Open View

A stage for inner voices, opinions, ideas and experiences

Showing posts with label GLOSS News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GLOSS News. Show all posts

GLOSS Website and Geek Speak

Posted by Harish at Wednesday, July 23, 2008
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Finally I am coming online after two weeks because of the poor wifi connectivity in my hostel. Anyways, in these two weeks, a lot has happened in GLOSS. The first is GLOSS has a new website which is linked to the SASTRA website! The site was developed by Abhishek and has many cool features like Forum, scrapbook, add friends, blogs and many more!!! One more sneak peek about the site is that we will have a blogger in the site who has won even an award from the President of India for blogging!!! The site will be inaugrated by the Dean, Mr. Vaidysubramaniam very soon. I will post the link here after it is inaugrated. The other one is Geek Speak.

Geek Speak is the show of GLOSS in my college radio 7Cube. It is hosted by Abhishek with Vikas and myself helping him with the show. The show will be on air every Tuesday from 8:30 PM to 10:30 PM. Today in the show we had loads of fun. Many dedications started pouring and we gave away some cool facts on technology. We announced a contest too and a first year won it. We asked two questions and she answered both of them. She wins an OpenSolaris tee shirt which will be presented to her soon in the next GLOSS session for first years. Her name is Akshaya and she is from my branch (ICT!!! :-)).

If you are in SASTRA open up VLC Media Player every Tuesday evening by 8:30 and Press Ctrl-N. Now enter the address http://172.16.20.201:1234 and tune in to Geek Speak!


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GLOSS Kicks Off For First Years!!!

Posted by Harish at Sunday, July 13, 2008
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Finally, yesterday GLOSS was inaugrated for first years. By morning 10, the event started in TIFAC CORE. Sanjeev designed a registration site for the first years and hosted it on the wifi. Some 108 students registered for it and there were a good mix from almost every branch. Abhishek, as usual, welcomed the freshers and gave a talk on OpenSource. The video which Guru Prasad made was also screened. I will post lots of pictures and the video also in my next blog. The session was a bit long (3 hours :-)) but many first years enjoyed it. There were a lot of funny happenings during the last session when they asked questions to Abhishek. That's it for now. Bye guys!!!

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First Virtual Conference in SASTRA!!!

Posted by Harish at Friday, July 11, 2008
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Finally we did it!!! The first virtual world conference in SASTRA was successfully held this Wednesday! The conference started at TIFAC for boys and in Nirman for girls. We logged into the two avatars of Abhishek and we sat in the very first row of the Andromada Theatre at Sun Microsystems Islan (SL). They tried out some new technology this time it seems and it failed badly resulting in an audio failure. So we shifted to a text chat. After the initial chat by the big guns we started asking questions. The session was very interactive and we learned a lot of cool stuff. The session got over by 9:00 and we planned to roam around in the virtual world for some more time. When we were roaming around we saw Jonathan Schwartz!!! He just logged in and left somewhere so we couldn't talk to him. Then we went to IBM office and some Desi club and a Hanuman temple too. Overall, it was a cool experience in the virtual world for all of us :-)

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Firefox record and GLOSS for First Years

Posted by Harish at Thursday, July 3, 2008
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Finally it's official now, Firefox 3 has made the Guinness World record for the maximum number of downloads by any software in 24 hours. It was an amazing count of 8,002,530 downloads worldwide which made this record possible. That settles the first two words of the title. As for the remaining words, read further. GLOSS will be launched for first years on 12th of July 2008. Unlike our plan on 5th, we decided to give them some time for settling and also, our planned chief guests have some problems with coming here. So, on Saturday the 12th of July, we will start the GLOSS sessions for first years at JVC. Since Dwarakanath is the new campus ambassador and Abhishek has become the coordinator, he is no more in the organising team of GLOSS. So, we guys and Dwarakanath have to take care of organising the events. Already the preperations have started. I will keep you guys updated about the latest happenings. Bye for now!

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GLOSS Inaugration and Cluster Computing

Posted by Harish at Tuesday, July 1, 2008
2 Comments

Yesterday evening, we inaugrated GLOSS for this semester with a session on Cluster Computing by Abhishek. In this blog, I m going to explain in detail the concepts of Cluster Computing to my knowledge.so Im am not going to write much about the session but I will definitely tell something cool about the session. screened a movie in the session! What's special about the movie is that its an Open Movie! Yes, we at GLOSS seek out for such wonderful products. The movie was completely rendered using the Super Computer service offered by Sun Microsystems through http://www.network.com. Also, this movie was completely created using an open source animation software named Blender. I will try to upload the video here as soon as I can. Enough of the general talk, lets get down to business and learn about Cluster Computing shall we?

Cluster Computing and High Availability

Consider yourself to be running a big service provider like GOOGLE or Microsoft. You have your server running at your office, suddenly one day, the server crashes for unknown reason or some natural disaster strikes and your office gets demolished (sorry for being so optimistic! :-P). Your services like mail, chat video sharing will stop suddenly and users will not be able to access it until you correct the problem. This may take a very long time but your users cannot wait so long. They will migrate to some other service provider and your business will end up craching down hill. Here is a scenario. You have a server running some application connected to a storage device where the entire data of your serivces are stored. Now, if the connection between the server and the storage or the connection to the server is cut, imagine the kind of damage your business can suffer. This is where Cluster Computing comes in for the rescue. You have some servers spread across geographically running for your services. If disaster of any form strikes at any of these nodes, in cluster computing, the node fails over some other node. In plain English, the services running on that node will be copied to some other node and the service will continue running almost immediately. So the user will not know about the server crash and he will the service uninterrupted as usual. This powerful concept is called Cluster Computing. Most people confuse it with Grid Computing. In grid, you have more than one computer running as a single computer. Here you have individual computers running individually. If any node crashes, the service will be shifted to some other node. Lets get more technical in cluster computing.

How the Cluster is Formed and Maintained?

Clusters are formed by using some cluster creating tools like OHAC, by writing stuff called agents and distributing your servers. Each node in a cluster gives out some signals similar to hearbeats. So, they are named Heartbeats. The nodes and the cluster tool identifies the other nodes in the cluster by this heartbeat. If a node fails to give out heartbeats, it is considered to have been dead and its services are shifted to some other node.

Components of a Cluster

Now that you know how a cluster works, lets look deeper into them and understand the different components that are essential for a cluster to work.

1. Quorum : You need a minimum of n/2 +1 nodes for a cluster to work.

2. Cluster Infrastructure : The cluster infrastructure is the software which is used to run the cluster like OHAC and also the servers and the storage devices which are all interconnected. Now, the cluster software decides to which node the service running should fail on in case of a disaster.

3. Agents : Usually, we use applications which we use are not meant to be run on multiple computers in the same time. For instance, your real player is not meant for a multi computer usage. These agents take care of this problem and make such software run on multiple computers. These programs act as a communication bridge between the cluster infrastructure and the service. In case of a disaster, they pick up certain parameters from the service application and pass it to the cluster infrastructure which will take care of the rest of the stuff.

4. Application : This is the service which is running on a server. Eg: Mail service. In case of a disaster, the cluster makes sure that this application keeps running safely for the user by failing over some other node.

A Special Case of Failure

Consider this case, your servers are running fine but then suddenly, the network cable for one of your node gets cut but the server which got isolated from your network can still access and write data to your storage device. We don't want this do we? So to tackle this problem, there was another concept introduced called Data Fencing. By data fencing, you can protect your storage devices to be accessed and changed only by the nodes in your cluster. This Data Fencing is a very big and interesting topic which will be dealt in some future session of GLOSS.

Getting OHAC

You can get the source code for OHAC here http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/haclusters/ohac/ Download it, build it and create your own clusters. When you start using OHAC, try to contribute to their project using the same link as above.

I have tried my best to explain the concept of Cluster Computing in a simple way and also I have explained only the most important components of this area. My advice is, not many people in this world are into cluster computing so its better to act fast and make your moves in this field.

My sincere thanks to

Kumar Abhishek (for the session on Cluster Computing and for giving me his presentation slides)
The Photography Wing of GLOSS (trust me, they have did a really good job this time)
and to you! (for reading through my blog :-))

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GLOSS Inaugration

Posted by Harish at Saturday, June 28, 2008
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Hi folks!!! Today, this is going to be a really small post as my SXDE download is about to be completed and I am dying to try it :-) As I said already, GLOSS DTSi is scheduled for the 5th of July only but we thought of inaugrating GLOSS for the seniors even before that day (talk about the power of becoming a senior :-)). So, we have planned to have the inaugration day after tomorrow itself! That's right, on June 30th, GLOSS will be inaugrated for this year. With the aim to become the biggest contiributor to the open source community in India, we are inaugrating GLOSS amidst the presence of the deans of SASTRA and also, Abhishek will be discussing OHAC for this session. We have lots of plans to organise the event and this time, we are planning to try out the new videography team of GLOSS! If things are successful with the new team, GLOSS can release video newsletters, video tutorials, documentaries and many more frequently. I will post many pictures of the event and if possible some videos too here on Monday evening. Till then...bye!!!

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Digital Twin Spark Ignition (DTS-i) For GLOSS This Semester!!!

Posted by Harish at Friday, June 20, 2008
2 Comments

You may be wondering at the title. Let me explain you why. Since all the activities and events in GLOSS are based on digital, we start it with 'Digital'. By now you would have guessed why 'Twin Spark Ignition' came in. That's right, we have two great events to start this semester for GLOSS with a Kaboom!!! Here are the events

July 5th, Saturday : GLOSS kicks off for first years

You may be wondering why this is very special. Read the list of chief guests attending this and you will search for some word more apt than 'very special' for the event.

The guests are: Ganesh Hiregoudar(chief co-ordiantor for Campus Ambassador programme in Asia Pacific, Sun Microsystems), Anil Gulecha (Campus Ambassador, Sun Microsystems) and Angad Singh (Campus Ambassador JIIT, Sun Microsystems)! Great guests na? Abhishek is talking with these guys for coming to the college for the event.


July 9th, Wednesday: Even bigger event

If you thought the first one was too good read this. This is the second event planned. Here is the notice forwarded by Abhishek.

Event: A Live OpenSolaris Chat in Second Life. People not familiar
with second life do not have attend with an avatar but can watch and
contribute via the web.

Goal: To educate, build awareness, gain adoption and answer questions
on
OpenSolaris

Audience: Community Members, Students, Web 2.0 developers and employees

*Date: July 9th - new date
*
Time: Early morning (7:30/8:00 am) so all geos can participate

Duration of Chat: 1 hour - 20 minutes of presenting/round table and
then
40 minutes for Q&A

*What will be discussed and who will be involved with the Chat:*

This discussion will give community members, students and all others
that join the chat an opportunity to ask questions regarding
OpenSolaris
and to hear about what direction OpenSolaris is heading.

Some Topics to discuss: (TBD)

OpenSolaris direction
OpenSolaris support
Contributions to respositories
Support Packages
Contributions to Community from Sun

*Potential Speakers: (TBD) 2 presenters and 2 additional experts for
Q&A
session*

Tim Cramer
Stephen Hahn
Glynn Foster
David Comay

What is more exciting is the members of GLOSS get to attend it!! As for people who don't know about Second Life, its like the Matrix. If you need more details, visit this site.

Now that's the way to kick off GLOSS in super style for this semester rite? Our GLOSS team members are already holding conferences to discuss plans for this kick off. Hope every thing turns out fine. I will keep you guys updated.

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GLOSS Newsletter is Out!!!

Posted by Harish at Friday, May 30, 2008
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Hi folks! Finally our exams are over and we Coronas went back to our homes for short trips and some of us are back to college for doing the certificate course. We couldn't make a very good online presence till now but that doesn't mean that we Coronas don't work. We worked on this newsletter with very strict deadlines and lots and lots of hard work from every Corona. Creating the newsletter showed me an example of how good our team is and how well we can work in together. All the members who were a part of creating this newsletter did their very best and that too in the given very short intervals of time. Sanjeev and Abhilash together wrote an article, Vikas and Abhishek complied the events list, plenty of members contributed to the finer details of the newsletter and I took care of the designing part. The newsletter is circulated to over 80 countries! Now that's something which every Corona can be proud of! The newsletter was appreciated personally by many of the big guns in Sun like Ganesh. Overall, with the guidance of Abhishek, the newsletter was created and released in the exact timing we wanted it to be.
You can get a copy of it here
http://www.mediafire.com/?jlnmx1zdztz
Read it and send me your reviews about it. Also, if you want to make a contribution to the next edition of OpenView, feel free to drop me a mail about it.

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GLOSS Networking Site is Here!!!

Posted by Harish at Saturday, May 17, 2008
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Finally it's here!!! The GLOSS Networking site is finally open to public now!! It's super cool and is like adding one more scoop of ice-cream of cool features on top of orkut. Abhishek created this site from ning.com. He has been working on it for a couple of days and he has did an amazing job with it.

Here are some of the cool features of it:
Share pictures and videos with some visibility options
Have your own blog
Create your profile
Socialize by adding friends
Leave a comment to your friends which is like scrapping someone
Apply some cool themes to your profile
Have your own GLOSS badge like the one on the left :-)
Create and join groups
Participate in a discussion forum
and much more

The new site is really amazing and super cool. I will help us to socialize better and also help our "international" fans to get involved with the members of GLOSS easily. Abhishek has also told us that he will not be closing the GOOGLE GLOSS Group so that GLOSS members can flame war in two places :-)

Here is the link to the site

http://glossnetwork.ning.com

Do join the site and we'll have loads of fun there :-D

Btw, my exams aren't over yet. I ll have one more week of this ordeal :-(. Bye for now...

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Open Solaris Birthday Celebrations

Posted by Harish at Wednesday, May 7, 2008
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Yesterday OpenSolaris was released worldwide finally!!! We at GLOSS look at OpenSolaris as a member of our family. Since a new member was born yesterday, we decided to celebrate the release as its birthday. The function started at 12.30 in the Krishna Canteen after Abhishek finished his interviews for the members who wanted to be a part of the Development Wing of GLOSS.
Vikas, Sanjeev, VK, Prabu and I went there by 10.00 to start decorating the place for the birthday celebration. We had loads of fun there. Pasting balloons, decorative papers, hangings, 'I Love OpenSolaris' posters and a couple of more hand made posters all over the place. I ll post the pictures of the event soon after my exams are over.
It was 12.30 and the juice section of the canteen was full of GLOSS members and other OpenSolaris enthusiasts. The party started with a small speech by Abhishek as usual. He spoke about OpenSolaris for some time. Then he cut the 6kg cake we ordered for the party. And there were some fun events too with two people winnning OpenSolaris tee shirts. What's a party without food rite? So after the cake pieces were distributed to everyone in the canteen GLOSS sponsored a Rs.30 coupon for everyone who attended the party.
We had a good lunch and came back to our hostel with a determination to become the largest OpenSolaris community in the world before the next release of the OS which is a year later.
We have made a small video from the pictures taken during the party. It was sent to the important people in the OpenSolaris community around the world. We will be making a better video soon after our exams are over. I ll post that video too here with some pictures of the party.

Till my exams are over bye everyone!

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Video Sharing Site for GLOSS

Posted by Harish at Friday, May 2, 2008
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Thanks to startyourtube.com, GLOSS now has its own video sharing space! You may wonder why GLOSS needs a video sharing site while we already have a profile in you tube and also we are going to get a new website ready?(It's true folks, we will be having a site exclusively for GLOSS soon!) Here is the answer. In start your tube, you can make your webspace similar to blogspot powered by youtube. In simpler terms, you can invite people to join you and they create their blogs under your space and start posting.

Organize Stuff
The community is growing everyday and the members have a good amount of techy videos with them which they wish to share. Also, GLOSS releases some videos of its seminars from time to time. So, when all of these can be put under a common heading, it will be very organized and also easy to find resources related to GLOSS and open source technologies.

For the Film Makers Out There
There are some developing teams in SASTRA who want to make really good films for GLOSS. So, we give them a good platform with a very good visibility to screen their videos and make their way into the promotion wing of GLOSS (which will also have a blog here :-) ).

Where This is Headed
With this site started, many members who hate to type (maybe that's why they remain inactive in the group :-)) or like to say things through videos are expected to create their blogs here. The best videos, will be selected and they will be posted in the GLOSS website which will be created in the near future. So, this site will remain even after the creation of the GLOSS website as a medium of sharing videos for the members.

Some Important Links
GLOSS Video Sharing Website: http://www.gloss.startyourtube.com
Start Your Tube: http://www.startyourtube.com
My Blog in start your tube: http://www.harish.gloss.startyourtube.com

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Open Solaris B'Day

Posted by Harish at Tuesday, April 29, 2008
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Yes folks! Open Solaris final version is going to get released this May 5th world wide at Sun's Head Office. This is a very special occasion for every open source enthusiast. People who are following it right from its DP releases are waiting for this moment. We at SASTRA love Open Solaris very much that we feel like it's our own child. We feel that a new baby is going to be born in our family on May 5. So we have planned to celebrate it in a big way by having a huge birthday party by cutting a cake and distributing sweets! Open Solaris is very special for every Corona ( that's how every GLOSS member is called :-)) and this occasion is even more special for us. May Open Solaris, be the best OS on the planet when it is born this May.
As for the celebration, we'll be doing it only on 6th as 6th in India is 5th in USA where it is born. I request all of you to have blast on May 5 for Open Solaris and also come and join me and my GLOSS team for own house OS :-)
I will post the photos of the celebration here in Open View and if possible I ll add some videos also.

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GLOSS in Wikipedia

Posted by Harish at Sunday, April 20, 2008
0 Comments

When a community grows, it is heard in its locality. When a part of it is in the Internet, it is heard worldwide. One of the primitive methods used to make it to be heard worldwide is to create groups of the community in popular sites like GOOGLE, Yahoo and Orkut. Some people even blog about it. As for GLOSS, we have the blog here in Sun's website.
The next thing people do is to create a Wiki page on it. This is exactly what I did today. Yes, you read it correctly, GLOSS is now in Wikipedia. Here is the URL to the blog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLOSS_at_SASTRA

Feel free to visit the page and contribute to it also.

PS: I forgot to tell this, the GLOSS page at Wiki doesn't have the logo on it. So, some one please be kind enough to upload the GLOSS logo to it.

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Newsletter for GLOSS

Posted by Harish at Saturday, April 19, 2008
0 Comments

Today we were discussing about the future of GLOSS. Eventually, we
decided to create a newsletter for GLOSS and circulate it in over 80
countries. The name of it is ' Open View '. That's right, it's the
same name as this blog.
So people, wait for a week and you can read the newsletter here.

--
Thanks and Regards,

Harish.R.

Don't ask for a light load, but rather ask for a strong back.

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GLOSS

Posted by Harish at Friday, April 18, 2008
1 Comments

Let me tell you about GLOSS. GLOSS a community in my college established with the view of learning and contributing to open source technology. Our goal was to become the largest contributor in India. Over a period of time, GLOSS has evolved in the college to a great extent in creating awareness among students to learn open source technologies and has grown into a family rather than a community with everyone having a sense of belongingness in the group. GLOSS is supported by Sun Microsystems directly as of now.

We have taken up some projects in open source too. I ll write more about out projects and keep this blog updated with the latest happenings in GLOSS and also my views on some open source technologies.

Btw, this is the logo for GLOSS. I designed it. Pretty cool na? Everytime I look at it in the Sun website or on any notice or certificate , I feel very proud.

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