Anurag Bhandari

So, what’s keeping me busy these days? It’s office work, of course. Working on quite a challenging and bigger project has its side-effects as well (working till late and missing daily fruit juice doses in my case). Other than that, I am enjoying the work as it has to do with web development, my area of interest.

Being a strong advocate of open-source and Linux, I read a lot of articles on these topics daily. And I hate when people use words like “switch”, “migrate”, etc. when referring to making the move from Windows to Linux. Why do people, who try to compel people to switch from Windows to Linux, forget that there is always an option called “dualbooting” and that Windows still has the astronomically largest market share? I really hope people use the word “dualboot” more when advocating the use of Linux to others. By the way, I am also writing an article highlighting this matter (Why Switch? Dualboot!), which I intend to share pretty soon.

Talking about Linux, the latest Ubuntu release (10.4; Lucid Lynx) has been getting good reviews from all around. I can hardly wait to get my hands on it. I am planning to install it on my home PC (the one currently in use by my Dad and sister).

Also, two of my good friends, Chandan Puggal (working at Aricent) and Amritpal Singh (working at Accenture) recently joined me in Gurgaon (my present work location).

Finally, I did mention it earlier also, but it really is a frustrating life without a proper Internet connection. (Looking upward) God, please me my EV-DO back. Amen.

VS

Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux – both are totally disparate entities and I am talking about similarities? Yup, I sure am. And I have reasons to believe this.

Most of us know what Vista is. Vista is the latest edition to the most popular operating system (OS) lineup – Windows. For those who are unfamiliar with Ubuntu, Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux-based OS that is available for free.

Here I discuss some of the similarities that I have noted in due course of my usage of both the operating systems.

Computer
In both, the name given to the central access point to all the disks and partitions on a computer is “Computer”. In earlier versions of Windows, we used to know it with the name “My Computer”.

Sub-folders in user profile folder
The default folders present in the user profile folder (or the home folder) are something like – Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos – in both the OSes.

Graphical effects
Starting from Ubuntu 7.10, both the OSes have given stress on providing graphical desktop effects to the end user. In Ubuntu, the effects are a result of Compiz Fusion software. In Vista, the most common and appealing effect is Flip 3D.

Creation of a new folder
When a new file/folder is created within another folder in either of the OS, the newly created item rearranges itself automatically in alphabetical order with respect to the other items contained by the parent folder. This wasn’t the case in earlier versions of Windows.

Renaming file
When a file is renamed (by right-clicking and choosing “Rename” or by pressing F2) in either of OSes, only the name of the file is selected, leaving the file extension unselected.

Navigation strip
When a folder within a folder within a folder (and so on…) is visited, a navigation strip appears near the top of the explorer/file manager window. In both the OSes, this navigation strip is very similar looking and a helpful aid.

Verdict
Does this imply anything? Were Vista’s features inspired by Ubuntu? Or Ubuntu’s features by Vista? Or neither of the cases. It’s upto you to decide.

Note: The similarities between Vista and Ubuntu are primarily because of the desktop environment used by Ubuntu – GNOME. So, these similarities are common between Vista and many other Linux distributions that use the latest version of GNOME.

Remember the little, cute Jumbled Words Game I prepared in Python? More than 4 months had passed since I made it, and now it was time it got some makeover. So, featuring a host of new improvements, here I am making the improved game available for download.

Installing and playing is easy. Just to remind the readers, the game is made in Python using the wxPython libraries for the graphical interface (GUI).

The Python source was converted into a Windows executable (.exe) using py2exe. An installer was made out of the executable using InnoSetup. Both are freely available for download and very easy to use. I’ll come up with a Linux executable soon. And maybe a Python Egg?

Changelog:
1. Words are now read from a text file
2. The words read from text file are jumbled automatically & randomly
3. Changed splash image
4. Improved font system
5. Score system
6. Improved overall interface

The various downloads are:

• Setup – install the game from this like any normal application (Windows)
• Zipped – just extract the zipped file and double-click on JumbledGUI.exe to play (Windows)
• Source – the source code of the game in a zipped file (cross-platform)

I hope you like it. You may encounter bugs. If so, do let me know. Also, I would be happy to get some feedback from you regarding this little app.

Credits: The game was improved with suggestions and inputs from DaniWeb.com.

Google is everywhere these days. Most of their products, or “innovations” as many people like to call them, usually get very successful. Like GMail, Orkut, Google Docs, and many more. Some time back, they decided that we, the people, need an all new browser that would redefine our browsing experience. So, here we have yet another browser. And the name is Chrome, Google Chrome.

Just a day before the launch of Chrome, a blog entry was made on the Official Google Blog on 1st September notifying the readers about the launch date of a beta of Chrome. That was when I came to know about it. So, I eagerly waited for the next day to arrive. Although I had my exam the day following the lauch date, I still preferred to wake up at night and be one of the first ones to download it.

My first attempt on downloading was when I went to the official Chrome site for it. From there, I got a 470KB executable which would download the actual Chrome browser from the Internet. As my modem has a tendency to disconnect very frequently, I made 3 unsuccessful attempts of downloading Chrome through that 470KB file. On some googling, I got a direct link to the actual Chrome installer which was around  7MB in size.

Read more…

As promised in my last post about my Python-based jumbled words game, here I am posting the game for download in various forms. As of now, the first and second forms are for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista only.

First is the normal setup in which you install the game by following those usual Next buttons.

Second is a zip file. Extract it, open the extracted folder and click on the JumbledGUI.exe file to start playing it.

Third is the zipped source code file + other required stuff.

Let me know about your experience with this little game. Any suggestions and comments are always welcome.

Note: There is one little bug in the setup / installer, and that is the shortcuts for the game executable created in the Start menu and (or) during the installation process won’t work. You’ll have to start the game by running the JumbledGUI.exe file in C:\Program Files\Jumbled Words Game, assuming that you have installed the game in the default location.

[ Icon from Indeepop.com ]