FOSS Nepal at CAN InfoTech 2008

After final hour meetings and planning, we finally were at CAN InfoTech 2008. Please visit us at stall P-8. Thanx a lot to CAN for the complimentary stall.

This is the first time we're at CAN InfoTech and this definitely is a great opportunity to all of us to reach a large mass. This is not like Software Freedom Day; we're gonna have a big impact if we perform well here.

Btw, OLPC Nepal is also in CAN InfoTech. Details here.

Anyway, here're some photos from the first day..

Our Stall


Getting started..


FOSS Logos and poster collection..


On the display..

What did you have for breakfast?

Nepbabu's this post got me speechless for a while. Jus couldn't believe my eyes. EXTREME poverty is forcing Haiti's poorest people to eat mud-cookies (made from dirt, salt and vegetable shortening). Can't even call them cookies. They're not cooked, they're jus sun dried!

Some googling got me to this.

For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years.

Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger.

I jus showed the mud-cookie photos to my lil' bro. He asked, does that taste good? I dont care what it tastes like, but it definitely tastes frustration, anger.. (i'm short of words)

Yipee, laptop wireless finally working!

Finally, my laptop's wireless is working under Linux. Hi5!

Well, my laptop is Acer Aspire 5103WLMi. It came with Windows Vista, but the moment i got it, installed Linux (Ubuntu) and never have used Vista (actually it's in Japanese so no question of using it even if i liked it.. ;))

Every piece of hardware worked fine except the card reader and wireless. Card reader worked as Ubuntu Gutsy came along, but still my Atheros AR5007EG wireless was causing trouble.

But thanx to this post of Ubuntu Forum, i finally got the wireless working! Actually i'd gone through this post before, how come i missed it then?

Now the only thing remaining to work on my laptop is Microphone. It's ATI Technologies Inc SB450 HDA Audio. Do any of u have any idea how to make the mic work?

Gedit Makeover

The default Gedit installation at first feels like a lousy text editor which comes by default with Gnome and often compared with MS Windows' Notepad. But that's the lamest comparison ever.. Gedit can be extended outrageously with the help of plugins. Gedit has become my default Python editor. I sometimes also do C/C++ in it.

The plugins i use most:

• Class Browser - Tree display of classes in the code
• Embedded Terminal - Nice little embedded terminal at the bottom
  
• Python Console - Python Console at the bottom
• Python outline - Python code outline
  
• Symbol Browser - Uses ctag, similar to Class Browser

Gedit has loads of cool plugins. Edit > Preferences > Plugins

Gedit with Class Browser and Embedded Terminal.
Also note the shell output and Python Console tab at the bottom

Besides this, there are some other cool hacks that can turn Gedit into a Web Developer's IDE and Python IDE among others..

If you want to write your own Plugin, it's not that hard too.. You can do that either in C or Python (i'd go for Python). Further instructions here.

The Himalmedia Group Blog

Lil' out of topic this time.. My fren Chetan provided me the link:

The Himalmedia Group Blog (http://blog.himalkhabar.com/)

It's in Nepali so might not make sense for any non-nepali readers. But for all Nepalis out there, check it out.. Most of them are political humor/satire. This is the coolest politically oriented Nepali language blog i've ever read.