FC4 and sound drivers for Intel 915 chipset

I dont have the soundcard enabled for my laptop as yet. have to investigate why cant hear audio on my laptop (Wipro's Little Genius 2200) . i see the sound modules, but dont know what the right set of drivers are!!!

RC planes and keychains

A dude from japan should be bak to India for a vacation and i have told him to get me one of those RC planes. This site offers some good deals http://www.hobbytron.com/RCAirplanes.html
Dhruv: onegaishimasu!!!

Also my fav keychain, a mettalic replica of the F14 was grounded recently. After about 4 years of use, its bent and disfigured and beyond repair. tushar, if ur reading this!! thanks Dude! twas a great keychain!! (get the hint!!) :))

Running Linux on a Laptop (Wipro's Little Genius 9220)

Wipro's Little Genius 9220 laptop has the following configuration
http://www.wipro.in/products/mobilecomputing/index.htm

I installed Fedora Core 4 without problems. As i booted into Linux, i realised that the resolution was a dismal 800*600 using the generic vesa driver. The laptop has an intel 915 chipset and immediately set about looking for relelvent drivers.

i did the following

1) i downloaded drivers from the freedesktop.org site
Result: dint work

2) I downloaded the source from intel linux drivers site for 915
Result: got a compilation error regarding GL

3) I downloaded the rpm from the intel linux drivers site
Result: Yipeeeeee!!! restarted fc4 and i got the 1024*768 resolution
the 1280 resolution i guess is not supported by the lcd monitor

Once the display driver was up, i set about getting the wireless drivers and cards configured.
this was fairly easy.
1) got the ieee80211 code, compiled and installed
2) got the ipw2200 package and got it compiled and installed
3) got the ipw firmware and got it installed
4) did a modprobe ipw2200 and yipee! again!!!!! wireless works too!!

one year ahead

Its almost been a year now since i updated this blog and hmm things have changed now!! im married now and things are very different after being married. hmm being married means having lesser time to spnd time on things like blogging. i should be geting a laptop soon (oh! finally) and i hope to continue blogging more often!

Unagi and me!!

My client has been very supportive. He encourages me to try out Authentic Japanese food and takes me to some real neat Japanese restaurants. He took me for dinner yesday. The menu dint mention anything vegetarian. He encouraged me to try the different types of fish available. Fish is something i completely avoid coz i really could never digest the smell. My client was very supportive in that he told me its completely OK not to finish the food if i did not like it. I could just taste some dishes and be fine :) i liked the idea and he ordered 2 sets of dinner.

The dinner contains the following
1) Sea weed
2) Raw Unagi (a fish) wrapped in Egg
3) Tempura (Fried shrimp accompanied with Fried Vegetables)
4) Cooked Unagi (again) made in Soy sauce
5) Raw Maguro fish (Red coloured) accompanied with Wasabi/Soy Sauce ad some raw vegetable
6) A cup of egg white/yellow mixed with a lil sea weed (looks like yellow custard)
7) Rice
8) Miso Soup
9) Kharbuja (whats the engish word, some melon!!!)
10) Coffee (latte' kinds)

I was pretty much nervous trying out the fish. I started off with the sea weed and it tasted good. Very difficult to describe it, but it was a very different flavour. Had problems is swallowing, coz it was getting stuck in the throat.

With a lot of apprehension, i took a complete rolled unagi and hey! it was good. It did not taste like fish, it did not taste 'non-vegetarian' as well. It was rather soft, waterish kind and jus melted in your mouth. I dipped it in soya sauce mixed with spicy wasabi just in case i got the smell, but believe me it was good! Hurrah!! my first piece of raw fish and i've come out with flying colours. Now with a lot of confidence and the poise of a seasoned fish eater, i gobbled up the other raw unagi too!!:))

Then came along the rice and cooked unagi. There was also a small bowl of raw maguro fish. Ah! i was on my way to create an all-time record of eating exotic non vegetarian food.:)) Meanwhile, used the hashi (chop sticks) and gobbled up some rice to get a "normal feeling" taste on my tongue before i ventured out into unexplored territory again. My client, meanwhile, was gobbling up at an amazing pace, he definitely loved the food. We had a lot of disccusion on the food habits and the cultural differences in general.

I wasnt too sure about the Maguro coz the client warned me about the smell. I hesitatingly took a piece of maguro and soaked it in the soy and wasabi mixed sauce to remove the smell (if any). But the piece i had was also good. i was pleasently surprised that it tasted so good. Again soft but this time a little bit of the chewy kind. A lot of chewing will definitely get the fish smell into your head, so i just swallowed after i chewed a little. Ate more rice and in between the fried vegetables and the egg based dish. The cooked unagi was another surprise. I was sure about this being smelly coz it looked smelly. It was cooked in soya sauce and it looked ominous. There were 3 portions and i took a little of it and again it had a distinct flavour. It was cooked really well (meaning i dint get the smell) and also the quality of fishes served was good, hence i managed to eat. The cooked unagi will definitely suit the indian tongue. It has some masala like taste (coz of the masala it was cooked in) and it also has a definite spicy kind of flavour. i finished one portion along with rice.

Finished the bowl of rice. Had forgotten the miso soup. So drank it up without problems. its made from some kinda bean and is mixed with sea weed and some vegetables. A real good experience and it ended with a coffee. I Thanked my client profusely (Thank you Oikawa-san!!) for the delicious dinner and the oppurtunity he gave me to try out Japanese food.

A great day coz my project was succesful. It went beyond what my client expected and personally it left me satisfied to see something to conclusion. Yes the feling was having eaten raw fish without hassles was great too!!!:)))

DVD player? and the rest!!

Thinking of buying a DVD (RW) player for Dad for his PC. Did some searching on the net and found that it costs me around 13-15K yen (About 6K max INR for a Buffallo/IoData/Logitech). The bic camera site when transated gave these detials

On Sunday i should do some last minute shopping for the DVD player and for the Kimono for my niece. Will be meeting Gopa on the weekend and possibly going out on a ski trip. My last chance to make this trip of mine really worthwhile. Its been a real hectic trip and work wise an excellent one.

Havent done much sightseing expcept going to the regular places to visit in Tokyo (have done Shinjuku/Roppongi/Ginz/Asakusa and basically seen the huge skyscrapers). Had some amazing views from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building.