Learning Joomla

There are thousands of guys out there who are working with Joomla.

I wanted to learn Joomla. So I set up Joomla on a domain. Read a tutorial for 6 hours and went about setting up the site.

The Joomla default setup gives the a few sample articles, menus, themes etc. which is user is free to modify and experiment.

I deleted the default Joomla articles, menus etc. to set up my own and now it looks like the thing has crashed. Its giving me a 404 for a component that is not found. I have to re-install the thing now

Webserver on Home PC

I setup my home PC to be a webserver based on the instructions given in the following articles.

http://www.thinkdigit.com/details.php?article_id=1061

Everything seems to be working fine. I’ll need to test this tomorrow from a PC outside my home.

Running two wordpress blogs on the same domain

Today I tried to run two wordpress blogs from the same domain name.
It is entirely possible and works like a charm.

The following are the steps to be used:

1. Download the latest version of WordPress.
2. Unzip the the WordPress files to a folder.
3. Make a second copy of this folder
4. Name the copies of the folder as say blog1 & blog2
5. In each of these folders you will need to create wp-config.php file.
6. To create this you need to edit the wp-config-sample.php file
7. The following items shown are to be edited:

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere‘);    // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere’);     // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);    // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

8. To edit the above you will need to first create your databases.
9. Create two different MySQL databases one for each blog in your domain. I’m assuming you have MySQL/PHP on Linux hosting. You will need to use the control panel provided by your web hosting service to create these databases.
10. Note down the parameters with which you set up the database and fill up the wp-config.php file suitably.
11. Upload the blog1 & blog2 folders to your domain to sit at http://www.yoursite.com/blog1 & http://www.yoursite.com/blog1
12. To setup the first blog start with http://www.yoursite.com/blog1/readme.html and follow the standard WordPress install procedure.
13. To setup the second blog start with
http://www.yoursite.com/blog2/readme.html and follow the standard
WordPress install procedure.
14. Now you will have two different wordpress installations, two different databases and two different blogs.
15. The first blog will be at http://www.yoursite.com/blog1 and the second one at http://www.yoursite.com/blog2.

Have fun with your blogs.

Getting on to the internet

Today I purchased a domain name and some space on a webhosting server.
Now I can peacefully learn how to run the “real” wordpress.

First 5 mile run

Encouraged by yesterday’s effort to hit the one hour limit, today I ventured to run the first-non-stop-five-miles of my life.

Machine : LifeFitness 95Te

Warm up time : 5 mins
Warm up distance : 520 m
Running time : 55 mins
Distance covered : 5.1 miles
Inclination : 0 degrees
Cool down time : 5 mins
Cool down distance 460 m
Calories burnt : 635

After effects :
- A few people asking me if I was training for the half-marathon
- A ravenous appetite despite drinking a litre of water
- 1000 calorie breakfast
- 3 hours of sleep after breakfast

Where all does it still hurt?
- Calves
- Hamstrings
- Lower back

My first full hour of cardio

Date : 4-Oct-08
The machine : Lifefitness 95Xe Elliptical bike

Workout time : 63 mins
Distance covered : 12.0 kms
Height covered : 1698 m
Calories burnt : 578

Excellent cardio workout, and my knees didn’t even hurt.

How to turn on automatic logon in Windows XP

I note this down because I keep forgetting this.

Method 1:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. Type control userpasswords2, and then click OK.

Note : When users try to display help information in the User Accounts window in Windows XP Home Edition, the help information is not displayed. Additionally, users receive the following error message:
Cannot find the Drive:\Windows\System32\users.hlp Help file. Check to see that the file exists on your hard disk drive. If it does not exist, you must reinstall it.

3. Clear the “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer” check box, and then click Apply.

4. In the Automatically Log On window, type the password in the Password box, and then retype the password in the Confirm Password box.

5. Click OK to close the Automatically Log On window, and then click OK to close the User Accounts window.

Method 2:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

2. Locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

3. Using your account name and password, double-click the DefaultUserName entry, type your user name, and then click OK.

4. Double-click the DefaultPassword entry, type your password under the value data box, and then click OK.

If there is no DefaultPassword value, create the value. To do this, follow these steps:
a.    In Registry Editor, click Edit, click New, and then click String Value.
b.    Type DefaultPassword as the value name, and then press ENTER.
c.    Double-click the newly created key, and then type your password in the Value Data box.

If no DefaultPassword string is specified, Windows XP automatically changes the value of the AutoAdminLogon registry key from 1 (true) to 0 (false) to turn off the AutoAdminLogon feature.

5.    Double-click the AutoAdminLogon entry, type 1 in the Value Data box, and then click OK.

If there is no AutoAdminLogon entry, create the entry. To do this, follow these steps:
a.    In Registry Editor, click Edit, click New, and then click String Value.
b.    Type AutoAdminLogon as the value name, and then press ENTER.
c.    Double-click the newly created key, and then type 1 in the Value Data box.

6.    Quit Registry Editor.

7.    Click Start, click Restart, and then click OK.

See also http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315231

Running the extra mile

For the last couple of days I’d not been eating my veggies and had been binging excessively on rice, oils, fats and chicken. Of late I’ve been irregular to the gym and my weight is on the increasing trend.

I got a bit worried and today I decided that I had to burn some calories and I decided to stretch myself to run 4 miles instead of the 3 point something miles I usually run.

I warmed by walking with increasing speeds for 5 minutes. Then ran at 5 miles per hour for a couple of minutes and then I set to do 6.1 miles per hour and ran steadily for 40 minutes. The surplus of carbs I’d been seem to make it possible for me to run more. At the end of 40 minutes it looked like I could run for a few more minutes, but I decided not to stretch my luck too far and dropped to cool down for 3 minutes before I pressed the stop button.

In 48 minutes, I’d covered 7.2 kms and burnt 500 calories.

But that is a mere 6% of my target. I know I need to burn 7500 surplus calories before I drop the extra kilo that I gained in the last couple of weeks

Why the hell do people make desserts?

Open “My Computer” in “Windows Explorer”

enThese are a couple of old windows tricks that I find very useful. However, I manage to forget them every time I sit on a new PC or re-install windows and I thought it would be better to write it down.

Trick 1 : Always open “My Computer” In “Windows Explorer” Mode

Many users find My Computer on the desktop to be a convenient starting point for file operations. Clicking My Computer opens to a Task Pane view, which while gaining wider acceptance, has yet to come close to overtaking the more widely accepted and preferred Explorer view. To set the default so My Computer opens in Explorer view:

1. Launch My Computer > Tools > Folder Options… > File Types tab
2. Select the icon for (NONE) Folder and click the Advanced button
3. In the Actions List, select Explorer and click Set Default
4. Click OK and Close.

Trick 2 : Always op”Windows Explorer” in “My Computer” mode

1. Reach for the Shortcut to Windows Explorere Start > All Programs > Accesories > Windows Explorer.
2. Right-click the Explorer shortcut, select Properties, and in the Target line, add: “/n,/e,/select,c:\” to the end, so your Target line looks like this: “C:\WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE /n,/e,/select,c:\”
3. To Open Explorer in your other choice of folders use a format similar to: “explorer.exe /n, /e, c:\windows\favorites”

Eat your good fats

These are a couple of excellent articles on dietary fats by Harvard School of Public Health I read recently.

1. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-full-story/index.html

2. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-table/index.html

Rules for a planet

I’ve always believed in the truth of Agent Smith’s words:

“I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you aren’t actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we, are the cure.”

There is yet another equally powerful thought I came across in Yuva Anandan’s blog.

He points to an interesting comment on BBC – “…it’s not the planet we should be worrying about, it’s us.” In principle, I agree with the point of view that whatever damage human activity has caused to the planet till date is not major. With the race being supposedly being well past the peak oil, perhaps our ability to inflict further damage to the planet is limited. When the oil prices go up in the next few years, I would expect the food production to drop and people will dying of malnourishment. The population would drop and people would be forced again go back to living in fertile lands near water sources.

But for the human race, it has never been about the planet. It has always been about us. It is the same callous attitude that prevailed for centuries and still continues to do so. For once people should think about living symbiotically with the host planet. I wish there was a global political body that laid down rules for the planet. As a finite planet, the earth can only sustain finite human activity. What is that point? We will really need a careful scientific evaluation to find out. To me, ideally, politics should be simple human welfare. We need to have an association with this planet such that the damage we do is minimal and every person on this planet has a joyous experience of life on this planet. If it means limiting the population of the planet to a billion, then we should get there in the next 50 years with a clear plan.

Global politics, beyond regional interests, is the need of the day. Like in Starwars, we sure need a galactic republic and a Padme to decide for each planet.

Best time on a treadmill

After 15 years, today, I ran 5 kilometers. I was on a tread mill belt and not on terra firma – like I used to in “those days” when I ran before my Karate practice sessions.

I walked 500 m in 5 minutes to warm up. After 5 minutes, I started to jog at 8 kmph, slowly picked up speed in steps to 11 kmph in steps. As pain set in after 15 minutes of running, I reduced my speed in steps to 10 kmph, 9.5 kmph, and so on till I was running the last 500 m at 8.5 kmph. The whole thing lasted 32 minutes and 19 seconds and the belt had rolled 5000 m. When I crossed 5010 m, I hit the cool down button and dropped to 6.8 kmph. I cooled down by walking 420 m in 5 minutes.

It was the first time in years that I had run non-stop for 5 km. On earlier occasions where I’d run 5 km non-stop, I’d not timed myself. So this automatically became my personal best.

When I stepped off the treadmill, my calves where still beating to the rhythm of my heart. I could feel pain and I sat on the large steel frame of a rowing machine panting for a few minutes.

My instructor didn’t even seem to notice. He walked up to me and said, “Enough of rest. Now go pick the barbells, do four sets of 12 reps each and then do 3 sets with dumbells and wait for me”. When I hit the shower, it looked like another day at the gym. But now I feel good about it, despite my aching legs.

Daily values of nutrients

Which nutrients do we need daily and how much? I put this list together from the information provided by a dietary supplement manufacturer.
The daily values of the following nutrients are established.
Nutrient	Value	Unit
Vitamin A	5000	IU
Vitamin C	60	mg
Vitamin D	400	IU
Vitamin E	30	IU
Vitamin B1	1.5	mg
Vitamin B2	1.7	mg
Niacin	20	mg
Vitamin B6	2	mg
Folic acid	500	mcg
Vitamin B12	6	mcg
Biotin	300	mcg
Pantothenic acid	10	mg
Calcium	200	mg
Phosphorous	125	mg
Iodine	150	mcg
Magnesium	417	mg
Zinc	15	mg
Selenium	70	mcg
Copper	2	mg
Manganese	2	mg
Chromium	120	mcg
Molybdenum	75	mcg
The daily values of the following nutrients are typical and are not established.
Nutrient	Value	Unit
Nickel	5	mcg
Silicon	4	mg
Tin	10	mcg
Vanadium	10	mcg
Lutein	250	mcg

More Mac tweaks

1. Problem with USB

The InsanelyMac forum has this nice article that helped me trouble shoot Mac USB problems. The was just a single file usb_fix_1.3.mpkg.zip, that solved all USB plug and play problems on Mac.

2. Widgets for Dashboard

There are several widgets available for the Mac Dashboard.

3. Setting up the screen resolution

From this site, I learn how to change the screen resolution. Works for me

If your screen resolution is not ok then do the following: Press F8 when you boot OS X and then write “?video” this will show you all the possible resolutions. For example that you want 1280×1024×32 then again in the boot write “Graphics Mode”=” 1280×1024×32” and if everything goes well and your computer boots with the right resolution, you have to add it to “com.apple.boot.plist” to make it permanent. Now how you edit com.apple.boot.plist; First of all you need to back it up; you can find it in ‘/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration’. From there copy it in a backup location. Open terminal and type: sudo -s cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration pico com.apple.boot.plist There you add this after the other options: <key&gt;Graphics Mode</key&gt; <string&gt;1280×1024×32 </string&gt; Then CTRL+O to save it CTRL+X to exit. Another way to edit it is to copy it in your desktop open it with ‘textedit’ and there you add this: <key&gt;Graphics Mode</key&gt; <string&gt;1280×1024×32 </string&gt; Save it and then copy paste it in ‘/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration’ so as to replace it (it will ask for administrator password).

Next perhaps, I should try repeating all these again with my nVidia card fixed on the mother board.

Getting the Mac to work

To set up the Mac to work in a way I want, I did the following:

1. Positioned the Dock on the right.This helps me run Windows in Coherance mode.
2. Download manager : iGetter
3. Torrent client : Vuze (Azureus)
4. Browser : Firefox 3
5. Feed reader : RSS Owl
6. Archive handler : Stuffit Archive Manager
7. pdf reader : Adobe reader
8. Set up NTFS read-write using this life hacker article
a. Installed MacFUSE Core for Leopard (1.5)
b. Installed NTFS-3G for OS X
c. From the Disk Utility, Unmounted the NTFS disk
d. From the Disk Utility, Mounted the NFTS disk again

At least I can do a few basic things now!

To Mac or not to Mac, that is the question

A week after Mac, it has still failed to sweep me off my feet.

I don’t know if 2 gigs of RAM is indeed too small to handle three operating systems at the same time. But things become so slow when I try to run three operating systems together. Also, getting all the operating systems to read all the hard disks at the same time looks difficult too. I operate 6 portable hard disks to keep my data. So with data transfer becoming a chore, some times it looks like the windows way was simple.

Debian too runs on a Mac. But Mac had a much smaller range of applications to choose from. There are sadly no equivalents to the small but powerful FlashGet and uTorrent in Mac. Azuerus seems to be a complicated program to do a simple thing.

In the place where I live, we lose electric power many times a day. When we have power back, I need my PC needs to return to what it was doing even if I’m not sitting in front of it. There seem to be a few problems in getting the Mac to do it. But I think, I’ll eventually tide over it.

I think I need to live through this period of difficulty before I learn to shuffle data between NTFS, ext3 and HFS+. Not to mention, that the keyboard bothers me too. I surely cannot unlearn the windows shortcuts because I need to use windows at work. Remembering how to do it on a Mac with a keyboard is clearly an extra load on the head.

Apple, XP, Linux

Let me break the news.

I’m on Mac OS X and Windows XP simultaneously – a possibility which I didn’t believe existed I till set this up all myself .

Firefox has already replaced Safari on my Mac. Scribefire works all the same. Yahoo messenger works just the same on a Mac.

This week I plan to try out Debian on VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop.

XP running on Mac certainly seems to be missing a few “power things” that a native Windows PC can do. But Mac’s Leopard is an excellent learning platform available today.

I’m still figuring things. Suddenly, I’m overwhelmed by all the new features I have in front of me to learn.

On Debian, again

I didn’t realize that months had passed by since I changed my default boot OS to Win XP.
Now I’m on Debian again.

Carbon dioxide emissions don’t cause global warming

In April, KLM had an interesting exclusive in-flight documentary on global warming which I happened to watch.

The documentary goes on to present that man-made CO2 emissions do not cause global warming. It states that earth’s present temperature increase is driven by the sun and not by human activity. A few points presented in the documentary are:

1. CO2 is not the major green house gas. Its concentration change has been too small to explain such major temperature differences. Oceans can emit 180 billion tons of CO2 tonnes of CO2 where as human activity emits only about 7 billion tons. It is argued that water vapour and methane are bigger influences than CO2.

2. Earth has seen decades of temperatures which were significantly higher and and also significantly lower. But the ice did not ever vanish completely.

3. Changing of the size of the polar ice caps is explained to be a normal thing which happens routinely with temperature even between summer and winter.

4. Earth’s temperature is more closely related to solar activity and is known to have had a very good co-relation with it for centuries.

5. Change in CO2 concentration in the polar ice caps is an effect of change of earth’s temperature and it has a 800 year lag. This 800 year year lag is the time required for the temperature of the oceans to change to release or absorb CO2.

6. Earth’s temperature continued to drop from 1940 to 1970 when the economic activity boomed. The present upward trend lasts from only 1970.

7. Yet another observation was that the change in temperature profiles of the earth’s atmospheric layers did not seem to support increased green-house activity.

8. The model used to predict the global climate has several hundreds of assumptions on which not all experts seem to be in agreement. Clearly, a model can only be as good as the assumptions that go up to make it.

The documentary goes on to state that the IPCC report is driven by considerations that are non-scientific and serves to retain several jobs which were created by the billions of dollars funded to study this.

Those who are closely following the global warming issue must be already aware that there is a clear second opinion on the need to limit the emissions from developing countries in order to reduce global warming.

One can’t help but wonder if the entire global warming tale is fabricated by an energy thirsty group of nations who are using misleading pointers to prevent the developing nations from creating a stronger demand for energy.

That documentary was an eye-opener to me.

JBL reference 510

Its green. It is fluorescent and phosphorescent. It glows in the light and in the dark. It is viscous. It flows, though slowly. Any thing that comes into direct contact with it glows.

At times when I’ve been really down, I’ve felt it flow into me. From my walkman, through the leads, through the wires and through my head phones, into my ears, making me glow. But it flowed slowly. The walkman seemed to be a weak pump. And for years it remained that way, oozing out slowly from a source of music.

Some times it would spill out of my ears and I always had trouble getting the right sealing at my ear to prevent the green stuff from leaking out. Years ago, I had a headphone that was glued into a position that best fit my head so that no one would change my best fit position.

But all that changed today.

The wires became pipes. The slow flowing thick liquid became thin and came down with force. It wasn’t glowing that brightly either. It did not fill me slowly, but it poured all into me and overflowed.

It was a different experience today.

To me, my new JBL reference 510 changed the way music sounded.

The long road to fitness

There seem to be literally thousands of ways to keep fit.

I was very proud that I kept up a real small cardio routine for a couple of months now. I seem to have lost 3 kgs. Just when I was feeling proud of running a few minutes a day, I saw a gym friend do a full one hour on the treadmill. Ego was broken. Then my instructor introduced me to jumping and aerobics. Whatever was left over of ego was broken. Then today I was made to go into the Yoga class for an hour or so. Clearly, I was the clumsiest in the class with the least amount of flexibility. Without knowing a thing about Surya Namaskar, I practically stopped the whole class from making progress. The yoga instructor was kind enough to ask me to stop after three sets.

But doing those three sets, seems to have really stretched my legs which were already aching from the jumping and aerobics. But Yoga is a truly amazing thing, it really made me feel good.

The least amount of any left over pride was swept clean with a dry cloth.

Fitness today seems like a long distance journey.

Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time

What I knew:
- Rolling stone Magazine released “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time“
- I have every single song in my collection
- Most of these 500 songs were made at least 30 years ago
- The best songs of this race (I’m afraid) have already been sung
- There is also “500 Greatest  albums of all time”

What I didn’t know:

- The lyrics to the 500 Greatest songs are hosted here. Cool!

Bicycle crunches

How do you do bicycle crunches?

This is how.
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/1508_abs-bicycle-crunch.htm

Resistance training

Alright!

For those of you who are into fitness, here are three great sites:

1. http://www.abc-of-fitness.com/info/fitness-exercises.asp – has animations
2. http://www.uwlax.edu/strengthcenter/videos/video_index.htm – has videos
3. http://www.thetrainingstationinc.com/freeweightexercises.html – has illustrations

If I had my way, I’ll have all of them sued

I stumbled upon this post titled Fiction Fragment: At the wedding that Neha Vishwanathan wrote:

She writes :

“A sudden flash of memory. Standing in the assembly, roasting in the
summer sun. Uniforms being checked. One arm distance from the person
ahead of her in the line. Reciting the national pledge together. India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters.
It makes her want to throw up. She didn’t know what was more revolting. The idea of state-sponsored incest or the thought that all the awful people she was in the midst of were somehow related to her.”

Her blog seems to be written out of London and there is no ambiguity in what she has to say.

If I meet her some time, I’d like to ask her if her parents were Indians – and if they were, what would that make her.

At least in India, I believe you cannot do something that would be a direct insult to a national symbol. If she were in India, I would have liked to listen to her in the court of law, the explanation she would have to offer on what prompted her to write what she wrote.

Sadly, she even has an Indian audience which doesn’t seem to understand that it is not right to insult a country’s sentiment.

It has always made me sad to see people who were born in India, who in their early years profit from the family and education system here and then leave this country to make a fortune else where. Some of them are senseless enough to think that sitting in a foreign land makes them invincible and they can get away by parting with their wisdom of why the Indian system sucks irrespective of how other Indians feel about it.

If Neha were educated in India, I’m sure she must have known that its not funny to make fun of the National Pledge, and I’d really like to see an apology from her.