eKalappai OSS source code released under GPL v3 licence

I have released the source files for the new eKalappai under GPL V3 license. Its available at this location:
http://code.google.com/p/ekalappai/source/browse/

After spending a long time researching and learning in the net I have managed to bring out this opensource version of our popular ekalappai software. I request intrested C++ programmers to play with this code & give feedback. Also you are welcome to join the project and contribute in whatever way(coding, testing, documentation, writing about the project and spread word) possible.

My primary objective was not to use any commercial paid compilers. Also I wanted this code to be as portable as possible so that in future we can get this working in other operating systems. The current working ekalappai is created using Qt(opensource) & VC++ express (this is a free version provided by Microsoft).

It will be possible to remove VC++ express dependency by creating the required dll using Qt. But I havent figured this yet. Hope to do that in future.

I will write a detailed developer documentation on building ekalappai using the code soon. Keep watching the ekalappai project page http://code.google.com/p/ekalappai for updates. Also join our discussions in our mailing list (FreeTamilComputing list).

Google supports tamil now :)

Its great to know google now supports tamil language.
More details here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/google-in-tamil.html

Steps to deploy redmine application in ubuntu 8.04 using mod_rails(passenger).

Redmine is my favourite project management tool written in ruby on rails. Recently I deployed this i a Ubuntu 8.04 machine using Apache2 + mod_rails. Mod_rails is a apache module which has made rails deployment as easy as php deployment. You can find more details about mod_rails here: http://www.modrails.com
I was able to install mod_rails and deploy redmine after doing some googling and trial & Errors

Here are the steps for deploying redmine using modrails in ubuntu 8.04:

1. Intalled Ruby language, build essential(to build gems later) and related dependent components using apt-get.

$ sudo apt-get install ruby irb ri rdoc ruby1.8-dev libzlib-ruby libyaml-ruby libreadline-ruby libncurses-ruby libcurses-ruby libruby libruby-extras libfcgi-ruby1.8 build-essential libopenssl-ruby libdbm-ruby libdbi-ruby libdbd-sqlite3-ruby sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev libsqlite3-ruby libxml-ruby libxml2-dev


2. Downloaded ruby gems:
$ wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/38646/rubygems-1.2.0.tgz

3. untared the rubygems-1.2.0.tgz package and installed rubygems.
$ tar -xvf rubygems-1.2.0.tgz
$ cd rubygems-1.2.0/
$ ruby setup.rb
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem (use this if /usr/bin/gem link is not created)

4. Installed rails version 2.0.2 using gems. As of now Redmine works only on rails version 2.0.2 (it wont work in rails 2.1.x)
$ gem install rails --version 2.0.2

5. Install mod_rails(passenger). mod_rails is called as Phusion Passenger and the gem package name is passenger. Lets refer to it as passenger hereafter.
Mod_rails requires apache2-threaded-dev apache module to be installed.
$ apt-get install apache2-threaded-dev

$ gem install passenger

6. Install passenger as apache module
$ passenger-install-apache2-module


7.Deploy redmine application
Download redmine and copy redmine folder inside web folders /var/www/
else there will be problem in showing css files and images.
redmine should be in this folder /var/www/redmine
create the database and modify the config files as mentioned in the redmine install document.

8.Apache2 configuration changes:
$ cd /etc/apache2/sites-available/
$ sudo mv default default.bkp

Create a new default file with the following contents.
------------------------------------------------
NameVirtualHost *



ServerName
ServerAlias

DocumentRoot /var/www/redmine/public


Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all


ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

LogLevel warn

CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
ServerSignature On


-----------------------------------------------------------------


9. Restart apache
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart


10. Browse http://localhost , redmine should show up in the browser.

Reference:
http://www.rubyhead.com/2008/04/25/installing-ruby-rails-on-ubuntu-804-hardy-heron/

TamilNadu govt school textbooks available online

Got to know this news from Tamilulagam discussion list.

Tamil Nadu Government has published its school texts books online(its has been mentioned as for viewing purpose only).
Its available at this URL: http://www.textbooksonline.tn.nic.in/

It might be helpful in many ways to students and parents(who are computer savvy). And more importantly it provides open access to the content thats being taught in Tamil Nadu schools.

I dont think any other state in India has done this yet.

Good move by Tamil Nadu Govt.

Verdict within 110 hrs of commiting crime in India!

Gone are the days in India where courts deliver judgement after ages...

A court in Namakkal (my native place), India has delivered verdict in a murder case within 110 hours of the crime.

Tamil bloggers meet at Pondicherry

Last week I had a chance to attend tamil bloggers workshop in pondicherry. The workshop was organised by pondicherry tamil bloggers

This workshop is a continuation of a series of workshops organized by tamil bloggers in various parts of tamilnadu recently.

About 200 members participated in this workshop. Participants were introduced to technical details of creating and maintaining their blogs in tamil language. Its well organized and there were lot of publicity done. Pondicherry Legislative Assembly speaker and Bharathidasan University vice chancellor are some of the noted figures who participated in this workshop.

I took a session on using ekalappai - tamil typing software for windows.

You can the pictures taken in the workshop:
http://tamilveli-news.blogspot.com/

This shows that tamil bloggers are growing in numbers and getting organized.
In this bloggers meet, some of us decided to take tamil computing workshops to next step. Thus "Project Tamil Ready" was born. More details about project tamil ready is in chella's blog.

My assumption is, there are roughly 3000 tamil blogs which is the highest in any Indian language. Even in hindi there are roughly only about 1000 blogs (if anybody else have a disputing figure please feel free to comment).

Tamils Protest in Malaysia

I have lived in Malaysia for about 4 years and have known the problems faced by the tamil community.

I watched with heavy heart some of the videos in the net. The way the peaceful protest were handled by Malaysian authorities is very bad. The world leaders should condemn this.


Ethnic Indians protest in Malaysia



Sucking tear gas and laced-water

How to increase the VMWare (preallocated) disk space.

I have started using ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) recently. But for some of our office work, I needed older version of ubuntu(6.06). And for that I used VMWare.

Initially I allocated 6GB space to ubuntu 6.06 virtual machine, which I found that is not sufficient for my work. So decided to increase it to 10GB. And after some search in google found a way to increase VMWare disks spaces. Following blog entry is to record the steps which I followed and it might be useful for others also.

I initially tried to increase ubuntu6.06 virtual machine disk size using the following commands:
$cd /var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/Ubuntu6.04
$vmware-vdiskmanager -x 10Gb Ubuntu6.04.vmdk

It gave the following errors:
Using log file /tmp/vmware-msubramanian/vdiskmanager.log
This disk is part of a snapshot chain in '/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/Ubuntu6.04/Ubuntu6.04.vmx'.
The selected operation can only be executed on a disk with no snapshots.

I found I have snapshots of ubuntu6.06 vmware disk.

Used the following method to remove the snapshots:
In the VMWare menu, used the Remove Snapshot option,
VM --> Remove Snapshot .. ( This is done while the Virtual machine is switched off)

Again tried using vmware-vdiskmanager it worked.

$vmware-vdiskmanager -x 10Gb Ubuntu6.04.vmdk
Using log file /tmp/vmware-msubramanian/vdiskmanager.log
Grow: 100% done.
The old geometry C/H/S of the disk is: 783/255/63
The new geometry C/H/S of the disk is: 1305/255/63
Disk expansion completed successfully.

WARNING: If the virtual disk is partitioned, you must use a third-party
utility in the virtual machine to expand the size of the
partitions. For more information, see:
http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1647
$

Tamil blogging community gets media coverage.

Oflate the number of bloggers who write in tamil language have grown considerably. I assume there could be more than 1000 active tamil blogs currently.
tamilblogs.com aggregator(which I maintain) aggregates content from about 650 tamilblogs.

Recently tamil bloggers held a get together in chennai. And it was covered by popular tamil TV channel Makkal TV. This TV show can be seen in YouTube here. This sort of media coverage for a bloggers get together is a good sign. This will help to get attention of the public towards blogging. And this will lead to increase in the number of tamil bloggers.

I would love to see a strong & responsible tamil blogging community which will act as an alternate media.

tamilblogs opensourced!

I have been maintaining http://tamilblogs.com for sometime. This is a blogs aggregator which aggregates over 650 blogs written in my native language tamil . Initially I created tamilblogs.com using an opensource blogs aggregatory - gregarius . Later due to performance issues I switched to another opensource blogs aggregator called lilina.

Later I added mysql database support to tamilblogs using code from another similar opensource project lylina. Some of my tamil blogger friends have requested me for the complete sourcecode of the software used in tamilblogs. After few more such requests I thought opensourcing this tamilblogs software would be helpful to many.

Thus was born the new blogs aggregator by name tamilblogs here: http://code.google.com/p/tamilblogs/

Right now one of blogger masivakumar has joined me in this project. I hope many more will join and enhance this project.

Tamil Song Search

Recently thro one of my friend I got to know about this website: http://www.s-anand.net/tamil
Its a wonderful service. Using this we can search for a particular song and start hearing it. The search can be made based on the song name or movie name.

For example, I am great fan of late MGR's songs. When I typed MGR in the search bar, it brought me some of the MGR's songs as below.

There are thousands of tamil songs around, its really very useful software.

I wonder why no tamil techie has thought about this earlier (including me :) ) !

Great work! Thanks a lot Anand for creating this.

TamilKey 0.3 (Thamizh Visai) released.

TamilKey or ThamizhVisai(as its called in tamil) is an extension for typing tamil inside firefox,thunderbird & chatzilla. Its one of the projects initiated and being maintained by a group tamil freesoftware volunteers under thamizha.com.

Tamilkey version 0.3 was released on 12 Dec 2006 and release anouncement was made by our team member Gopi in freetamilcomputing list.

This release has following new features:
1. Support for Bamini and Typewriter keyboard layouts.
Bamini keyboard is popular among Srilankan Tamils and Typewriter keyboard is popular among the Tamil Nadu tamils.

2. User Shortcut option - Now users can set their own shortcuts for various keyboard settings and for switching from english to tamil typing.

3. And also many bugs were fixed in this release.

Almost all the development work related to this version 0.3 was done by Gopi. And also Freetamilcomputing list members Ravi, Thi.Va., Sethu contributed to this release greatly by testing this release and finding bugs.

This can be downloaded from the following locations:
http://tamilkey.mozdev.org/installation.html
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2994/

My home town in news!

Recently my home town Namakkal - became first town in India to get ISO 14001 certification. I am really proud about this.
http://www.hindu.com/mag/2006/04/09/stories/2006040900210400.htm

I hope other cities in India too follow Namakkal and become clean and efficiently managed cities.

'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin Killed

Just saw this news in BBC site http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5311298.stm
I used to watch with awe Steve Irwin's wildlife programs in TV. I feel sad about his sudden death.

SumatraPDF viewer - A light weight PDF reader

In my windows machine, I havent installed any PDF reader since I was not using windows system often. Yesterday I came across a light weight PDF viewer for windows by name Sumatra PDF viewer. http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/

I liked it very much for the following reasons:
1. Its light weight compared to Adobe Acrobat reader.
2. It serves its purpose of showing the pdf files cleanly.
3. Its a freesoftware .

I have installed it and started using it as my primary and only PDF viewer.

Of cource it has few sortcomings too. Right now it doesnt have printing support. But I hope soon these features will be available since its a freesoftware. And by nature freesoftwares evolves thro community participation

Updated tamil firerfox extensions

Last week I updated two of my firefox extensions.
1. Tamil language extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2989/ )
I had created a tamil language extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/512/) that works only on version 1.0.x . Even though I have updated this tamil extension to work in version 1.5 some time back, but could find time to updated the extension in addons.mozilla.org only last week.

2. Tamilkey extension:
Tamilkey is a utility to type tamil in firefox/thunderbird/chatzilla directly. Its now available at https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2994/
It was created by myself and released on Pongal day (14-01-2006) .
Later voice of wings joined and enhanced the utility by completely rewriting the code.

Tamilkey project website URL: http://tamilkey.mozdev.org

Chennai in google earth

Google has released a new version (release 4 beta) of their google earth yesterday. Details of this release is here: http://earth.google.com/earth4.html

I am happy about this release for two reasons:
1. Google earth is available for Linux machines. So now I am able to install google earth in my linux laptop.
2. Google earth features my favorite place chennai (its also my home state capital). Its now possible to see more details(street level details) of chennai. Previously google earth used to show in detail only Bangalore, New Delhi, Bombay & Hydrabad cities in India. For some unknown reason chennai was left out by google. I am happy that atleast now google earth shows chennai in detail.

Following screen shot shows chennai's famous Anna Flyover in google earth.

A tamil transliteration pluggin for Gaim

Gaim is a popular opensource IM utility. I use Gaim to communicate with my friends using various protocols like Yahoo/MSN/IRC etc. It works both in Linux & Windows (also in BSD, MacOS X )

For typing tamil in any windows program, I use a keyboard driver software by name ekalappai (which is also created by me). But somehow ekalappai cannot be used with Gaim. It simply does not work. So far no time to debug this. So whenever I use Gaim in windows I type tamil text in notepad then copy & paste in Gaim and send it.

Now there is a solution to this problem. Anna University student Varun has created a plugin for Gaim transliterate english text typed in gaim message window to tamil.

You can read about this plugin in Varun's blog.

Congrats Varun !

Tamilkey - a firefox extension to type tamil.

I am happy to announce the release of tamilkey firefox extension on this Pongal day.

Using tamilkey firefox extension firefox users will be able to type tamil without need for any external programs like ekalappai.
Currently tamilnet99 and Anjal keyboard layouts are supported by tamilkey. I am planning to add more keyboard layouts in future.
Tamilkey can be downloaded from http://tamilkey.mozdev.org

An Online Tamil Keyboard to type tamil from anywhere...

I have often found myself unable to write tamil from cyber cafes. Many cybercafes dont have tamil input software installed in their computers. To address this problem i wrote a javascript utility for typping tamil and have hosted in my developer.thamizha.com site.

I have named it as Online Tamil Keyboard. URL for Online Tamil Keyboard : http://developer.thamizha.com/tamilkey.html

As of now I have given option for two keyboard layouts
1. Anjal layout - This is most popular keyboard among tamils who havent learned Tamil typewriter or Tamilnet99 keyboards.

2. Tamilnet99 keyboard layout - This is the keyboard recognised by Tamil Nadu Government. Using this keyboard we can type tamil very fast. I personally use this.

I plan to add Bamini keyboard (which is popular among Srilankan Tamils) and TamilTypewriter layout (which is popular among those who have learned Tamil Typewriter) in future.

And this only works in Firefox browser as of now. I am trying to figure out a way to make it work in Internet Explorer (I would greatly appreciate if any one helped me on this ).

I hope this Online Tamil Keyboard page would be helpful in some way to Tamil users :)