Ten or more things I did not know about the Pineapple Plant.

Story of My Pineapple Plant

After about two years the stem of the original plant is flowering now.
It was almost dead due to competition of a robust weed.
I took the weed with diffuse roots away and the stem of the pineapple plant was rotten due to competition for nutrition.
I thought it might die and just placed it between other plants and put plenty of water.


Below are things I did not know but discovered during the last two years.


1. Even though I knew that the crown of the fruit can be used to grow it, I did not know what happens to the mother plant when the fruit is separated.


2. I did not know its leaves can be used to make a fine silk like thread (it is in fact finer than the silk thread) and prepare fabrics.

3. It grows very slow and one can have only one fruit a year.

4. It has a very beautiful flower.The colour varying from lavender to purple to red


5. Its roots do not go deep.

6. I did not know from which part of the tropics it originated. Now I know it is from South America.


7. Mother plant produce shoots called suckers once the fruit is removed. They can be used to grow new plants.


8. I do not know how many shoots / suckers it makes certainly more than one.

9. I did not know other plants with diffuse root system compete with its growth and lot of chemical are used in commercial growing.

10. I did not know the fruit is rich in manganese.

Resume for Heaven

Resume for Heaven

If one wants to go to heaven one has to sacrifice some of the earthly things we are used to.

1. One cannot gossip in heaven.

2. This reason cell phones are banned totally in heaven.

3. One has to make personal errands in heaven but this has changed with my friend becoming the Chief's Assistant.

3. One cannot think in heaven lest one try to create some new heavens.

4. They have a high scrutiny when people like Steve Job tries to enter heaven. 

I  cannot talk about it here, now. 

His application is pending approval.

5. Email was introduced (this is where I got involved in) recently with the present Maha Brahma's Assistant taking Office.

6. There is only outgoing mails only.

7. Onward post from Earth is banned.

8. I have a Virtual Email Facility by the courtesy of present incumbent.

9. They are not allowed to sleep or dream except the highest of the order of gods when on duty. 

The reason for this is that the gods have to be watchful all the time to prevent any undesirable from Earth enter. 

This is about the only job they have to do in heaven.

10. Leave is abundant in heaven one can take as much leave as possible and then one can dream as much as possible. But unfortunately most of the gods cannot dream well, especially the Chief himself. 

Most of the gods, the last dream  they had before entering from any sentinel point in the Universe was going to heaven and once one achieves that target there are no dreams left for them to indulge in.

11. Games are plenty and allowed  all the time but betting is completely banned. Apart from email facility one of the reasons they introduced computers  was to play games but war games are completely banned.

12. They are now considering touch system tabloids (without phone facility) to play games and on that ground alone they might consider taking Steve Job to heaven but the entry is still pending and waiting for the approval from the real Maha Brahma on vacation.

So if you think of going to heaven read my resume carefully before one makes an entry.

Urea (Urine) Treatment

Urea (Urine) Treatment

Some of my visitors are nosy and ask some silly question.

Especially when they see my flowering plants.

Most of them take no time to learn some basics in biology or gardening.

They know I do not use artificial manure.

If they ask what I put in, for them to grow healthily.

I promptly say Urine.

Usually, they do no go ahead with a second or third question.

If they probe a second question,
I promptly say it is my dog who does look after the garden and I rarely use other method but there are other reliable supplies.

At that point most of them stop asking any more question expecting me to say human supply.

So far nobody has gone beyond that point but my real supply come from my pet fish.

With temperatures over 95 degrees Fahrenheit, I have to empty the water frequently to get rid of the algae which is a perennial problem and  I have not found a solution yet to the algae including toxic varieties.

Rest is banana skins (I have discontinued using banana skins since there is a poison in them that prevent plant growth sprayed by the CIC and vendors) and tea leaves.

In this country our farmers inject UREA to the  flower stem (Banana) to make them grow bigger.

The UREA they use contain heavy metals and I have been trying to educate the consumers not to eat them or the vendors to not to buy or sell them injected with urea.

There is cadmium too.

It has become a problem since banana growing is not done on a commercial scale but as a supplementary vegetation.

Banana is a very healthy fruit but our fellows are poisoning it with Urea contaminated with heavy metals including cadmium.

There is no quality control in this country only money making.
Edited on the 30th of April, 2012.

Linux and Graphic Card Compatibility

Linux and Graphic Card Compatibility

I just did a survey on graphic cards and there are excellent technical articles on graphic cards but none of them go into the Linux compatibility.

I expect somebody who has used Linux and who is versed with technical aspect of graphic cards should write a review.

I will only write a few lines on technical aspect of graphic cards and my personal experience with NVIDIA cards only.

 I was the generation of 16 and 32 Memory and even they were difficult to find and expensive those days. Linux was able to work with less graphic intensive architecture those days.

New Linux distributions are graphic intensive.

Only few Mephis, AntiX and Debian support lot of graphic cards.

1. 3D acceleration came later.

2. Graphic cards use lot of energy.

The type depends on the mother board.

1. AGP (old )

2. PCI Express (new)

AGP is being replaced by the PCI Express interface on new motherboards, but AGP 8x (and even AGP 4x) still offer sufficient bandwidth for contemporary video cards.

All AGP 8x cards will work in both AGP 4x and AGP 8x slots.

3. It is very important to find at least 128 Memory card if one is using Linux.

4. New distributions do not support old cards.

5. So if you download a new CD/DVD and if it does not work check the Hardware compatibility List (HCL) by an appropriate card to support the distribution.

It is the only change you may have to do with an old computer.

Mind you they are very difficult to find even secondhand nowadays.

I bought old netVIsta with only 16 AGP (do not confuse it VGA which is related to the monitor) and could not find a 128 memory card for about one year. 

Luckily I had several 64 AGP cards till I found a 128.

Expensive graphic card is necessary if one is playing games and  3D modeling in 3DMax / Maya (very expensive).

So even if you are using blender make sure one has a good graphic card.

For ordinary photo editing I do do not think one need an expensive graphic card.

I only do some photo editing (that is also not frequent-it was passion in good old days) and even 64 memory is OK.

I never had problem with NVIDIA and I stick with it.

It had a little problem with  400 series but then I had over 100 Live CDs to test. I run LIVE CD/DVD  first and then  pick the distribution second.

I cannot speak of other graphic cards including ATI and IBM has been slow to support Linux.

So if you have problems do not blame the Distribution but change the Graphic card to suit your distribution.

This is something I should have written long time ago but I always say even Linux is now graphic intensive and go for a good graphic card.

On board graphic cards are also pain in the neck and do not buy a secondhand computer even it is cheap unless it can be upgraded with graphic card (mother board should have a graphic slot) and when one fix a new card on board graphic is automatically switched off.

Remember to change the BIOS too (PCI/AGP output).

Puppy is now Cloud Ready-Slacko- Slackware Based

It very nice feeling to announce that Puppy is cloud ready.

Once it is booted up on the desktop click the slickpet and one gets to  an alternative software manager to download cloud utility.

In seconds it downloads the cloud utility and one has window with all the current cloud utilities (except Ubuntu One) including Puppy web desktop, meebo, twitter, yahoo, Google and Dropbox (one has to download it.

It downloads Adobe Flash in few minutes (remember all these are in RAM) and one is instantaneously in the web.

Its Flash drive simulator can even simulate Floppy or a hard drive when using Flash Drive mode for booting.

It has all this in 124 of MiB.

It is only few weeks ago I wrote that Puppy should be cloud ready.

Thanks guys and girls in Australia and getting Slackware also into the fold with the Wolfer build.

This Live CD is amazing if one is should of hardware and money download and use it till you earn.

Mind you I got a  secondhand graphic card from a secondhand dealer (my graphic card is very very old-I am now ashamed I am still using it and most of the new Linux distributions are not supporting very old graphic cards) and I want it to be tested before installing newly downloaded Linux.

I use this computer for downloading and not for daily routines.

Internet and O.E.M (Original Equipment Manufacturers)

Internet and O.E.M (Original Equipment Manufacturers)

With cloud computing making a big impact, I am a believer  that all O.E.M computer products should have Internet utilities as a default system even without an Operating System. That is the next best thing that can happen to customer base. Internet is the most widely used utility.

My only reservation is that there should be some protection for vulnerable children.

That protection can be adequately dealt with by a password system when one buys an O.E.M system as a bundled package. Only one user should be allowed the full system access.

There should be a separate O.E.M for children (with protection included by default).

In other words, the user should be able to the browse Internet by default. There are enough small utilities and free software available now, for one of them to be included by default in an O.E.M. System.

The user should also be able to select his or her operating system as a cloud utility or as an independent operating system without having being hooked to a proprietary Operating System by default.

The operating wisdom should be that the customer has a choice.

Of course, to make matters easy proprietary system/s should be available for those who wish to purchase. That is also a freedom of choice.

How one sells the product is not the vendor's preempt but the work of the sales person.

Until such time, all the O.E.M. products should be allowed to boot up with a Flashdrive or micreSD card.  They can even sell it with a smart-card option.

Smart-card option

It is an easy alternative. 

Developers have already created special microSD for the E-reader Nook Color, that allows one to dual-boot the Nook OS and a specialized version of Android. In other words, just pop one of these cards into the Nook's microSD slot, and presto!

Instant Android.

If the Android environment is not needed any longer, just turning off the Nook, popping out the card, and rebooting will get one to the Nook.

Actually, the card need not be taken out, as one can choose the OS from a boot menu.

That means one is not voiding the warranty.

A very popular Android ROM Card CyanogenMod  marketed by N2A (Nook to Android) has stocks of applications that include Amazon Kindle, Angry Birds, and Words with Friends.

One is not locked into reading only Barnes & Noble e-books.

Following is an advertisement selling microSD cards

"Turning your Nook Color into a terrific Android tablet is easy--and legal.

No warranty issues, no changes to your ereader:

It just works.

And we've chosen SanDisk microSD cards:

The tech industry's best storage solution to be sure your tablet works perfectly today and tomorrow".

In that context, Debian's Iceweasel (or even Dillo) should be the one that should be ported with the O.E.M with all the unnecessary cookies removed and probably something similar to Dropbox (or a cloud entity) as an accompaniment with the basic (minimal) kernel.

This is one piece of writing in my next book

My Selection of Linux Utilities that make a Feature Packed Linux Distribution

 

LyX

Advanced open source document processor

Alongside Kile, LyX is another tremendous powerful LaTeX GUI. It allows you to create impressive documents in HTML, PS or PDF format rendered with unbeatably beautiful Computer Modern fonts. LyX is also available for Windows and is a little less difficult to use, in my opinion. I have reviewed LyX not that long ago.  

User-friendly LaTeX source editor and TeX shell and KDE.

LyX - Word processor.

LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visual layout to the software. LyX runs on many Unix platforms (including MacOS X), OS/2, and under Windows/Cygwin. Note that all these ports use the same xforms interface and therefore need an X server. LyX produces high quality, professional output -- using LaTeX, an industrial strength typesetting engine, in the background; LyX is far more than a front-end to LaTeX, however. No knowledge of LaTeX is necessary to use LyX, although it will give a user more power. LyX is stable and fully featured. It has been used for documents as large as a thesis, or as small as a business letter. Despite its simple GUI interface (available in many languages), it supports tables, figures, and hyperlinked cross-references, and has a best-of-breed math editor.

New Zealand All Blacks-Thank You

New Zealand All Blacks-Thank You

I did not watch the match fearing New Zealand might do another hara-kiri in the finals.

Yes they did beat France by 20 points.

Yes they were 15 points clear pre-match.

But French do some unbelievable things come finals (like Football World Cup).

I new it was going to be close context.

I cloud not take it if New Zealand lost in the final again.

Weepu had a bad day but the wonder boy Stephen Donald who was catching whitebait  two weeks ago kicked the penalty to get one point ahead was great.

He was a replacement for a replacement (for Cruden).

But the captain cool  Richie McCaw took the troops over the line but just.

Thank you all blacks.

Thank you les blues for your spited fight.

Rugby the winner.

I this country Rugby is played differently.

My home city players beat  another team the players (one was school boy) of the winning team were beaten by political thugs.

All our games are politicized and in fact one cannot getting to a team unless one has a political touch or a pass (French Pass- no insult to French or France).

I want to write few words (mot) in French but I am lost for words with the excitement.

Only English comes out!

They won by one point.

All Blacks your victory will remain in my mind for a very long time.

Gambas

Gambas

Gambas is a free development environment based on a Basic interpreter with object extensions, a bit like Visual Basic™ (but it is NOT a clone !). Read the introduction for more information.

With Gambas, you can quickly design your program GUI with QT or GTK+, access MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, ODBC and SQLite databases, pilot KDE applications with DCOP, translate your program into any language, create network applications easily, make 3D OpenGL applications, make CGI web applications, and many more robust work

The Gambas project aims at making a graphical development environment based on a Basic interpreter, so that the language is as easy as Visual Basic under Linux but much better and less bugs.

The phenomenal quantity of bugs and inconsistencies in Visual Basic had persuaded developer me to start a fresh project. It seems that Microsoft was aware of the poor quality of its language, as VB, dot-Net (.Net) was not made backward compatible with older versions of Visual Basic.

Gambas does not try to be compatible with Visual Basic, and will never be. Its syntax and internals are far better than the one's seen in its proprietary cousin.

The author who had very good understanding of Visual Basic from childhood, took from Visual Basic, the Basic language, the development environment and the user interfaces and dropped the bad practices in common use of Visual Basic program and made Gambas coherent, logical and reliable as possible.

Features

Below are the main features of Gambas and what sets it apart from the other languages.

Gambas is a Basic language with object extensions. A program written with Gambas is a set of files. Each file describes a class, in terms of object programming. The class files are compiled, then executed by an interpreter. From this point of view, it is very inspired by Java.

Gambas is made up of the following programs:

A compiler.

An interpreter.

An archiver.

A graphical user interface component.

A development environment.

The development environment is written with Gambas itself, so that I can show the abilities of the language and is useful for debugging.

What are the features that set Gambas from the other languages?

1. A Gambas project is stored under one directory. The archiver transforms the project directory structure in one sole executable file.

2. Compiling a project only requires the compilation of the modified classes. Every external reference of a class is solved dynamically at the execution time.

3. Gambas has a component architecture that allows it to extend the language. Anyone can write components as shared libraries that dynamically add new native classes to the interpreter.

Components can be written in Gambas too. The component architecture is documented in the Wiki encyclopaedia.

4. By default, the Gambas interpreter is a text-only program. The component architecture is used for writing the graphical user interface part of the language.

5. As the graphical user interface is implemented as a component, Gambas is independent of any toolkit!

One will be able to write a program, and choose the toolkit later : GTK+, Qt4, etc.

6. The graphical user interface is the Qt4 toolkit. The GTK+ component which is not finished will have almost the same interface as the Qt4 component.

7. Gambas projects are easily translatable, in any language.

8. Its object model is simple but powerful.

About the Author

Welcome to you, curious!

You're going to know almost everything about me...

My name is Benoît Minisini.

I am a French man born in 1972, living in Paris. Programming is one my passion since I was twelve, and is now my job for many years now. This passion started with the Basic language on a CPC Amstrad 464, and later on an Atari 520 STE. Of course, now, I am using many other languages, but I never forgot that I have learned and done a lot with Basic.

I was always fond of writing languages, compilers, assemblers, and interpreters. I wrote a Z80 assembler on Amstrad and an interpreted language that consumed all its memory.

Later, during my studies at the E.P.I.T.A., I wrote a Lisp interpreter under Windows. During six months, I discovered its stupid memory model, the Microsoft compiler, and its numerous bugs.

Today, I keep on raging with the Gambas

Thanks to my boss, I have a half-time job, so I have worked actively on Gambas for the last years.

But I have other passions too, that burns lot of my time. That is music .

I'm playing flute for a long time - and theatre.

So, the development of Gambas is not as fast as it could be.

I hope your curiosity was satisfied...

Acknowledgment

Gambas is build on top of many free softwares, and could not exist without them.

So I would like to thank every people involved in the following projects:

Linux

KDE

GCC and all of the GNU tools, of course.

The Qt4 toolkit.

The GIMP and its toolkit GTK+

Libre Office.

The MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite database management systems.

And any other libraries used by Gambas.

That is enough for as an introduction to language packages.

I pronounce it as Gon (a bull) Bass (is unskilled workman) in Sinhala which is the phrase we use when the workman does a shoddy job. But that reference has no slur on this wonderful package which love the most. Unfortunately only few of the distributions port it as is. That is why I was very expressive here.

It needs to be there for the young newbies to take root in Linux.

From Vi Editor to Vi Improved (VIM)

This is the reply from  LQ.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by countach74

Unfortunately, as a Debian user, VIM is pretty much the only main option I have to install. I'd imagine vi is pretty close in size to vim.tiny, which is about 760KB of disk space. I'm not sure how big the dependencies are. As for RAM, it looks like vim.tiny is using 360 KB, but I don't trust Gnome System Monitor that much.

I don't know if it is *always* the smallest editor--the answer to that is probably more complicated. It likely depends on what dependencies your system already has installed. It certainly is very small, though (unlike full fledged VIM). I can check how big the package is on our AIX machines at work tomorrow, but like I said I imagine it's very similar to vim.tiny.

About Vi and ViM
True that Dennis Richie invented the C language but there need to be a editor to do the language editing.

That was called ex in dumb terminals of Unix in black and white.

Then it had to evolve into Vi the visual editor and later to Vi Improved.

As I know it by my gut feeling Vi (Cholesterol free)is very light as compared to VIM which is loaded with cholesterol.

ViM is in MiBs but Vi has to be in KBs but I could not find the exact amount after 3 days of searching.

In fact I posted a question on Linux Question Organization and waiting for a reply from some old gentleman (I am not young by any imagination) out there browsing the web at leisure.

I feel some urge to document them in a book since once cloud computing comes into being things might be different and history may be submerged in clouds and not in sea water of tsunami.

Below is some of my current findings. 

As far as computer language and it writing is concerned, I prefer a graphic output.

If I compare a computer language and its final output product to needle, threads and a cloth we finally wear for our adornment.

Analogy goes like this.

Computer language is like the thread. Threads can be woven into a cloth and stitches that hold them together.

Programming editor is like the needle.

We do not need to know the how the threads are made of except  for the fact from cotton, nylon or mixture of them or water resistant mackintosh. 

But we need to know their colours so that the pattern can be distinguished.

Similarly we need know that needle is made of steel and won't corrode.

Visual editor was a need and without the needle we won't be able to stitch in time.

Vi Editor

The original code for vi was written by Bill Joy in 1976, as the visual mode for a line editor called ex that Joy had written with Chuck Haley. Bill Joy's ex 1.1 was released as part of the first BSD Unix release in March, 1978. It was not until version 2.0 of ex, released as part of Second Berkeley Software Distribution in May, 1979 that the editor was installed under the name vi (which took users straight into ex's visual mode), and the name by which it is known today. 

Vi is a modal editor:

It operates in either insert mode (where typed text becomes part of the document) or normal mode (where keystrokes are interpreted as commands that control the edit session). 

For example, typing i while in normal mode switches the editor to insert mode, but typing i again at this point places an "i" character in the document. 

From insert mode, pressing the escape key switches the editor back to normal mode.

A perceived advantage of vi's separation of text entry and command modes is that both text editing and command operations can be performed without requiring the removal of the user's hands from the home row. 

As non-modal editors usually have to reserve all keys with letters and symbols for the printing of characters, any special commands for actions other than adding text to the buffer must be assigned to keys which do not produce characters, such as function keys, or combinations of modifier keys such as Ctrl, and Alt with regular keys. 

Vi has the advantage that most ordinary keys are connected to some kind of command for positioning, altering text, searching and so forth, either singly or in key combinations. 

The name vi is derived from the shortest unambiguous abbreviation for the command visual in ex. 

STEVIE

Probably this is a "Tim Thompson's statement" fished out from the web.

STEVIE is perhaps my most noteworthy contribution to the Open Source movement, even though the phrase Open Source didn't exist way back in June of 1987 when I posted my little clone of the 'vi' editor to Usenet. 

STEVIE stood for,

ST Editor for VI Enthusiasts

Although it was only a subset of real 'vi', it had a good implementation of the 'u' (undo) and '.' (repeat) commands. Here are the two parts of the original posting of STEVIE:

stevie.orig.1of2

stevie.orig.2of2

My implementation was usable and good enough for Tony Andrews to take and continue hacking on. A year later in June of 1988, Tony posted this 4-part version of STEVIE to Usenet:

stevie.tony.1of4

stevie.tony.2of4

stevie.tony.3of4

stevie.tony.4of4

Since that time, the software has continuously evolved in the fine tradition of what we now call Open Source, to produce the widely-available and widely-ported editor now known as VIM.

I was not involved after my initial development and posting to Usenet, and I didn't really keep track of it after a few years. (I was actually a bit disappointed when the 'u'ndo capability was broken by subsequent development, and was not fixed.)

When I recently discovered that VIM is the great-great-great-great-...-grandson of STEVIE, I was quite surprised and of course very pleased to know that my initial seed was so fruitful.

And I was most pleased to see that they fixed the 'u'ndo command and even made it capable of 'infinite undo'. 

Vim Editor

Vim is a text editor written in 1988 by Bram Moolenaar for the Amiga computer, but first released publicly in 1991. It was based on an earlier editor, Stevie, for the Atari ST, created by Tim Thompson, Tony Andrews and G.R. (Fred) Walter.

The name "Vim" is an acronym for "Vi IMproved" because Vim is an extended version of the vi editor, with many additional features designed to be helpful in editing program source code.

Originally, the acronym stood for "Vi IMitation", but that was changed with the release of Vim 2.0 in December 1993. 

Vim is an almost compatible version of the UNIX editor Vi. Many new features have been added: multi level undo, syntax highlighting, command line history, on-line help, file name completion, block operations, folding, Unicode support, etc.

This package contains a version of vim compiled with a rather standard set of features. This package does not provide a GUI version of Vim. See the other vim-* packages if you need more (or less).

Repository: Debian Main

Download size: 894,29 KB

Installed size: 1,74 MB

Package filename: vim_7.3.333-1_i386.deb

Source package: vim

ALTLinux-English Edition with Russian Connection

After nearly four (4) days of torrent download, I managed to download DVD version of ALT, which is KDE and with sleek appearance.
Only two Russin Seeders for the entire period of download.

It has OpenOffice, Inkscape and no K3B.

There is paucity of games.

Internet configuration is old and not dynamic.

I was wondering, whether I can recommend it for our schools is in serious doubt.

Unfortunately, it has no educational programs at all.

It looks like Russians are still groping in the dark as far as Linux is concerned.

It is a pity for Russian kids.

They are still under rigid and iron fist, it looks like.

I hope few Russian kids will get together (they have to read my books in English, though) and develop their own Linux Distribution with international flair.

Incidentally there was curious noise / sound with the DVD and the Russian Module for my Taiwanese DVD is not compatible.

Because of that noice i am now switching off and go back to my Debian download with Sinhala Capability.

Good old Russian connection with Sri-Lanka seems to have disappeared into thin air.

By the way six (6) Russians are browsing my blog space.

Thank you guys/girsl for your interest.
My books on Linux are in Amazon Books.
Try Linux Distribution/Linux Introductory Lessions

Pen and paper are out and the Tablet and stylus are in

Pen and paper are out and Tablet and stylus are in.

That is the "sea change" we are going to see come 2012.

I rarely use a pen nowadays, most likely filling a government form or at the bank.

The other day one of my students asked for my pen and he never returned it.

He is becoming like me.

He was filling on of my surveys and I obliged.

Ten years ago, if this happened I would have been angry.

It is very similar if somebody asks for pen at the counter / Water/Electricity Board, ten years go. I used to say NO, rudely of course.

I remembered that he did  returned it when I wanted to go to the bank . I borrowed a pen from our secretary and went to the bank and I did not either till next day.

She a steno-typist rarely takes short hand notes, now.

All of us are hooked to the keyboard and the computer.

However, I do not like lot of paper being used.

That is we are felling trees and not environmentally sound practice.

If the pen disappears and the paper disappears, I don't care.

But we need a replacement.

Yes we are going to get it soon.

Long before "I kick the bucket"

Not a computer we want a tablet with a stylus.

To that you add Xournal, we can fill a electronic form on the fly.

Xournal makes filling an electronic form breezy.

I love the idea of the tablet which reminds me of the Slate and slate pencil.

I wish that its alternative name should be "THE SLATE".

It is said that in USA they are abolishing cursive writing in school which is a stupid idea.

We are different from Apes because of we use our finer coordinate movements for manipulative skills.

If one wants to become a vascular surgeons or a neurosurgeon these are very essential skills.

Chinese make their (actually parents) children to learn these skills early in their life. These skills are essential in shop floor too.

In time to come Americans might need Chinese to perform neurosurgery on them, if they do not teach finer manipulative skills.

That is why when they come to Asia they cannot eat rice with their hands or used chop sticks.

Coming back to stylus, tiny stylus and ekle can be dangerous in young children.

I have seen young ones poking their eyes (accidentally) with coconut ekle, fine gadgets in instrument sets etc.

The tablet should be hardy an they stylus should be safe with a blunt end.

They should be child safe.

Lest few children might lose their eyesight by accidents of the nature  I mentioned above. 

I hope these items from Amazon hit this country before my manipulative skills and eyesight fail.

Ten or More Things Apple Mac won't tell its customers.

Ten or More Things Apple Mac won't tell its customers.

1. It is a Unix derivative i.e. BSD (Berkeley Systems Distribution) which form the basis for both Mac OS X and the iOS that powers the iPhone. 

2. It was hooked to a O.E.M platform (Power PC) till recently.

3. BSD is what Darwin is based on.

4. Darwin is Apple's Open Source Unix operating system foundation. 

Somebody should revive this, now that Steve Job is no more.

The Darwin kernel is equivalent to the Mac OS X kernel plus the BSD libraries and commands essential to the BSD Commands environment.

5  It uses Open Source OpenGL - Standard 3D graphics library

6. jEdit  4.3  

7. Perl  5.10  Accessible through Terminal under Utilities

8. Python  2.6.1  Accessible through Terminal under Utilities

9. Python  3.3  Accessible through Terminal under Utilities

10. Ruby  1.8.7  Accessible through Terminal under Utilities

Items 6 to 10  are programming languages (now mostly platform independent) which made the backbone of  Linux.

11. Audacity   is a Linux derivative

12. Thunderbird is a Linux derivative

13. VLC    Media Player is a Linux derivative

14. Geogebra             is a Linux derivative

15.TeX

No operating system is Pure and I have not used OpenOffice or Libre Office since they originated from Sun Solaris Sytem and later became Open Source.

Why one should not change habits for the sake of market hype?

 Why one should not change habits for the same of market hype?

I will ask few question?

One.       1

Would you change brand of tooth paste / tooth brush?

Two.       2

Would you change your razor blade or electric shaver?

Three.    3

Would you change your hair cut?

Four.      4

Would you change your tie?

Five.       5

Would you change your computer or the Operating system?

In my case I will only change my tie.

I rarely wear ties nowadays but I have over 100 ties collected over 30 years.

Some of them were presents.

I have enough ties to make a rope and hang myself if I need to.

But I keep them in an accessible place not (in the attic) and pick at random when I need one.

But when I look at ties others wear, the ties are broad, long and intrusive.
It Looks like tie hides one's personality.

I do not think that ties have personality.

But I always get a comment, your tie is short or it is narrow, especially from my daughter.

But I do not go and buy a big one.

Why?

I do not need to hide behind a tie.

I know who I am.

If somebody is inquisitive I go little bit further.

I am going to remove this moment the function is over and I will be back to my basics

You know if somebody is angry with me I do not let him/her use  my tie to strangle me.

This is why our politicians never where a tie in public.

I wish them  do, though.

The we do not need a fire arm to kill a fellow guy.

Of course police can say he strangled himself in disgust of not coming on top of the preference list.

Real reason is that I am immune to change.
If one wears a tie one has to either wear a jacket or coat.

It is not the tie that matters in that context.

It is the coat or the jacket.

The tie becomes an accessory.

It does not matter whether it is big or small it has to match the coat in colour and size.

Who is going to wear coat in this tropical country with temperature over 95 degrees Fahrenheit?

Coming back to question 5 one should not change the computer or the operating system, if it is doing the right donkey/horse work for you.

It is just a waste of time.

I am almost (probably I will go on till December) finished testing Linux distributions.

The latest releases come from now onwards till January and I have to check them for the sake of completeness and archiving.

In fact I have published my findings in a book at Amazon.

(" My Selection of Linux distributions" along with "Buddhism Made Simple"  in memory of my mother.

They are available now).

The most important thing is that if you are not changing like me, make sure you have an archived copy of your operating system.

After 5 years one cannot find a copy out there in the web.

There are no archives.

It is going to be so because of the "sea change" happening.

Tablets and Cloud computing.

I have a nice DVD with all the utilities which I downloaded when  I was abroad in 2009.

Linpus DVD, which is pretty good and all the utilities and Amaya too.

I cannot find a archive to download it.

Instead Linpus Light 1.4 is there which is for tablets.

They are changing.

I could not download ALT Linux English Version (from Russia) like the Linpus Linux when abroad.

It supports schools in Russia and I was thinking it would be useful for us too,
in Sri-Lanka.

After some hours of search, I managed to find the English Version and I am trying to download it for the last 10 days but could not finish it.

Once the point to point broke at 1.2 GiB.

Then after another search found the torrent and has only two seeders and one is always in sleep mode.

It is currently 2.5 GiB and need another 3 days to download at the current speed.

The bottom line is keep your CD/DVDs safe.

You do not know when you need them.

When you really need a copy it is no longer available for you in the web.

Mind you unlike Microsoft there is no limit for  re-using the Linux CD/DVD for re-installing.

That is another reason I love Linux.

I have huge archive now and may never use them for my work but if a guy/s having searched and was crying that he/she could not find a copy he or she may  approach me and kindly ask please could I have a copy.

I will oblige.

But you must not forget to say "Thank You".