http://afup.broadbandforum.in/

By the way, Airtel told me that they will resolve my complaint by 1:30 PM today and I haven’t heard from them yet. Will keep this group posted on the responses I get from them.

In the meantime people, let’s get this to the mainstream media and tell them how Airtel is out to screw their own customers. They won’t even flinch till someone starts talking bad about them and till the shareholders take notice.

So here are some suggestions:

• If you have a blog, then blog about this
• Join the Facebook group (there may be some issues for now about the Join link but they’ll get fixed)
• Write to all the India specific tech blogs and sites that you know of about this – Tech 2.0, Chip, TechTree, TechShout, PC World etc
• Log complaints with customer care about this and tell them that the customers were not apprised. If they use the word “TRAI” ask them for the specifics – Article, clause, URL etc of the TRAI ruling if any – just don’t let them use the word TRAI and get away with it

Some points to remember:

• We need “bandwidth huggers” who can get the best from the internet to spurn the economy in India by sharing the ideas that they find on the internet – if you can’t experience the best, how do you spread the word?
• Take the example of Miro HD Video Player | Free internet tv and video podcast player. which promotes free Internet TV with an abundance of useful information for Indian audiences
• Take the example of a household with 2-4 users of broadband on 1 Wifi connection who would use their unlimited connection for completely legitimate purposes and still hit the cap in 10-15 days
• Take the example of people who download various Linux distros via torrents to distribute them to people who don’t want to pirate a Windows and yet get a working operating system like Ubuntu for free
• Take the examples of Indian tech startups like Rajshri.com and In.com who are providing free video content on their sites to increase demand for their products and hence churn the economy

What Airtel is doing goes against all of the above. Yes, we might have alternatives but before that we need to know whether the culprit here is TRAI or Airtel or both. Till then, this needs an open debate before the TRAI implements something without consulting the consumers and sleeping with devils like Airtel.

1. Download the fixed meanwhile library (64 bit only) from here.
2. Install it using pacman:

pacman -U meanwhile-1.0.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz

3. Install the Arch Build System:

pacman -S abs

4. Run abs so that it can build a repository tree (kinda like portage in Gentoo):

sudo abs

5. Copy the pidgin directory of abs to /tmp:

cp -r /var/abs/extra/pidgin /tmp

6. Go to /tmp and open the pidgin PKGBUILD in nano:

cd /tmp/pidgin
nano PKGBUILD

7. Go to the “build()” section and make sure you remove “–disable-meanwhile” from the configure options. The line should look like this:

./configure –prefix=/usr –sysconfdir=/etc –disable-schemas-install \

8. Make the package:

makepkg

9. Install it:

pacman -U pidgin-2.5.3-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz

That’s it! Now you should have sametime support in Pidgin Remember though, you will always have to compile pidgin yourself whenever a newer pidgin version hits the Arch repos.

P.S. For those of you who want to compile a fixed meanwhile on i686 (32 bit) system, follow the instructions here.

Archlinux just released Kernel 2.6.28 into it’s [core] repo a few days back, and since then im in a dillema whether i should switch to EXT4, or be content with my current filesystem, JFS. Switching to EXT4 means that I will have to re-install Arch, once the new installer CD with EXT4 support comes in (which should be soon). And configuring Arch _exactly_ the same way as it is right now will be almost impossible! I mean with all the small tweaks and configuration changes i’ve done over one year now! Will be a HUGE task! And nowdays, i really dont have time to mess with something that’s working absolutely the way i want it to work.

Oh and yeah, while roaming around in Arch forums, i found this. It certainly does not give me a good feeling about EXT4! Therefore, im thinking ill wait for a while before jumping on the EXT4 bandwagon. But that leaves me with one thing less to mess around with But then again, i guess its OK, since KDE 4.2 is just around the corner and im hearing lots of good things about it! THAT can be my next test subject

I tried out the Alpha on Archlinux. It was working great with much more stability and lesser CPU usage, but unfortunately, it crashes Firefox for me, when i open Gmail. So, i have gone back to Flash 10 x86 + Nspluginwrapper for now. Will keep trying it as and when they release newer versions.

Download Flash 10 x64 Alpha.

Edit: The plugin works perfectly for me now! Not crashing the browser anymore

The event started with Rajdeep, Anash and Seshu going into the depths of the OpenSocial API and what it stands for. Anirudh, on the other hand, took us for a deep dive on the AppEngine. Their presentations covered everything from introduction to even code snippets. We also had presentations from Google’s partners for OpenSocial: Impetus and Satyam. They gave an insight on what they are doing with OpenSocial. I’m afraid, i still haven’t received any of the presentations from any of the presenters, although with a quick search on SlideShare, i was able to find some similar presentations. I’m embedding two of them here:

OpenSocial:

AppEngine:

The audience there was mostly of a technical background, with most people from startups. There were a few familiar faces too: Manik from Vinsol, Kapil and Gaurav from SlideShare, Vineet from Impetus, Lalit from GeoBeats, Guneet from Chahiye.info, and a few other people i could recognize from previous events like BarCamps, OSSCamps etc.

As far as my views go, OpenSocial is a great initiative by the OpenSocial foundation, comprising of Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Flixter and hi5. Its really gaining momentum, with more and more people adopting and coding for it. The AppEngine on the other hand is at a very nascent stage at the moment. The only language it supports right now is python, and also has a lot of restrictions (which can be found in the presentation above). But then again, Google is offering a LOT for free with the AppEngine, so im no one to complain!

All in all, it was a great experience, and i would look forward to more such events

Via Googlesystem blog,

Google Chrome has been built in a time when browsers no longer render mostly web pages, but full-blown web applications. That’s why browsers need to be more powerful, more stable and more secure. One of the problems of the existing browsers is that a web page can lock the browser and there’s no way to isolate that tab and close it. Google Chrome uses a new process for each tab. “We’re applying the same isolation you find in modern operating systems,” says Arnaud Weber. Each process is sandboxed to prevent malware from affecting your computer.

The new browser has a JavaScript virtual machine built by the V8 team from Denmark that generates code dynamically and has a better garbage collector.

Google Chrome’s UI is inspired by Opera: tabs are displayed above the address bar, the address bar combines previously typed URLs with search results and suggestions and there’s a homepage that includes frequently visited sites, recently closed tabs, bookmarks and searches.

Google released some information via comic sketches which can be seen here. Google is all set to become the undisputer leader of the internet!