Technology
Build your own Linux distro
0After installing a Linux distro (distro is short for distribution), all of us spend hours customizing it. Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to customize our distro even before we download the ISO. It’d sure save time and bandwidth, if we are going to install the same on multiple machines.
Enters 
. SuseStudio enables you to customize and preconfigure your own SUSE Linux distro, from your choice of wallpapers to the packages you want installed. You can even upload your own RPMs. You can then build the customized distro to deploy it to cloud or download a LiveCD/Installation disc.
Here’s how to build your own Linux in just 3 steps.
Step 1: Head to SuseStudio. Sign In / Create an account.
You can use your Google, Facebook, OpenID, Yahoo or Twitter account to login. It’s completely secured.
Select a Display Name, Email ID and User Type. This step is pretty much straight forward.
Step 2: Choose a base template, architecture and name our appliance.
At the time of this writing there are three base templates. Base templates are basic Linux OS images which we will customize. The three available are:
- openSUSE 12.3
- SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2
- SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP4
Each in 32bit/64bit variant and for Desktop/Server.
We can also name our custom build here.
For purpose of this tutorial, I selected openSUSE 12.3, KDE4 image, 32bit and named it “ashwinsaxena.com SUSE”. It will be used in the boot screen, and in several other places. .
It is nothing but Base system + KDE4 which is a popular window manager.
Click “Create Appliance”.
Step 3: Customize distro:
As you can see we have different tabs to customize our distro.
Start:
On the tab we can change the name of our custom appliance.
Software :
As of now, our custom Linux is pretty much bare-bone. In this page we can add packages to be included.
We can also add repositories and RPM packages here. A Linux software repository is a storage location from which software packages may be retrieved and installed on a computer and in this particular case, included in our customized distro.
Another option is to search individual packages and add/remove them.
Configuration :
On this page we can preconfigure locale, timezone, network and firewall settings, create users, change appliance logos and backgrounds, configure startup items, etc. Virtually every major aspect of distro can be customized.
Files:
Files tab allows you to uplaod single files / archives.
- Single files will be copied to the specified directory.
- Archives (.tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, or .zip) will be extracted into the directory specified. Permissions and hierarchy will be preserved. Using archives is a great way to add many files at one time.
Files can be either uploaded from local computer or retrieved from a web URL (such as a files direct link from your Dropbox).
Build :
On build tab you can generate your customized distro and download it in one of the given format. Available formats are:
Physical media formats
USB stick/hard disk image Dump this format on your USB stick or hard disk using dd command (on Linux) and boot from it.
Live CD/DVD (.iso) Use this format if you want to burn your appliance on CD or DVD.
Preload ISO (.iso) and Preload USB stick image Installation discs. No live environment.
Virtual formats
VMware / VirtualBox / KVM (.vmdk)
OVF virtual machine (.ovf) Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is an open, standards-based format for virtual machines. A variety of hypervisors, including SUSE Cloud, VirtualBox, VMware ESX, IBM SmartCloud, and Oracle VM, support creating virtual machines by importing an .ovf file.
Xen guest Use this format if you want to run your appliance on a Xen host system, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
Hyper-V (.vhd) This format allows seamless integration with Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization, available in Windows Server. Your appliance will include all the necessary drivers to integrate with the Hyper-V management console and provide optimum performance. A Hyper-V-enabled Microsoft Windows Server is required to run this format.
Cloud formats
Amazon EC2 image If you plan to use Amazon Web Services to host your server, this format will properly configure the appliance for you do to so. Link your AWS credentials to your Studio account, and you will be able to upload and launch EC2 instances directly from SUSE Studio.
Azure Image Windows Azure is another option for hosting your appliances. The Azure Image format will do the hard work for you, building a .vhd file tailored for hosting on Microsoft’s Windows Azure service. Upload your Azure publish settings file to your Studio account, and you will be able to create images on Windows Azure, then jump over to the management portal to instantiate and manage your virtual machines.
Share:
Share tab allows you to share your custom distro with other SuseStudio.com users.
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That’s it. You’ve just customized your own SUSE Linux even before downloading and all it took was 15 minutes at best. It’s now ready to be deployed wherever you want.
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Use your browser as a text-pad
0
Do you find yourself repeatedly opening notepad/gedit/leafpad instances to write down some text while surfing? Here’s a quick trick by which you can use your browser as a textpad. Just press CTRL+T (or open a new tab) and type the following in URL BAR and hit enter :
data:text/html, <body contenteditable>
You have a quick textpad ready in view area to jot down/paste anything you want.
Remembering that is too much? You can make it your bookmark.
Here’s how to do it in firefox :
1.) Go to Firefox > Options and make sure Bookmarks Toolbar is checked.
2.) Right click on your bookmarks toolbar and click New Bookmark.
3.) Name this new bookmark – TEXTPAD.
4.) In Location field type – data:text/html, <body contenteditable>
5.) Click Add.
That’s it. Just whenever you need a textpad, open a new tab and click this bookmark you just created.
You can even change the appearance of text in this browser’s textpad using body element’s attributes. For example :
data:text/html, <body contenteditable style=”font-size:3rem;color:red;line-height:1.5;max-width:70rem;margin:0 auto;padding:3rem;”>
Google Glass : The Future of Augmented Reality
7Recently Google unveiled “Project Glass“, a potentially revolutionary augmented reality headset allowing users to take photos, make calls, send texts and browse the internet.
Google’s Project Glass Prototype
Google Co-Founder Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin unveiling the Project Glass Prototype.
Watch this video to get a feel of what is Google’s ‘Project Glass’ about.
Released by Google, this video follows a potential day in the life of a Google glasses user.
While wearing these pair of glasses, you can see directions to your destination appear literally before your eyes. You can check weather forecast and news or talk to friends over video chat while sharing your surroundings with them or even buy a few things online as you walk around. These glasses can do everything you now need a smartphone or tablet computer to accomplish BUT this is JUST A PROTOTYPE for now. They don’t exist YET!
Google’s Project Glass page on Google+ has following description (You can provide your opinions and ideas on the same page):
We think technology should work for you—to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t.
A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.
Please follow along as we share some of our ideas and stories. We’d love to hear yours, too. What would you like to see from Project Glass?
So what exactly is Augmented Reality?
According to Google: Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery. Augmented Reality in simple terms is the fusion of digital information with viewer’s real environment.
It’s like the “Terminator vision,” as in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. When the films would cut to the robot’s point of view, you’d see it scan the environment and analyze everything about every object in the frame.Or in the latest Mission Impossible movie where a character is wearing contact-lenses and he sees people and BOOM- he can see their profiles instantly. It is COOL!
Of course Google is not the only one doing research in this arena. Pranav Mistry’s Sixth Sense technology is somewhat like Google’s Project Glass. See Pranav Mistry’s TED-Talk on 6th sense technology yourself :
Microsoft with it’s product Kinect is also doing some noticeable research (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/augmented/).
My Opinion:
I think it will take at least 5-6 years of research and development before Augmented Reality as demonstrated by Google becomes a reality.
While people are still bickering about how weird the Glasses look, I want to commend Google.
In the field of futuristic research, it is making the news almost everyday it seems which is not helping it one bit since the investors are still not happy with Google. Google shares are down 2% this year at last Thursday’s close of $632.32 (It was $$645.41 on 3rd April before unveiling Project Glass), that’s despite having increased revenue nearly 30% in 2012 and boosting profit more than 20%.
What I think is if Google is going to promote wild R&D dreams like Google Glass and Auto Driving car, it had better get in touch with some of the more mundane tasks of management, such as talking with investors.
Temple Run on Kindle Fire : Game Review
3The popular game for iOS : Temple Run is now available on Android Platform. The game is one of the most popular iOS app. In the iTunes store, it has been in the top 50 most-downloaded apps in December 2011. Many Android owners like me were eagerly waiting for it’s release for their devices and some (including me) even tried crappy bad copies. Since I am from India and I can’t access Amazon App Store (I don’t know if this game is available there yet) and I can’t download from Google Play store either (unrooted Kindle), I had to side-load the game .APK file. The game is free and I am writing this mini review after playing it for 3 hours non-stop. Yes! It’s that addictive.
- Title: Temple Run
- Publisher : Imangi Studios
- Release Date: March 27, 2012
- Tested On : KINDLE FIRE (unrooted)
- Requires Android: 2.1 and up
- Category: Arcade / Action / Running
- Size: 26M
- Price: Free
- Google Play Store Link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imangi.templerun
- Wikipedia Entry : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Run
Screenshots :
My Kindle Fire running Temple Run.
Temple Run (Screenshots taken from AndroidPolice).
Gameplay :
Basically all you have to do in this game is to make your character run, jump, slide and turn to evade obstacles and collect coins to unlock achievements, power-ups, utilities, characters and wallpapers (Wallpapers are not available on Android Version yet!). The story is simple: You’ve stolen an ancient artifact from a temple. Crazy Demon monkeys are chasing you and you have to run as far as you can. There are no levels or no checkpoints.
On my Fire the game looks beautiful (for it’s size and price). This is a fun game to play on a Tablet or on any supported device for that matter! It takes a lot of juice though. Just playing it for 3 hours brought my Fire’s battery charge level to 57% from 92%.
I think I’m going to keep this game around for sometime. There is only so much one can play Angry Birds you know
Reviews from Community :
The game’s getting great reviews from Android users despite few glitches in the game.
Reviews on Google Play Store (at the time of this writing).
Reddit Thread : http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/rffyu/temple_run_is_out/
Issues :
Since the launch of the game yesterday various users are experiencing different issues with the game. Major one being that it’s not coming up in search results when you search it in Google Play Store. Frequent crashes and lag is another problem. Even in my Kindle Fire it crashes whenever I tap “Run Again” after loosing a run and it seems I’m not the only one who has this issue 
. On some devices including SGSII-i9100G and RAZR-MAXX it doesn’t even work!
Verdict:
Since the game is just in version 1.0 and is just launched yesterday I hope the glitches will be solved soon enough. This is a good game which can provide casual gamers hours of fun. My Own Rating : 4.6/5. So go, download and play! 