Good looking, apparent image of stability and the feel of belonging to a community. I have never seen any other company build itself so well on marketing. Thats what Apple is. Otherwise, as the genius of the dangerous “Dave” of gameAvision says “Who names their company after a fruit!!?”.
The extreme “competition” between Mac and PC has several other benefits both to Mac and the PC/Microsoft than just entertainment for viewers.
First, they are branding people either a mac or a pc. They are getting people to say “I am a mac” or “I am a PC”! oh wait! shouldnt it be “I have a mac” or “I have a PC”? So through this they are able to create a feeling of identity.
Secondly, and more importantly, They are both giving out the impression to everyone out there that you are either a mac or you are a PC, there is NO OTHER option when clearly there is. Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Suse other versions of Linux, Solaris etc are all viable options that people dont realise are available. By making it a two horse race, both Apple and Microsoft both wins by making the existence of other competitors insignificant and thus raising the barriers to entry. So with all the Mac Vs PC hungama, its a win-win for both of them. This is quite obvious from the fact that most Microsoft s/w has been ported to work on a mac and most mac software except for ilife and iwork (who cares) has been ported to work on windows.
If you analyse a bit more carefully, you would think that it is easier for Apple to make its software support Linux who is on the same Unix style operating system, than MS Windows, but they dont. Clearly both Microsoft and Apple see Linux as a bigger threat and they are working together to keep this beautiful operating system at bay. Cos once Linux becomes the main operating system, how can you sell Leopard for $200 or Vista ultimate for $300 and keep charging the users for every upgrade of their software?
Supremacy Test: I recently bought a 1 Terabyte external hard disk. I was copying media /documents etc. onto the disk from my windows vista machine onto the external drive. The disk was connected to a USB 2.0 drive. USB 2.0 gives speeds of upto 480 mbps (megabits per second) or 60 MBps (Mega Bytes per second). I was getting a copying speed of 4 to 5 MBps for big files and 200 to 300 KBps (kilobytes) for smaller files. It took me over 1/2 hour to copy a 3 GB directory. So I turned back and spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky. I rebooted into Linux to see what it does to my files. The copying happened at 5 to 8 MB ps for small files and 20 to 27 MBps for larger files. A 3.5GB directory got copied in less than 4 minutes!! I do not own a Mac , so nothing could be tested on a Mac.
Also have you ever noticed that windows takes forever to go to sleep? You close the lid and it takes ages before it goes to sleep. This could sometimes be bad for your laptop. On my Ubuntu Linux, I get immediate sleeps on my thinkpad. Ubuntu , thus is purely a better Operating system.
The Apple Ultimatum: I was installing iTunes, a media player like WinAmp, on my windows XP machine. I downloaded iTunes from the Apple website and was surprised to see that the setup file was 74MB !! Now WinAmp which has almost all the media/libraries/movies/visualizations related features of iTunes comes in a setup file that is 5 MB! Whats the rest of 69 MB for? And I realised that iTunes now come packed with QuickTime also and you cannot separately install iTunes. I didn’t want to install quicktime (mostly because I hate that useless media player which starts up along with windows and what not) but I did NOT have a choice. But then again, why does quick time need to be about 40 – 50 MB in size?!. To play quick time files and .mov files, I used to have installed something called quicktime alternative. This installation which does everything that quicktime player does including browser plugins is only 10 MB. So I am practically installing around 60 MB of stuff I am not really sure what Apple uses to do on my computer and this was puzzling me a lot.
But the riddle got its answers when I was reading through the Apple Terms and Conditions! Here is a just of somethings I found interesting:
4. Consent to Use of Data. You agree that Apple and its subsidiaries may collect and use technical and related information, including but not limited to technical information about your computer, system and application software, and peripherals, that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support and other services to you (if any) related to the Apple Software and to verify compliance with the terms of this License. Apple may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you.
Basically this means, Apple collects all information on your computer, what kind of computer you use, configurations, model numbers, software, their licenses (don’t know to what extent, i am speculating here), what devices you connect to the computer on the pretext of updating your software to support all devices. So guess that’s whats taking up all the additional space. It isn’t over yet :
Apple and its licensors reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any Services at any time without notice. In no event will Apple be liable for the removal of or disabling of access to any such Services. Apple may also impose limits on the use of or access to certain Services, in any case and without notice or liability.
Which simply means once you have some Apple software on your computer, Apple has the right to disable any related service to/in that software. For instance, the iTunes “Genius” feature which sends all my music library related information up to apple, now would know which of them you copied on from friends and which of them are yours and maybe if Apple decides, they ll disable/decrypt all your music and maybe even your iPod/iPhone even though the m4a’s (yes their own type of file) were supposed to be “DRM Free”. Again, I am speculating here, but technically and legally this is a possibility.
SHOULD THE APPLE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
I don’t know why they were screaming (typed in capital letters), but this is the most awesome of the terms you agree to when you install an Apple product. If some Apple developer goes nuts and knowingly or unknowingly deletes all of your music library/all files on your hard drive/blows up your motherboard, Apple is not responsible in ANY way. If I was using my Laptop for work, or would want to store important information on my laptop, I wouldn’t wanna install any software on it whose owners dont take responsibility for the software they make, nor do they show you the code of the software that’s being installed.
And lastly
You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
This I guess is a requirement by the government, but hell, its still funny and I just couldn’t agree to this, so decided not to proceed with the install.
So long Apple, I ll just stay out of the fake marketing techniques of Mac Vs PC just to remind the world, that your options do not end there. There are several other operating systems, some of them free and most of them better.
I run Linux!
Android hacking, made easy
By · CommentsSeems like because of a vulnerability in one of the releases of Google’s android firmware, users can now access root! nice! What was the vulnerability? Well, apparently in the firmware version RC29(for US) or RC7(for UK) whatever you type on your keypad on the htc g1/dream gets executed somewhere with root permissions, so a simple telnetd throws u the telnet application (if u have telnet installed from the marketplace) and gives u a straight root shell! Though I refuse to believe that either Google or HTC would have done this as a mistake, I believe it was a way to make the firmware available so that more and more development can happen on it by enthusiasts. And this has happened too.
So here is how it is done.
First things first. To update the phone, u need to rename most packages as update.zip and restart the phone holding down the home and power button.
I started with a Singtel (same for Optus, Australia) firmware 1.1 RC30. So first you need to downgrade this to RC29 for the root. Once you have root, you set certain permissions and you can possible update to anything!
Follow this guide here word for word and by the end of it you shall have ROOT! The only thing they missed out is, before this whole process , you need to download either the US version of RC29 or UK version of RC7. The DREAIMG.nbh is obtained by unzipping this download.
Once you have root, you need to do get an agreeable bootloader on the device. I tried the engineering bootloader. All you need to do is to download this file and rename it to update.zip and restart your phone holding the home and power key together.
and thus 1 year flew by
By · CommentsA mad rush as it came to the final few days. We did an incredible M&A exercise and i got hooked. I dropped MECMI (innovation, media subject taught by Prof. Josep Valor and Prof. Nueno) for the M&A course. Its supposed to be a lot of work, but then that has never stopped me has it? 
So the year drew to a close and i was already discussing the year at the cocktail dinner with the incoming batch. I very clearly remember the welcome session we had at the same place at the beginning of the year. The year flew by pretty fast and it has been great. I’ve missed my salary, but its been a fantastic experience.
I am rushing off soon after the exam on Tuesday back home. Its been a year. Summers start in Singapore on June 15 and is going to go all the way to Sept 15th. I ll be back home for a couple of days and fly back to barcelona on Sept 20th.
Gotta run and prepare for corporate finance and economics exams!
I was there, where were you?
By · Commentsjumping around near that lamp post, got kicked around, got punched, kicked, elbowed, glass fell down, got trampled (yet it survived!!!) .. loved it!
Managing Risk in IT
By · CommentsRecently did a case at IESE about a football club in Europe who implemented the cash card system. The system was to replace cash to increase efficiencies in sales of snacks during half time in a foodball game. The system failed miserably because of several factors. The essence of the case was that we missed out Risk assessment. We went through a thorough framework for Risk assessment in IT systems. Along with the framework from class, if we apply SDLC concepts and stages into this, we get a stable framework for Risk assessment.
The Risk in an IT system implementation can be divided into a structure of three.
- Operational Risk: Operational risk involves process related risks. The process, both technological and business, of executing a particular task for which the system was built has to be analysed for various scenarios. Risk must be assessed based on the variety and flexibility of the process which would put strain or pressures on the IT system.
- Technological Risk: Technological risk has to do with essential dependability of the technolgical platform in use.
- Organizational Risk: Organizational risks involve the various considerations and constraints in change management which can potentially strain the abilities of the IT system. User’s acceptance to training, failsafe or work arounds for users if a particular system doesnt pull through are some of the concerns.
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
Various aspects of risk must be taken into consideration during the different stages of the software development life cycle of an IT implementation project.
| SDLC Stage | Description | Risk Considerations |
|---|---|---|
| Initiation | Need, Purpose and Scope definition |
|
| Development | Design / Purchased / Development |
|
| Implementation |
System |
|
| Maintenance or Operation |
The |
|
| Disposal | Disposal of the old systems and implementation of new systems. |
Risks enable identifying challenges in change management |
Risk Management in IT Projects
Risk Management in IT should be performed in three steps.
- Risk Identification
- Risk Assessment
- Action Plan and
- Monitoring
Risk Identification
Risk Management in IT is along a three dimensional matrix as shown below:
Risk is to be assessed along all three dimensions and the proper risks must be identified.
Examples of Risks identified under the various segments in an Order entry IT project can be :
- Structure : Customers entering orders might not enter order one by one regularly throughout the course of the month, but place all his orders in the last two days of the month. Would we be able handle orders, invoicing and other processes involved if a lot of our customers behave this way?
- Size: I have thousands of customers and they place hundreds of orders. This means there would be millions of transactions happening. Can our database handle such large volumes of data?
- Technology: Microsoft’s SQL Server database is known to be vulnerable to a lot of viruses. Can our database afford to go down and can we have this loss of service? Would sudden increases in maintenance contracts of our IT system reduce our IT budgets?
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment is done on the risks identified in the above steps, based on two factors
- Likelihood of this risk situation occuring
- Impact of this risk situation. How much would it cost me economically and operationally if the situation occurs.
The risk in the system is thus measured and identified into pools of 4 as shown in the figure.
Action Plan for Assessed Risks
The Risks identified in the area “B” are high impact risks which has a high likelihood of occuring. These risks should be immediately handled as first priority and solutions to these risks must be included as “Must Have”s in the Requirements Specification Document.
Those identified under area “D” are low impact, low likelihood risks which are acceptable risks which should be set at low priority and can be included in the Requirements Specification Document as “Nice to Have” features / fixes.
The ones in areas “A” and “C” are the tricky ones and must be studied in detail and must be set at a priority right after the “must have” features. These risks typically would involve trade offs and might need negotiation with business users to finalize on the final requirements. It is often these aspects of a project that delay any implementation as these require intensive discussion compromises from both your technology team and business teams.
Monitoring
Monitoring typically involves assessing the system for variabilities and risk conditions making sure that the system handles the identified risk conditions in the way it was intended and any changes are validated through regression analysis of the entire system.