and..................................................

well i'm back.

i spent nearly an hour trying to figure out the HTML tags. That really put my limited number of gray cells to some real agony ;) Hope the new links to the various sites are much better than the previous ones. Even the blogs that link to from this one need to be updated. i will do it now if i do get the time.

But on an entirely different note, i've begun to admire (worship is a much more appropriate term) open source software. I first experienced open source on my iPod. I used Rockbox which was actually suggested to me.

Well since i've got nothing better to do, maybe i'll share my experience on installing Rockbox on my nano.

INSTALATION:
well the installation was pretty much straight forward actually. All i had to do was download the latest build for the iPod Nano. Once that was done, i just had to unzip the package and copy the boot loader files using DOS. other than that u also have to copy the original files to make sure that the player does not end up as a paperweight.

that was how simple the installation actually was.
i was surprised too.........

then came heartbreak

BOOTING :
well when i first tried to boot Rockbox, all i ended up with was a blank screen. That really baffled me. I tried every possible combination of buttons on the nano but to no avail. Being the ever pessimist that i am, i thought i had bid my last farewell to my nano.

but........

then i realised the power of Open Source. The various forums that exist really helped me.
Some of the threads there specifically addressed my problem and i was heartened :)
that gave me hope. Finally realised that all i had to do was to keep the Menu+Select buttons pressed for about 5 seconds and VOILA my Rockbox booted on the nano.

that started a whole new Apple :D experience for me(rather a Rockbox experience).

Now i can actually play Doom on the nano and also a host of other really exciting games and that isn't all. Now the nano has its own graphic EQ with custom settings that can really spice up that Guns and Roses classic and play it as i want it :)


"Heil OPEN SOURCE, Heil ROCKBOX "

Boredom

long time.
i've been very busy(that is an understatement) during the past couple of weeks. Firstly i had my mid sessionals to contest with( i say contest b'cos they were really a challenge). Then after that, my daily workload is being multiplied with tonnes of assignments being handed out everyday and to top things off there was Carpediem '06 which was a pretty big fiasco in my words.

I realise that i seem to have the knack of attending to chores that really are worthless. I went to Carpediem when i could have been doing better things at home ;).
then the other day i wasted a day for my driving test when everybody else i knw didn't even step out to get one.

But the most depressing moment turned out to be on 10th. Schumacher was awesome as usual in the race and the icing on the cake at the Italian GP was that Alonso retired after an engine failure. But i received a rude jolt when Michael announced he was gonna retire after this season.
that was really saddening to hear. he's the best and will always be the best.
But the silver lining that i can see now is that he can probably win a record 8th drivers title and then retire (he's now only 2 pts behind Alonso). Also next year Raikkonen is gonna don the scarlet colors, so another bright spot :)

i've now received almost all my marks for the mid sessionals and they are nothing to boast about. the less that is said about them, the better.

I've finally managed to download Fedora and installed it last week. i haven't yet been able to figure out the nitty-gritties of Linux. The main reason has been the lack of time.
I hope to spare some time next week and sit for some time and meddle around with the thingy.

CBIT seems to be getting boring as each day passes on. Nothing interesting goes on. Its all the same everyday. I really wanna take a break and have phun in the proper sense of the word. A vacation of sorts would really do me a world of good but my timetable does not permit me such luxuries right now :(

Shaastra is around the corner and i'm hoping to go there. Maybe that would really be helpful. But me going there alone is boring, so hopefully someone will tag along with me.


"Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism."