Walk Alone

This is a good example of the windows dumbing down effect - you make computers so simple to operate that even a cockroach dropped on its head will be able to use one. Theoretically, that is.

This guy got a PC 2 years back - preloaded with win xp. 8 months later, when we visited his place, it became known that he had mistaken the RESET button for a cabinet decal. He later on claimed that his machine never caused him to use the button, so he didn’t have to look for it. Seems his machine was able to detect that all processes were frozen and had a master process hidden somewhere that would trigger a restart. Genius! Now, if such a process could run when all others were frozen, why didn’t it do a win32 version of ‘kill -all’? And whats that brilliant feature? How come its not on other hardware/win32 platforms? Wonder whether he made it up himself.

A couple of weeks back, the same guy has been asking us for a web browser. An explorer, to be precise. Win32 users think ‘explorer’ when they think ‘internet’. I used to think explorer was a trademark name of the MS web browser and file system viewer. Anyways, this guys effectively wants a browser because he doesn’t have any other application on his PC that can be used to get files from the net. He has Yahoo Messenger though. He has no idea of ftp. And worst of all, after using winxp for two years, he didn’t know that IE has been integrated into Windows Explorer. Yes, he does know it now.

Patents are a devious tool to harm developing countries’ development. Not only will patents harm software; but will also lead to rise in prices of medicines. [Read further for more info]

What you can do ?

a) Post this on your blog/website too if you have one
b) Email this to as many people as you know
c) Email to the Editor of various magazines, newspapers that we don’t want patents
d) Email to the President of India and any political party in India who has an email

Why are patents bad ?

Below are some medicines whose cost are given as follows
(In India inRupees) [In US in Rupees]
SYPROFLOCSACIN (29 Rupees) [2353 Rupees]
DYCHLOPHYNAC (4 Rupees) [675 Rupees]

These are just two examples. Wondering why medicines are SO cheap in India? This is because India had a big pharmaceutical industry. They can produce drugs at a fraction of the cost at what Merck wants to sell them for. Infact the drug prices are way lower in India than in Pakistan next door because India happened to develop its own pharmaceutical industry.

The American Corporations don’t like that .They want more children to die in India. They want more profit; which means more children die in India. They want to make sure that India doesn’t produce drugs costing less than the American counterparts. Now this is done in two ways under GATT. One way is to increase the length of patents. The other is to change their character from Process Patent to Product Patent.

The thing that made American prices higher is now put up as an Ordinance in India. It is being considered in next Session of our Parliament.

So we need to ACT now before it is too late, before we will need to burn our pocket before even buying a tablet of Disprin or the like. Please follow the actions as mentioned above to spread this fact among as many people, so that this Bill is not passed.

Maybe, the legislature will listen… But let us try our best.

Now I’m confused. Anyone reading this is welcome to help me out. I’m interested in coding - just enough to solve problems that crop up in my engineering course. Preferred - Linux and C/C++. Also I’m interested in creating small websites with simple databases. Preferred - Apache and MySQL.

Now the dilemma. I’ve learnt C/C++ on DOS Turbo C and stopped at simple function templates. No GUI, system I/O or file handling. Basic Apache with Perl runs happily on Fedora. How do I rig it for a database and some other scripting language?

Do I go for Qt or KDevelop or Anjuta in Linux? And PHP and MySQL in Linux? I’m not going for heavy duty stuff. Basic familiarity and ability to do some home-projects is all I’m aiming at.

PS: I would love PHP, MySQL, KDevelop - what say?

This is really amusing. The guy is using pirated M$ products and he says “M$ rulz man” like an acolyte praising his God. Fact is the wolves in Redmond are baying to recover their dues. And in the face of reluctant/ignorant law enforcement, they try to reduce piracy through software locks which are broken as soon as a software print reaches any part of Asia. If you look at the percentage of people using M$, its considerable; but look at the percentage of people who are using it according to M$ revenues and you will get a different picture. Suddenly, it appears that the majority of PC users use neither *nix or M$ Windoze, but a mysterious OS which is ubiquitously bought from urban street vendors or supplied by acquaintances.

Hmmmm.