Today S1S2 CSE batch jointly had planned to have a Christmas and Eid celebration at 12.45PM. We have invited all our teachers and other staffs from the CSE department. Due to the function by MATRICS, we are advised to stop our function by 1PM. Being our first function and due to the lack of time, we couldn’t work it out better as we thought. Head of CSE Department Anil sir introduced all the teachers to us. Later we presented Anzab sir, who took Basic Electrical for us with a momentum as he was leaving the college.

The function of MATRICS(MES Association for Technical Research In Computer Science), the association of CSE department in MES started by about 2PM. There were speeches by Principal, Vice Principal, Head of the department and the former Head of the department. The first ever magazine by MATRICS, “THE TECHNIK” was also inaugurated. There was a flash presentation about the contents of the magazine too.

In the last, we had an interactive session on one of my favorite topic “Free Software” with the technical team from focuz Infotech, Kochi led by Hiran Venugopal. It was really informative and helped to clear few of my doubts.

Yesterday, I installed Anjuta IDE in Debian. But, I couldn’t compile the programs properly. I was getting an error that header file is missing. Same was the case with GCC too. So, I asked my sirs about it. They too don’t have any idea about that. Today, after spending more than an hour with it, I found out the error. The libraries which contain the header files needed for compiling programs were not installed properly and only the header files needed for the working of OS were present. After installing it from the Debian DVD, everything was ok.

Also, today we were taken to the computer lab in the college for the first time. The lab had all the systems installed with RedHat enterprise edition. But, the feedback I got from my classmates about the Linux was not impressive. They were asking that all these can be done with Windows too, then why Linux? Hope, we could change this way of thinking through our workshop.

I heard a lot about Compiz from Shyam, Priyan and others, but couldn’t install it properly. Today, as Aadithyan said, I installed 3ddesktop from the Debian DVD. It worked, but was not much impressive. When I called Shyam, he said that 3ddesktop was a development stage of Compiz and Compiz is really great. So, I decided to give it a try once more. After installing Compiz and editing the xorg.conf file, I restarted the system and came across the error with loading GDM. But this time, I was able figure out the problem, which was with xorg.conf and corrected it.

When I ran Compiz, it was really amazing. with the Ctrl + Alt + combinations, I could get a 3D view of the workspaces, when I drag a window to the edge of the screen, it will come to the next workspace, Alt + Tab combination giving real time screen shots of programs and much more. It also provides effects while dragging or moving windows. I wonder how the creators managed to have this sophisticated thing in size even less than 500KB!

Though its cool, I encountered a few bugs. I think its because of the low memory(256MB) I have. I couldn’t watch videos while Compiz is running. The video screen goes black and only the sound will be there. Also, sometimes, the title bar disappears and the workspace switcher malfunctions. I have a little old version with me. So, these must have been corrected by now. Waiting for the permission of parents to activate GPRS so that I could download the newer version.

Anyway, Compiz is really GREAT!!!

Here in Kerala, Airtel has introduced recharge coupons of RS 2.00 with the caption “Randil oru Gundu”. It is somewhat like trying luck. Every coupon will carry a gift, starting from a single AirTel to AirTel call to even 1 year validity. Due to the amazement, I bought 5 coupons. In total, I got 6 days extra validity, 1 minute any Local mobile call, 2 minutes AirTel to AirTel and 1 SMS. Its not so bad for RS 10, I think.

Today, the written exams for first series came to an end. Among the 8 subjects, Maths II and Physics were a bit tough for me. Now only Engineering graphics is left and heard that it will be conducted after the Christmas holidays. Everyone is saying that its better to have series exams everyday so that there won’t be any homeworks…!