लेखन

Most android devices come with set of fonts already installed for all the general purpose use with variety of styles and various languages. There is also something called 'fallback' font which ensures that in case a required font is not available, the system falls back to this font with wide range of characters and more generic style to display the text. But sometimes, you really want to use that specific font which is not there on the device or you just 'have' to use a some non-english font because the system by default does not have the font for the language you wish to use. Though upfront it looks like a simple task of installing the font, unfortunately android does not yet provide a simple way of doing it in user space. It is possible for an application to provide a custom font and use it within the application, but that's not really installing it on the device, its applicable only within the app. Recently while working with some Indic languages on androi...

On this 15th August, afternoon, I was sipping on a tea at a roadside stall, sitting on a bench, waiting for a colleague, when I heard an aged female voice over my head, 'चहा पाजतु का दादा' ('would you help with some tea'). Before I could realize that there was a fairly old couple, woman having a limped leg, and old man, mostly her husband in 70s, were asking the two cab drivers for some tea, the cab drivers responded, 'पाजतु ना' (sure why not). I generally have a strict rule of not heeding to the pleas of beggars (and I have my moral position on that considering the beggar mafia openly ruling the streets in Mumbai), but once in a while some one catches your attention and you just can't help stopping yourself from doing something if not just giving away 2 rupees. This time the instant assurance of the cab driver to buy them two cups of tea caught my eye and especially ear. The old couple did not look exactly like beggars, their clothes were fine for someone ...

This is going to be a long post and I am going to think aloud while typing it out. So before you lose interest, first of all, let me thank both Red Hat and CDAC for jointly hosting the FUEL-GILT Conference 2013 . The 2 days conference at Pune not just helped the default objective of advancing on the Fuel project but also revived the Indic computing community. It is after a long time that the stalwarts of Indian Language technology all got together on the same platform and worked on ideas and tasks that have been waiting for a long time. The significant highlight of the event has to be the growing harmony and collaboration between the technologists, linguists, Government bodies and Open Source community. So what is FUEL? Going by the words on the brochure and what I understand over the years, FUEL started with a simple idea of standardizing the most commonly used entries in the menus and submenus of a desktop and hence the name FUEL (Frequently Used Entries for Localization). Toda...

http://samadiyami.blogspot.com/2011/09/scientific-interpretation-of-ganapatis.html

Here's a discussion I had with someone over Bhagwad Geeta on TOI forum (Stop reading now if you don't want to go to the end, it may mislead): mukunda (Bengaluru) replies to Siddharth 21 Jul, 2011 02:50 PM Ok,lets read ch 4 verse 13. catur-varnyam maya srstam guna-karma-vibhagasah tasya kartaram api mam viddhy akartaram avyayam "According to the three modes of material nature and the work associated with them, the four divisions of human society are created by Me. And although I am the creator of this system, you should know that I am yet the nondoer, being unchangeable." 1st line"catur-varnyam maya srstam" 4 varnas are created by Me(Paramatma),2nd line "guna-karma-vibhagasah" where the vabhajan\categorization is based on one's guna composition and karma composition. 3rd and 4th line states how He is the non doer and unchangable. Sri Krishna says that each living entity is categorized into one of the 4 varnas based ONLY on their pre...

It's been several months now that we have been brainstorming about the logo and caption. We all were thinking on lines of both creativity and value offerings. Gautam was continuously thinking on lines of how to communicate imagination and implementation parts simultaneously, the left and right of the brain. Many tag-lines popped up, but always there was something missing. Finally, me and joy took up these two words from Gautam and simply put a dot between them. It sounded so crisp! 'Imagination.Implementation'! Meanwhile, many of us were trying to come up with the design ideas. For me, playing with various shapes of 'K' and using whatever minuscule knowledge of calligraphy/typography I had, became my regular pass-time to keep myself awake in gaseous classrooms. In later stages, I got stuck on the idea of creating a character out of K that can personify the values we worked on so long. Finally emerged the k-man that is so carefree, cheerful, and aesthetic. Joy took t...

[Continuing from previous post ].. Open source and free software community has been growing and preaching its philosophy for over decades. This preaching has also been supported by solid product lines that are freely available, better in performance and are more addictive than any other proprietary software around. Yet the ground realities of the software world are still largely favorable for proprietary model. Comparing market shares, or user base would be futile since open source hardly follows any market mechanism. It is very difficult to keep track of number of open source users. Hence the only method to understand the popularity and usage patterns is to call hundreds of common software users and ask them what software do they have on their home computers. I have been a part of a marketing campaign and fortunate enough to be present in the actual execution at various places, which gave an opportunity of understanding thousands of common computer users. With no exception, all of the...