Software Freedom Day 2009

Software Meet 2009

About 10 Engineering College from 4 different University, are participating in a much awaited each "Software Meet". This event is organized annually by the most reputed computer club in Nepal. The event is organized by Kathmandu University Computer Club(KUCC). The sponsors of this event are Javra Software, DASS Enterprises, NITC, ACEN, CCA and they are adding up with event approaching. With its overwhelming success in last years, the competition is even more competitive and exciting this april.

There are two programs in this event, as project competition and paper presentation. Project Competition is Scheduled to be organized on 10 April and Paper presentation on 12 April. Project Competition have a different way round where defending winner IOE have not participated due to internal college reasons, so colleges like KU, KEC, KCM will be fighting to make their way out as a winner. Whereas Paper presentation seems much more competitive with defending winner is coming up with much stronger paper on "Java API for Grid Computing" and second prize winner in Software Meet 2009 from NCIT, is trying to make this his event by his work on "Virtualization". But all eyes are also on Bishwas Bhatt from Kathmandu University with his promising ideas.

This is will be some kinda of event where colleges will battle for ultimate pride of their quality, software project management.

AI: Watching Video Tutorial Day in and Day out

When my professor gave us a lecture about Logical Agent, and later on First Order Logic, A.I. was inspiring me more than anything else. But when I came back to my dorm and try to go through my book "Artificial Intelligence: A modern Approach", I found myself, sleeping in couch or kissing my bed. It not the fault of book though, its a really good book and we must praise its writers, but I don't know what was wrong. Luckily, my commitment for learning A.I. was uplifted when I found a video tutorial from IIT Kharagpur. Now what I do daily is watch one or two video tutorial which is about 1 hour long. And try to read the same book, which makes things more clear to me. May be I found the best way to learn A.I.

You can also find the video tutorials here. I will try to include interesting things that I encounter while I study. So wait for more youtube videos in my blog :).

Presentation on XQuery and RSS

There was a short presentation on XQuery and RSS. I will like to share my slides of presentation.

JDBC

This is a very easy task, but with request from some of my juniors, I am excited to mention it in my blog.

I am taking MySQL as an example here,

You can download a JDBC Connector of MySQL here.

1. Extract the downloaded zip file to C:/ if you are in Windows based OS.
2. Add this classpath to MyComputer>Properties>Environment Variable.
3. Copy mysql...jar file to C:/Program Files/Java/jdk 1.X.X/jre/lb/etx/

Then it will be connected. If you want a sample project, contact me, I will upload it somewhere.

KU Sports Week 2009

One week of holiday for me, and a week of hectic volunteering for my friends. Here I am having a cup of coffee in my room at KUBH, and I have a football match to watch in a while. What a fascinating week it has been, you can watch free football, cricket, basketball and that also from balcony of KUBH. Also there is 24 hrs free internet, and you can also get free Sports update of KU Sports week here.

Thinking Big with FOSS Nepal Community

I know peoples from IOE, ASCOL, Malpi, KEC, KCC, Rato bangala and most of other colleges in Nepal, how?

I got into this small but enthusiastic platform called FOSS Nepal community where everybody has one motive, to promote and advocate FOSS in Nepal. We organize events, we have fun and we disperse.This has been the tradition of FOSS Nepal over the years, but I cannot see the development, how FOSS Nepal Community will grow!!

Organizing three event more than last year won't prove that we are growing.. so then came the role of some donor agencies such as Help Nepal Network. And we started a project called LTSP under the mission "One e-library per school". Then we started seeing we had at least something that we can contribute to society not just philosophy of FOSS. That was quite a achievement, but sustaining and maintain it was much more difficult than establishing it. FOSS Research and Training Center was perfect answer to it this argument.

But my question is, Is this attempt enough to make every user free from proprietary software?? South Asians are regarded as people who can work hard and think!! but we never think big... Even if we go to doorsteps, people are not trying to understand what is good for them.. they are not trying to change.. that is why they have proprietary software in their system, isn't it?

I don't hate people using proprietary system, I use proprietary system. But it binds me, it binds my freedom. It shows me blank screen when I have to finish my project report by morning. It eats my memory, and most importantly sucks my battery power in this energy crisis. You may hate reading all these against your darling proprietary system. But ain't you fond of Compiz fusion in your ubuntu system, don't you like to work on Apache Server than some headache IIS server, there are so much benefits.. but who cares!!

But somebody cared, and they come up with somethings really big like 1 lakh nepalese rupees and showed everyone that FOSS has future in Nepal. "FOSS for enterprises ROCKS!!" Hats Off!! to D2 labs. They gave us Open Source Platform like sourceforge.net for Nepal and they also invited us to work on an open source project competition where the winner will win 1 lakh NRs. Now you tell me!! Ain't you installing FOSS OS in you computer now.. and start using FOSS. If you are reading this, I guess you don't have load sheeding right now, do it now because it wont take you 1 whole hours like some propreitary OS do.. also in no time it install all the software you need.. isn't it cool.. Have dun with FOSS Bye bye!!