01

02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
Cover
16
17
18 Software: Photoshop
19
20 Model: Thilini
21 Photo: Roshan Perret
22 Studio Times
23
Agency: Impakt Models
24
25
26 Tel: 011 2394343
27 impaktmodels.com
28 info@impaktmodels.com
29
30 Open Source
31
32
33 This month’s cover shot on the theme ‘Open Source’. The model is a
34 literal display of openness, and there are levels of meaning under the
35 surface. Three metaphors are embedded in the image, representing Mi- As thanks to Impakt for their prompt and profes-
36
crosoft Windows, Apple, and Free/Open Source Software. sional support, IT Times is pleased to announce
37
38
the following Impakt events: Basic Grooming
39 The Windows level is the ... window, modeled after René Magritte’s ‘Tele- Course (Rs, 10,000). A course designed for
40 scope’. The window shows the Colombo sky from the Leisure Times bal- anybody, Male or Female Its contents are Hair,
41 Skin, Make-up, Etiquette, and Personal Presen-
cony. Much thanks to Deshan Tennekoon for his vital input on this de-
42
sign. Windows (or any OS) literally shows you the world outside. Within tation. Professional Modelling Course (8,000).
43
44 the window there is another Magritte painting - ‘Son of Man’. This man
45 with an apple in front of his face represents... Apple. Both pioneers Each course will run twice a week 18.30 – 20.30
46 have shown many things to many people, but they are still very closed for 4 weeks at Excel world, in the new rooms.
47
systems. The most basic wall they put up is affordability, which is why
48
49 Rupees paper the walls. Those who have the potential to become a Model
50 will be taken through to the next level, of profes-
51 Finally, Thilini represents Free and Open Source Software. Actually, each sional styling, Fashion, Posture, Posing in front
52
item of clothing has meaning, as you can read on page 28. In contrast to of a Camera, and of course The Catwalk!
53
54 the buttoned up world of proprietary computing she is more... open.
55
56
 01
editorial 02
03
This is beta. If you’re unfamiliar with geek-speak, Indi Samarajiva
04
a beta is a version of software that is released for indi@indi.ca
05
public evaluation. Some projects - like Google News associate editor 06
and Flickr - never emerge from beta, even when they 07
Mahangu Weerasinghe 08
are full fledged powerhouses. Our goal at IT Times mahangu@gmail.com
09
is more simple. We simply seek to be an interesting
contributing editor 10
tech magazine. We have tried to tailor our content 11
to serve a broad range of youth, professionals, geeks, and people who are Ashwin Hemmathagama 12
ashwinh@mymail.lk 13
simply curious. Now we’d appreciate your feedback.
manager 14
15
The reason for this special edition is that IT Times has undergone a whole- Pragathi Mahilal 16
sale transformation. From today I, Indi Samarajiva, will step in as Editor pragathi@admin.wnl.lk 17
and Mahangu Weerasinghe is joining as Associate Editor. We are both ac- marketing executive
18
tive netizens, and that forms the core of our experience.. That is, we don’t 19
Dunstan Wijegunaratne 20
get out much. We recently founded www.kottu.org, which is an aggregator
21
of 60+ Sri Lankan blogs (personal websites). A great deal of the new con- design consultant 22
tent is actually drawn from these online resources. We have a new vision in Aruna Wickramarachchi
23
terms of design and content, one which focuses on the most immediately 24
graphics/layouts 25
useful information presented in the most comprehensible fashion. Our pri-
26
mary objective is to make you more tech-savvy by reading this magazine. Lalani Heenwella
27
proofs 28
Every article in this issue is chosen to either give you immediate skills or 29
David Ranabahu 30
knowledge to make you a better online citizen. For example, you can turn
31
to page 39 to learn the basics of modern web design, or page 24 to learn printing
32
about and see the code of a real live computer virus. This is in many ways Primal Fernando 33
a beta for the issues to come until the team hits its stride. Tell us what you 34
circulation 35
think. We really love this stuff and I hope that feeling come across, whether
36
you’re a geek or not. Rohan Fonseka
37
subscriptions 38
indi@indi.ca 39
Nimal Weerakkody 40
41
advertising
42
Saranga Wijeyarathne 43
IT Times Hotlines 44
promotions 45
Editor (077) 301-1266
46
Manager (077) 228-8199 Nalin Wickramasinghe
47
Advertising (077) 321-9733 / (077) 329-3511 branding 48
Subscriptions (077) 350-2183 / subs@wijeya.lk 49
Sujith Pathirannehe
50
publisher printer - lakehouse@sltnet.lk 51
systems
52
Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. Lake House Printers & Publishers
Naveen Guneratne 53
No. 9, Hunupitiya Cross W.A.D. Ramanayake Mw,
Colombo 2 Colombo 2 54
/it-times/editorial 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07 raveen wijayatilake features/games Grand Theft Auto
08
09
10 indranil dasgupta ../computers Mac Mini Review
11
12 indi samarajiva ../art OS Tan (Japanese Anime)
13 vinita agarwal Code as Art: Flash
14 indi ASCII Art
15
16 ../photos Digital Photos From Sri Lanka
17
18
19
20 raveen wijayatilake ../p2p BitTorrent
21
22 indi ../security Spyware, Spy-Aware
23
24 Virus, Anti-Virus
25
26 Spam, Anti-Spam
27
28 mahangu weerasinghe features/opensource Opensource
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36 chintana wilamuna tutorials/linux Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings
37
38
39 prabath sirisena ../web Taking Back The Web, HTML/CSS
40
41
42
43
44 mahangu weerasinghe ../web Personal Web Server, PHP
45
46 raveen ../chat Google Talk and Jabber
47
48 zafar issadeen ../3D Digital Dreams, 3ds Max
49
50 abhimanyu ghoshal ../photo Bye Bye Red Eye, Photoshop
51
52 chris anderson ../dot-net Introduction to ADO.NET
53
54
55
/it-times/index
56
 01

index
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
. ::SZEHDPY666ZDENNNHDP52.. ;::: .:.:.: 10
62DENNHE66252255666YYZPPPEHNNNNNNNNHHNNNNHNHHDDDEPZ65cs.
SNNHNS6ss..:;.
622 . .... ..
;;PYNENENNNHNNNNPPZPZZPDHNNNEDZS6 :
; 2sS5ZYYZYYYYYY6665666ZSY6 :
11
. :s;:s;;;;:;sscss;::. . ;:;: : . .: .ssss5625;:;s5Y665;s :;;.:
;;;::::ss;;;:;:;s;:::;55Y6PZYZYZPYPZZZ56;sssc225c2cccs;: .::: .:: : 12
;;;::;:;:ss;.;:sc5YYZPEENHNNHNYZPYNNNNNNNNDE66c25S56522css;.:.: . : :
scs2c522c2255PENNNEHHNNNHEHHNNNNNENH6SPDDHHNHNDDZZ6652526SS62:; ::s
s656262S6DDNNDS52PNNNNDPHENHPH D6NHDHDHDEZZSYYPHNDP5;c22c26622:s.s
:
: .
13
2625sY6HHED6cYDNNNNP ;DPNHNHEN.sN6NNHNDN5YNNNHYS22ZHDD6;s;ss2YS22 ;
5PYHPNNNNEEEEEH6; : 5NDEPPDNN .NNNNPEHN :. DEHN5s ;S662;s:::;22c5 : 14
c2sZ6DDHDDZZPZP62s:: :56ND66DHs2NDYP5Z6N . 6SDNY6. .6c:s;;:. c2 ;
:s;c;. : 65PN6c5YS62 .NPHDZDNNDP6YDN :.5YENZ2;: ss : 15
:.. ; Y6YDS666s:;:. Y66S52PZYD:5 :c566DEZY5s56ENES; ::
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
/it-times/index 55
56
01
02 editorial
03
04 Editing is not an easy task. I personally would have loved (page 39). Yeah, we know you can make cool sites with
05 to fill this issue with everything I got from our contribut- spinning logos using your WYSIWYG editor, but that’s
06
ing writers during the past month. However, there are evil not what we’re talking about. Think cutting edge CSS and
07
things in print media publishing called space constraints XHTML with DOCTYPES and all sorts of other good-
08
09 and layout guidelines and sadly, these we must obey. ies. Now how’s that for acronym soup? Yum.
10
11 Finally, thanks to some hard work on the part of the Edi-
First though, let me tell you what we do have in store
12
for you. You’ve played games by Rockstar before, right? tors (Indi and myself), we’ve managed to give you an ad
13
14 What’s that? You played Vice City till your fingers bled and free issue this time. That’s right folks, October 2005 is
15 would gladly face possible amputation if given a crack at free of all advertisements, preservatives and artificial fla-
16 San Andreas? Thankfully, our resident gamer Raveen has vouring. No Google ads either – it turns out they didn’t
17
gone that extra mile and already finished the game. Does like our Terms of Service.
18
19 he ever sleep? This we cannot answer. His GTA: San An-
20 dreas review on the next page, however, is a must read. Well, after reading what we have in store for you this issue,
21 you’re probably wondering what we left out. Although I’d
22
Mini, mini, mini – that’s all we’ve been hearing about since love to divulge this information, I dare not for fear of
23
24 Steve Jobs came back to Apple. Well, we’ve finally given having my bandwidth capped by the management.
25 in and included a review of the much hyped Mac Mini.
26 Indranil Dasgupta takes his Mini apart (no pun intended) If you think we’re going to get some sleep now that this
27 issue is out – guess again. This, my friends, is the vicious
in search of that elusive Apple ingredient. Flip to page 11
28
to evaluate his findings. cycle of publishing. Like an infinite loop, it never ends.
29
30
31 Naturally, we’ve also included a section that pays homage
32 to the newest Internet buzzwords. Actually, spyware and See you in November,
33
adware are more like old buzzwords. Never mind – buzz-
34
35 words are buzzwords, and Indi takes a long hard look at
36 them on pages 22-23. Till then though, he’s asked me to Mahangu
37 tell you not to blink. They’re watching you.
38
39
40 Finally, what kind of geeks would we be if we didn’t have
41 some tutorials for you. Well, not very good geeks at all, I’d
42 say. We’d be like those social cripples who run Windoors.
43
Is that how you spell it? I forget. Well, for those of you
44
45 who are handicapped by your operating system – we’ve
46 got a great free alternative in the form of Ubuntu Linux
47 (see my current screenshot here). Scared to venture in to
48
unknown territory? Never fear, Chintana is here - now
49
with added command line goodness.
50
51
52 Last but definitely not least, we let our resident web guru
53 Prabhath teach you a little about starting off on the web
54
55
/it-times/editorial
56
 01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
by Raveen Wijayatilake 18
19
20
be a breeze. Aiming has been simplified. Pressing the right 21
mouse button zooms in and displays a crosshair. Aiming 22
Controversial storyline. Check. Gory while running becomes possible as you gain experience 23
violence. Check. Crude humor. Check. with weapons. Gain enough experience and you will find 24
yourself wielding dual weapons. Imagine emptying two
Addictive game play. Check. Add im- clips of Uzi ammo simultaneously into an unsuspecting
25
26
proved graphics, hugely expanded granny crossing the road? As you progress through the
27
playing map and new game play, and game, you will be able to train yourself in new forms of
28
physical fighting. You can learn to kick box, which puts
you have an adventure worthy of the down an opponent faster. Learning karate kicks will put 29
an enemy on the ground with one shot, leaving you to 30
Grand Theft Auto name.
stomp him to death to your liking. 31
In San Andreas, you play the role of Carl Johnson. After 32
spending the last 5 years in GTA III’s Liberty City, he is A big addition to San Andreas is the stats system. It’s kind 33
returning to Los Santos to look into his mother’s death. of like a Sims game, but without all the bathroom trips. 34
On arrival, he is picked up by two bad cops who frame There are certain aspects of your character that can be 35
him for the murder of a police officer (who was no doubt built on. Stamina, Fat, Lung Capacity experience with cer-
36
catching on to their crooked deeds). CJ is forced back tain weapons etc. If you eat too much (from the many
37
into the life he once lived, the very life he left Los Santos fast food joints dotted across the map) you will get fat.
This concept should be familiar to players of ‘Black and 38
to avoid.
White’ who have played around with the giant animal. 39
The first order of business is to get his old gang back on When you’re fat, your character will have a potbelly, will 40
the map. The Grove Street Families have lost the respect run slower, not be able to jump over walls or fences and be 41
and influence they once had, and CJ wants to help them the butt end of many insults while roaming the streets. If 42
get it back. You start off with little missions like spray you’re fat, you’ll probably have low stamina, which makes 43
painting on walls, but it soon escalates into the usual GTA you get tired faster and sprint for shorter periods of time. 44
style drive-bys and murders. This time missions are far Likewise, if you work out in a gym, you lose weight and 45
less frustrating, and people who couldn’t finish GTA III become buff. Your sex appeal increases and so will your
46
or Vice City have a good chance of finishing this. Your stamina. You will run faster, jump higher and score better
47
mission objectives are clearly pointed out with colour with your girlfriends, thus leading to weird clothed forni-
cation. Your experience with vehicles has stats too. Drive 48
coded arrows and the works. You do get the odd mission
a car for a long period of time and your experience with it 49
that you have to try several times (several = play all night),
but overall everything is easier than past games. increases. This will tighten the controls and make control- 50
ling your car much easier. Ride a motorcycle enough and 51
The whole feel of the controls haven’t changed since you will be less likely to go airborne when you crash into 52
GTA III, so for veteran players, maneuvering around will that annoying yellow taxi cab switching lanes. As such, 53
this applies to planes and helicopters as well. Though the 54
/it-times/features/games 55
56
01
02
03 stats system does affect gameplay quite a bit, it can be ditions and sunny and dry conditions in others. Fog and
04 ignored most of the time. Even when it can’t be ignored, rain have been nicely done. When it rains, the screen turns
05 it is not a big deal to manipulate the stats. (Need muscle... grainy giving it a wet messy feel. Sunsets are gorgeous.
06 go to the gym) There are very few instances where stats Headlamps from vehicles in the night are pretty cool as
07 are involved with actual missions. One mission requires well, though you might spot the odd bug or two when
that you have decent lung capacity to proceed. (yes, CJ light hits certain objects. Get into a fast car and reach a
08
08
can swim! Finally no more drowning to death) Another good speed and the motion blur kicks in. Nothing like the
09
needs flying skills etc. Every time a stat is updated it is motion blur seen in the NFSU series, but nevertheless it
10 shown on the top left hand of the screen. It will tell you works. The draw distance in San Andreas is really good.
11 which stat has changed and what it means to you. Think: FarCry draw distance, but instead of jungle, place
12 yourself in a city. One thing I’m disappointed about is the
13 Probably the biggest addition to the game is the playing modeling of characters and vehicles. Characters are quite
14 area. It’s enormous. About six times the size of Vice City. blocky and the textures are not up to par. They certainly
15 The map is broken into three cities. Los Santos, San Fier- could have been improved. This of course doesn’t re-
16 ro and Las Venturas. But this isn’t just some basic enlarg- tract from the gameplay at all. You’ll hardly find yourself
17 ing of the playing area. It has been done with style. If you complaining about blocky pedestrians while your speed-
take a trip from one end to the other, you will find thriving ing over them in a sports car. Another Sims like addition
18
cities, des- is control over your
19
20
erts, forest, You’ll hardly find yourself complaining appearance. You
countryside can dress up CJ in
21 and moun- about blocky pedestrians while you’re clothes of your lik-
tains, all bril- ing, get tattoos and
22
23 liantly de-
speeding over them in a sports car. haircuts (Afro any-
24 signed from one?) Fancy clothes
25 the noise of footsteps on sand to the grass or dust that is will increase your sex appeal and you will gain more re-
26 kicked up by a speeding motorcycle. This huge expanse spect, while running around in your underwear will lead
can be a bit of a put off at times though, when you are at to some funny conversations. Before you ask, no... you
27
one end of the map and your mission is at the other. Even can’t get CJ naked (legally, that is). His clothes really don’t
28
then, if you happen to hop on the right motorcycle, your matter to most of the gameplay either. A few missions
29 journey can be quite entertaining. require you to have some fancy threads, but most of the
30 time running around in your underwear will work.
31 Moving on to graphics. I’m not going to be too harsh
32 on this aspect since GTA was never exactly known for The sound in San Andreas is top notch as well. Vehicle
33 it’s visual brilliance. If you want graphics, play games like engines are well done and have an appropriately deep feel
34 F.E.A.R and Chronicles of Riddick. The blur’ish look that to them. Some weapons lack the volume that would have
35 was present in Vice City is gone. Everything is crystal clear been preferred, but most are spot on. Weather effects are
36
now. One thing GTA does manage to do is, create great audible, rainfall and winds add to the visual experience.
atmospheres. It recreates the feel of the 90’s pretty well. The hilarious radio stations that were so popular (to the
37
It also has the ability to give you the feeling that you are in people who had copies with audio that is) are back and
38
a living and growing city. Yes, the weather changes - you haven’t lost the ability to make you giggle. They also have
39 will find fog in certain cities, constant rainy and wet con- some great music, making the whole 90’s feel more re-
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
/it-times/features/games
56
 01
02
alistic. You get 11 stations in all, but you tend to listen GTA: San Andreas first shipped with an ESRB rating of 03
to only about three stations overall. The rap station has ‘M’ for mature. That meant anyone over 17 could play the 04
some pretty cool music from Dr. Dre and Tupac Shakur. game. This also meant it could be sold in popular stores 05
The classic rock station treats you to some Guns ‘n Roses such as Walmart. However, the developer, Rockstar, 06
and the like. My favorite though was the talk radio station messed somewhere along the line and the game shipped 07
which gives you some much anticipated comic relief. The with some hidden content that couldn’t be accessed by
08
entertainment provided by the radio makes those really the general user, but could be unlocked using tools the
09
09
long drives across the map that much more bearable. The mod community developed. This ‘hot coffee’ mod is a
way your radio sounds depends on the vehicle you’re in. mini-game where you can engage in sexual intercourse 10
Luxury cars may have some good bass while motorbikes (fully clothed mind you). The objective is to make your 11
and scooters have a ‘three-wheeler speaker’ feel. San An- partner reach the highest level of ‘excitement’. “Remem- 12
dreas has an excellent voice cast featuring an unknown ber, nice guys finish last”. 13
rapper named Young Maylay as CJ, MC Eiht as Ryder, 14
Samuel L. Jackson as crooked cop Officer Tenpenny, co- This turned the already controversial world of GTA up- 15
median David Cross as Zero, Peter Fonda as ‘The Truth’, side down. Big people from big places got involved and 16
Charlie Murphy as the pimp Jizzy and James Woods as things turned ugly. The ‘M’ rating was changed to a AO 17
Mike Toreno. They all give brilliant performances to move (Adults Only) rating. This meant it had to be cleared off
18
the story along without leaving you wondering whether pretty much every big retail store in America. Stores lost
19
they couldn’t do better with the voices. around $50 million from not being able to sell the game.
The game has been banned in Australia. Rockstar is in 20
Aside from the linear campaign through the game, you the process of editing out the naughty bits and shipping a 21
will find a mini-game almost everywhere you look in San ‘clean’ version of GTA which will be given the M rating. 22
Andreas. The usual side missions that occur when you get Obviously, Rockstar is enjoying the publicity gained by 23
into taxis, police cars and fire trucks are still available. In this whole fiasco. Nothing says ‘BUY ME’ to a 15 year old 24
addition, you will be able to get into a truck at night and like a game banned for naughty sex acts. 25
rob houses, stealth being the key factor. Shopping malls 26
will have arcade games, gyms will have boxing challenges,
night clubs will have dance revolution games and get into
Development hiccups aside, San An- 27

a car with some decent hydraulics and you can have a dreas is a very fulfilling experience. 28
hopping contest. Strips clubs let you pay for lap dances, if 29
Considering the high standards of 30
animated females are your thing. If none of this appeals
to you, you can always buy some big guns from your lo- previous GTA games, San Andreas 31
cal Ammunition (or use a cheat... only for entertainment has topped gamer expectations. Re- 32
purposes though) and wreak havoc. It’s really fun to fire 33
a bazooka right into the middle of ten cops, and watch sponsive controls, addictive game- 34
them and their limbs fly. A favorite of mine is parking play, impressive sound and decent 35
cars side by side and blowing up the first in line. What
takes place is a domino effect of car explosions. Very sat- graphics make this a must play for 36
37
isfying if you get it right. Going on a rampage in a tank is any serious gamer. 38
also an entertaining time-killer.
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
01
02
03

Mini
04
05
06
07
08

Me
09
10
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25 by Indranil Dasgupta
26 The Mac Mini under a downpour. Do not try at home. Photo by !efatima (flickr.com/photos/webmonk)
27

Y
28
ou’d be hard pressed to find a with G4 1.42 Ghz processors and a set up
29 computer smaller than the Mini. spacious 80 GBs. The main feature
30 It weighs in at about 1.5 kgs and separating the other two is that the After plugging in my monitor, I
31 measures just 2.5 by 6 inches. Actu- strongest packs an all powerful CD/ found, that the Mini had no PS/2
32 ally, upon first glance, it looks more DVD writer. One problem is that the ports for keyboards or mice. It has
33 like an external optical drive than a stronger siblings don’t have an inter- 2 USB ports for the same purpose,
34 fully fledged Macintosh. It is not un- nal modem available in Asia. All in as well as one Firewire port. Now, as
35 til you notice the large Apple logo at all, however, the strongest model is I did not buy an Apple keyboard or
the top that you understand what it probably your best buy since the dif- mouse I had to make a short trip to
36
really is - a shrunken computer. It is ference in price is almost negligible. the nearest hardware dealer, for two
37
what Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls a converter cables. Now, with both the
38 “BYODKM” (Bring Your Own Dis- ports occupied, I was unable to use
build quality
39 play Keyboard Mouse) system. my USB printer, which was a shame,
40 The Mac Mini’s shell is, believe it or considering the beautiful fonts I had
41 With the Mini, Apple seems to be not, made of metal. This came as inherited with Mac OSX Tiger.
42 targeting the stereotypical irritated quite a shock to me, as I had been
43 windows user on a budget. Priced at thinking that it was just painted plas- I have, however, made a mental note
44 around 50,000 LKR, it is almost equal tic. The build quality, therefore, was to purchase a USB hub, and Apple’s
45
to a full blown PC. The idea is that, quite exceptional. I can’t say for sure, newly released Mighty Mouse, which
existing PC users can plug their stuff but I dare say that the Mini can sur- will let the Mini live in harmony with
46
in to a Mini, and enjoy the Macintosh vive a free fall from about 5-6 feet the printer, mouse, and keyboard.
47
experience at even less cost. (not that I’d try it). The underside
48 After plugging the power cord in, it
comes with rubber pads, providing
49 specs a sturdy and slip free environment was time to turn it on. With trem-
50 for maximum stability. The front of bling hands I pressed the power but-
51 The Mini comes in three flavors. The the Mini contains just one DVD/CD ton, and the Mini purred to life. After
52 lightest comes with a PowerPC G4 slot. All peripheral connections are a few moments wait, it started off
53 1.25 Ghz processor and a 40 GB hard neatly organized at the back. with a short movie introducing me
54 disk drive, while the other two come to Tiger. A few prompts followed in
55
/it-times/features/computers
56
 01
02

... with trembling hands I pressed the power but- 03

04

ton, and the Mini purred to life

which I got to choose my language,
set up a user account, and provide
OSX with a few more details.
I was surprised by the lack of an ac-
tivation prompt! That’s right, a Ma-
cintosh has none of the useless serial
key requests that plague every step of
the Operating Systems that hail Red-
mond. That done, I was presented
with pristine looks, clear graphics,
and drool-worthy sophistication.
All said and done, the entire process
took a little over ten minutes, barring
the little run to the hardware store.
If I was setting up a Windows PC,
I’d still be trying to figure out how to
install some driver or the other.
software
05
06
07
08
devices was child’s play. Tiger correct- and animations become slow. 09
ly recognized my printer, USB power 10
backup, and external hard drive, set- quirks 11
ting them up before I even asked! 12
All this praise might make you think 13
All the included applications - from that the Mini is virtually a perfect ma- 14
Safari (the default web browser) to chine. Alas, this is not the case. Ap- 15
iTunes to Mail ran without a hitch. ple, too, brings with it its own set of 16
It was like watching synchronized quirks and annoyances.
swimming. Every application is tied 17
to each other in ways that only an Ap- First and foremost, as I already said, 18
ple interface designer can envision. there are not enough ports to do jus- 19
tice to all your hardware. Life would 20
Spotlight alone is the finest desktop be smoother if only Apple provided 21
search tool I’ve come across, and it PS/2 ports, or extra USB ports. 22
runs circles around Google Desktop 23
Search, MSN Desktop Search and The drive slot is another problem. 24
pretty much everything else. There is no physical way to eject the 25
drive, which I find ridiculous. A phys-
Another fine addition is the Dash- 26
ical part should always be handled by
board. Clicking 27

Having set up the Mini, I took a little

the Dashboard
icon on the
... it was like watching 28
29
breather before diving headfirst in to
the inevitable – exploration. As I sat
Dock opens up
a Workspace,
synchronized swimming 30
31
down to wander through the Mac’s greying out 32
features again, I couldn’t help but the desktop 33
constantly wonder, “Now why on behind. It contains all sorts of use- another physical part. What if Tiger 34
earth isn’t that in Windows?” ful widgets - tiny programs like a cal- crashes with the disk inside it? None-
35
culator, stock quote, and world clock. theless, bearing Apple’s wonderful
Many more available are for free on 36
Being the (former) Windows user crash free record in mind, I just hope
that I am, I had two worries that con- Apple’s website.. it won’t come up. 37
tinued to nag me. The first was that I 38
always thought that the close button performance Conclusion 39
was on the wrong side. However, it 40
only took me about 15 minutes to get The Mini may be lovely to look at, If you are a Mac enthusiast, or love 41
used to the new way. Another nag- but it doesn’t pack quite the punch Apple, but are afraid to scorch your 42
ging thought was viruses. On the you’d expect from a Macintosh. Ap- pockets, I’d highly recommend taking 43
Macintosh, however, nothing of that ple experts recommend at least 740 a plunge with the Mini. I guarantee 44
sort is presentt. MB RAM for running Tiger. Howev- you, you’ll never look back. There 45
er, the Mini comes with only 512 MB. are a few quirks and annoyances that 46
After I got adjusted, I delved deeper Although you can upgrade to a GB come with, but it more than makes
in to what OSX had bequeathed me. of RAM, at the time I got the mine, 47
up for it in looks and performance -
Macs are known the world over for that option was unavailable in Asia. not to mention boasting rights. 48
their excellent graphics and the Mini 49
certainly didn’t disappoint. The aqua I’m not saying that Tiger runs slowly I guess what they say is true - once 50
interface, the cool blue, the liquid-y with 512 MB of RAM. It’s just that you go Mac, you never go back. 51
graphics and Quartz Extreme make if you use heavy applications, and 52
the Mini a worthwhile experience. run for more than a couple of hours, Indranil Dasgupta is a techie and recently 53
Connecting and setting up external program response becomes sluggish, converted Mac Addict from Calcutta India 54
/it-times/features/computers 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15

XP
16
is the most modern of the girls. She
17
dresses like Sailor Moon and wears
18 a XP beret. In the Windows family, XP would
19 be the teenager - trendy, attractive, but not ex-

OS
20 actly wise. In the OS-Tans, breast size often
21 represents available memory, and XP-Tan is
22 the best endowed (sometimes to the point of
23 absurdity). She also has an incredible appetite
24 for system resources.

2000
25
is a sexy, professional, and
26
reliable woman. She wears a
27
trenchcoat but often over nothing more than
Leave it to Japan to Sexualize the Op-er-
28 a swimsuit. She is often portrayed as watching ating System. OS-Tan is a community art-
29 over the clumsy and childish ME-tan. The real form that portrays Windows as Anime.
30 Windows 2000 runs on the relatively stable NT Over time the OS-Tan girls have devel-
31 kernel and is a favorite of sys-ops everywhere. oped their own personalities and ward-
32 With Service Pack 2 XP is actually more re-
robes, but anyone from a casual doodler
33 liable, but 2K-Tan certainly captures the per-
sonality of the Operating System. to a professional graphic designer can
34
contribute their own. The translations of

ME
35
is the clumsy, crash-prone yet the stories are more Engrish than English
36
some-how endearing sister. She’s - but you can still follow the adventures
37 also the first OS-Tan, and the star of most of
38
of the OS-Tans, from the clumsy and
the comics. She wears the Windows ‘!’ error
39 message on her dress since ME was profoundly
crash-prone Windows ME to the book-
40 buggy. The real Window Millenium Edition is ish and reliable Windows 2000. You, the
41 sometimes called Mistake Edition and the OS- Windows user, are Mr Toshiaki to them.
42 Tan captures its personality well. In the por-
43 trait above she is shown in the air, presumably
44
after Dr. Norton gave her an invasive scan.

95
TAN
45
is an older OS-Tan, usually dressed in
46
a traditional kimono from the Meiji
47 period of modernization. She doesn’t under-
48 stand new technologies like USB or broad-
49 band. 95-Tan is an almost motherly figure
50 who rarely shares the adventures of the other
51 sisters. Not that she didn’t have her share in
52 her Mac-Slaying days. 95-Tan has occasional
53 flashbacks where she wields hersamurai sword,
often when the hapless ME-tan disturbs her. by Indi Samarajiva
54
55
/it-times/features/art
56
 01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

Code As Art
Symbols and images of all kinds en-
ter and pass through our lives every
second, as they have for centuries.
People have always relied on images
and symbols in order to create some
sort of understanding amongst them-
selves, especially in ancient pre-liter-
ate civilizations. People also relied on
images and symbols as a tool of self-
expression. This visual understand-
ing helps cultivate our own growth
as individuals and as parts of nature.
Symbols persist in today’s world,
from religion to advertising. So many
of our acts remain symbolic because
there are meanings which cannot be
explained, which transcend meaning.
Today, through the interactivity of a
Flash, we can expand that visual un-
derstanding to greater heights. Jared
Tarbell’s Flash movies allow the user
to interact with models and symbols
that are all around us in nature but in-
visible to the naked eye. They require
a deeper sense of seeing, a sense that
was available to us long time ago.
Seeds (top left) is a diagram of sy-
metrical seeds aligned together, the
same as in nature - in relation to the
Fibonacci sequence. The relative ro-
tation of 137.5 degrees produces a
17
18
19
20
The Flash Programming of Jared Tarbel 21
22
23
24
beautiful moving imagery of seeds 25
looking like whirling stars in the sky.
26
The wonderful thing about this art
27
is also its subjectivity, and its mean-
ing from one viewer to the next. One 28
may perceive one thing, and someone 29
else another, yet the effect stays the by Vinita Agarwal 30
same - learning through beauty. 31
32
I’Ching (top right) is a poetry play- 33
ground running on I’Ching prin- 34
ciples and an XML poetry library.
35
User interaction with the model con-
36
structs the hexagrams common in they are streaming from space, add-
life etching used by the Chinese. The ing dimension to your whole experi- 37
hexagram is displayed in the middle ence It almost manages to become a 38
after 5 points on the wheel are cho- mental escape. 39
sen, the first generated by the user 40
themselves, each idenitifying a cer- Tarbell’s work shows that the worlds 41
tain holistic word such as ‘ADVER- of science and art have much to learn 42
SITY’, or ‘GREAT ENCOUNTER’. from each other, despite their long 43
In ancient Chinese tradition these separation. It requires a creative ex-
44
points were initially determined by pansion, a thinking out of the box so
45
the tossing of coins or sticks but the to speak. Tarbell’s code enables art.
The potentials are vast but very de- 46
I’Ching poetry generator does that
through code. Furthermore, through pendant with us as individuals to use 47
automatic wordplay, random words this new interface to its full value. The 48
are chosen for each holistic word to technology will continue to expand. 49
form a poem – a substantial mean- We as users may not. Today we need 50
ing to follow your life by. Flash al- new explorers, Digital da Gamas, to 51
lows for a sense of magic. Different help guide us through this new world 52
parts of your mind light up through of realms, technology, beauty and art. 53
the floatation of the words as though Explorers like Jared Tarbell.
54
/it-times/features/art 55
56
HHNEHHNHHEHEEDDPPPZPZPEDDDHHDEHHNNHNEEDDHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNPDS
01
HHNHNEEPPPPZZYYYZPDDDDHEDDEEHHHHHHEHEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEHHHEEDDDDPPPDDDEENNN
NNNYYYSYZYSYZDNNNNHHHDPDNHNHEEEEDEDDEDEDHEEDEEDDEEHHHHHHEEHHHHHHHEHPP66SSSYP
PYY66PPDEEENNNND6666ZDNHPPDDHHEEDEZZPPDDNHNNNNHHHEEEEHHNNNHHHHHHHEHNNNNNNEHP
02
ZZZDPDDHNHNDZ2;s:2ZYPZZZZPEEHDEDEEHHHHEDEDHHDDEEHHNNHHHEEEEEHHHHHEEEEDEDEDHE
DDDEENNHNSS2c6SZDDDZSYYYPZYSS6DPEEEHDEDPEDDDPPDDPZPDDEDDEHHEEEEHHNNEHEHHHDEP
03
PEENNEESY66YYPPPPDEDDPYYYYYZDPNEDDYZSYYYPPPPHHEEEDEHEDDPDEDDDEEEDDDHHEEDDHHE
HHNDEZZYYPZPPPZDHEDDDDZDHEPPPZEDDDEEDEEHDDPZDEHNNNNHDZZZDHHHHHHHHNHNHEHHHHHP
In its time, canvas and oil-paint was a techno-
04
HEHYZSSZZDDEENNEDZ6SSYEDZZYYPPEDEEDDEHDDPDPPDDYZ2s6YDNDY626PENNHEDPNHDDYZPDP
DPDDEDDDDEEDDDPPPDDEHHEEEENNNNNNHEEEEHDEDEDDPPZPYY656YPHDZSccs26SEPZZEEEEDDP
logical revolution in itself. Then Classical
DPZDDDPHHHEEEDDEHHNNHHPZSYHDDP6SNENEDEPDZDEHDDEEEHPZY66SZEDPP66sc66DZPYDPPPP
05
DZYDPHHEDDPEHHHHHEEEPPZY2566EPPZ62HDHHYP6Y25SYZZYYZPPZS2225SYPP66cc;;52Y6DPP
Art - already reeling from Impressionism and
PDPHEDDZZDDEEEEHNHED6656YY6YHDNHDPY6EEDH2S:c::22666S62YDPPY2556YY25:;Y6s:2sY Cubism - took a direct hit from Photography and
06
PDDDDDDHNNNHEEHY2; sSYPENNDPYSHPEPNDDPZZENSPcc;;25ZDY2cs6PZS5sc;2DDYY66DPPZ6
PHEEEHNEHYYZD652566SS6c; c YcZYY6PPYDSYcc: cS65s sPZY6;s:;S665ssSSY retreated to museums. And then ASCII Art ...
DPPNNEE556Y525SYZYY6::.. ..:;:s:c Y2Z6Y6PY6SSYSZs:. ..;cccs.;66Y6:: .66.: ;
07
PNNSY;;SD2s6Y6S2: .::..;:cs; 2:s:c;S6ZZYSPEYYs::.;sssss:..c2DZ2c.:;c;c changed nothing. It just looks cool.
NENscZEcsc656ss: .::::.. ....: : ;.s:2s6665ZPPDYSc.. .:s522s::cs66ZY.:26:
08
N 266ZZESYs: .::..:. ...:::.. ;:;.c;c;s:cs;:2255YDZY2:
:cZESYc2 .:::.. ..:: ..:.. :.:.;.cscs;.::sc266S62:
:22522s:.55DD226
. Y5: 2s22s
6NNs2 . ::;:.... .::.. .::....
09
E6P s:s:;..::.:. :;:::..
. :.. :.s:sscc22s:c6526SYP5
::.... ..;;s;ccs:;sss2ZZZY::
. 2s5c5cS
s.;.c
ASCII stands for the American Standard Code for
Y.c.s...:..:;:::::::::::....:: ..... . :.. ..::;sscscc56PPSY 5s; Information Interchange. There was a SLSCII,
10
2 ::s...:.... ...::. ....:: .:;sss;;:ss66DD : s
c:;;s::::;;;;;;:.::... ..:.: ::2;22ZZ:s but it got caught up in various committees and
11
s ...::::::.:::. ..::;:;::
;:::;;;::. .::::.... .::::..
;.2cYY6Y
. : c;YY6 the world is still waiting on that. What ASCII
s;s:: ..:;:::.. .. : ; ; 2
12
;.:;;.:..::...:...:.:::.
;:::.ss::..::..... ... ...
.
.:
. s
:
does is convert letters into numbers. It is,
13
:..:.::.:::.... . ... ...
:..:.:;::::::;;;:. .
in short, a Binary-to-English dictionary for
::.:::;::... :::::.. .....
14
...:::: . ...:::::::.. ..
..
.
Computer Tourists. When you type the letter “A”
.;:;;:;::::::....:::.. .. ... the computer looks it up in ASCII to find out
15
:....::.: ::.. .... ...
. ::.:.: .
:..::::.:.:..... .....:.....
... . ..
.
...:
.
what you’re talking about. What you really
16
::;:::;.. . meant to say was 0100 0001.
:.. ......:.. .

;
17
;.:...:...:::
.
:
18
: : .
. ASCII is such low-level code that any document
;:;:;.. .: writen in plain-text (like Notepad) can be read
19
; .
; : ....: on any machine built after 1963. That is, if
20
:.:.:.:::...:
ssc;s.. .:: a computer fits in one room and doesn’t have me-
: .:sccc;:
21. ::SZEHDPY666ZDENNNHDP52.. ;::: .:.:.: chanical pistons, it knows ASCII.
62DENNHE66252255666YYZPPPEHNNNNNNNNHHNNNNHNHHDDDEPZ65cs.
22
SNNHNS6ss..:;.
622 . .... ..
;;PYNENENNNHNNNNPPZPZZPDHNNNEDZS6 :
; 2sS5ZYYZYYYYYY6665666ZSY6 :
. :s;:s;;;;:;sscss;::. . ;:;: :
23 . .: .ssss5625;:;s5Y665;s :;;.:
;;;::::ss;;;:;:;s;:::;55Y6PZYZYZPYPZZZ56;sssc225c2cccs;: .::: .:: :
This makes ASCII a palette for artists who want
;;;::;:;:ss;.;:sc5YYZPEENHNNHNYZPYNNNNNNNNDE66c25S56522css;.:.: . : : to reach anyone and everyone. And the paint
24
scs2c522c2255PENNNEHHNNNHEHHNNNNNENH6SPDDHHNHNDDZZ6652526SS62:; ::s :
s656262S6DDNNDS52PNNNNDPHENHPH D6NHDHDHDEZZSYYPHNDP5;c22c26622:s.s : .
2625sY6HHED6cYDNNNNP ;DPNHNHEN.sN6NNHNDN5YNNNHYS22ZHDD6;s;ss2YS22 ;
is text. When cubicle-jockeys were peering at
25
5PYHPNNNNEEEEEH6; : 5NDEPPDNN .NNNNPEHN :. DEHN5s ;S662;s:::;22c5 : thick green screens through thick black glass-
c2sZ6DDHDDZZPZP62s:: :56ND66DHs2NDYP5Z6N . 6SDNY6. .6c:s;;:. c2 ;
26
:s;c;. : 65PN6c5YS62
:.. ; Y6YDS666s:;:.
.NPHDZDNNDP6YDN :.5YENZ2;:
Y66S52PZYD:5 :c566DEZY5s56ENES;
ss :
::
es, ASCII porn was pretty cool, but with the
27 . c:SSYZ65SZPDPSYS6cs5;
;:;:. :;: :s;:c6YPY.sPPss2;5Y
: ;5 DEHN: s2
.:
. :: : advent of faster computers you got images that
28
. . . ::;cs:. 65 .;:s2 s:: ;ssc::..
.:;:.:::;;::;; .:.:s .
:.:.
::.;
looked like, well, images. You would think
.:. ;: . that ASCII would die out, but the same small
29 . . .:
;: . population of geeks that could stand it in the
.
30 ;: first place is still around. Right now there
..::.. .
31 ..:..
. .
:. .
..
is more ASCII Art than ever, it’s just a much
. 32 .:...
..:... ..
smaller percentage of the whole.
. .... .;:
. 33 ......
. .;.. :. Who makes ASCII Art today? Well, ASCII spe-
.
34
.....
. ..:
. .
.
.. cific sites like www.asciibabes.com (guys too)
. . .
: 35
:.: . .:..
.:.
:
.
;;cs;;22;s
and the comic www.nerd-boy.net (updated often).
36
; : .
s.;.:....
.
.
.;;;:;:;.:
:cscs;s56NNNNYP ; : .
s s The real niche is with hackers and programmers.
;:s:;
37
;.:::::::
..:::....
. ...
.:s2s:s55DPHENNPHs5cc2
.cSYHY2; :.YYSZ6Ycc2
If you buy pirated software the text file that
s;;:;;s:;..;;:::::.. .:. ss55ss. ;..:52PSS contains the Serial Number often has an ASCII
38
;;s;s::;s::. ......... . . : 6
s;;:.::;c::..:.:::..
:..::::;s::::. .::.... .....
.... . c
;
Image to rep the hacker or clan that ripped the
39
;..::ss;s ..;s;::.:::.. . .. software in the first place. And all the fancy
s;;:: .: ::::.:..:..::::.. .
40
: .;s::. :::.:::;:...
:.. . ::. :;:;:....::::..
.
.
:: programs you use are really just text-files at
41
:...... ..::::::::..:::::..
: ....:::. ::. ..:::.....:.::: .
..
.
.:::::;s;....::s;:::s
. ..::: .s;. ::. ..c22S
the end of the day. People who write and read
: ... .;
42
:::;;::
....::.
.:::: .::
.. . ..
..:..:
..ssc2cs;::::: ss66;sZY22:;;
. 2252562ssccccsc56PZDEHNDHNNEHNNH
the code are just staring at text files. They

ASCII Art
;;; .:..:;. .:. :...::.. . . . s:6266652c22cccs266S6SSSY.2 ; 2
43
.:: ::...:
s:;:::: ..:
...:. ...... . : 2:SsDYY5S6SSS6YZPDDDEHHNHEDY6
..:. ... . . s.ScNHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDEHEEYN
:

; ...::.: . .:..... .... . . . ; : . :; .c2SSYSEYE

44
;:::::;:;....:::........ ::.: . .
;;;::::::::::::. ..:: . :: . ;:css:ccssc226666Y5s;.. .
45
::;:::;::;s. :::;:..::.::: .:: ;:s;2c;:;s;:;cs;sss;; :: c
2 ;:;.:.. :;:.:::;: .::
E s:c:;:;;s;:::. ..:;;;::: ..:.:
..:
:.::..
: 222css;;;ssssss:;cc
s2662sssss;;;sssc:;
:
;:cs2
c
by Indi Samarajiva
46
N2Z :c::....::;;::::::::::: ..:.. .. ::::.. :s265222ccs:: . sscc22
DNNs6 .:sss:.... .:.:::::::;::..:::: . .:::::. :ssccc255scssss;;::.::
47
2NNNN22 .s:;;;:.:;::::::: .....::::.:........::..:::::::ssccc25555556566SY5
2Y6NNNN22 : .:::::. ..::.. .. ...::.. :::::.::s2c2ccc2ccc22526666662 stick ASCII in there for fun, or as diagrams.
48
6cs62ENNNSY. .::;: .::::::::::
D252cY6NNNNDZs:. :;;::::::::;;.: ...
.............. ::... . .:;cs2csscc556655c
..: :: And then the Japanese, of course, have to out-
HYD2562PZHNNNDZ5;: ::;;:.: ..:.:
49
HHNSPc;52YYENNNNNYcc :.: :.:.. .
HHNPNYZ52S6ZPEHHNNNDss ::s :::.; :
:: weird everyone else and develop the Glyph art-
50
DHNPHDHYY2c66ZZDHHNNNNPS : :.;.; ..; .
HDDPESSPH66s:6YZZZZDNNNNEEs2 s s ; ; :.. .
..... form where “orz” means despair. It is a man
DDDDDEHPDENZ6s.2YZPZZZDHNNNN2Y s s ;
51
PHHHHEEPD66ENZS2:5YZNPSYPDNNNNSP.5 2 s : : .
: : kneeling - “o” is the head, “r” is the arms and
PDPEDEHDH65ZPHNP5; sEEND56DDNNNNDN:S c s : : . . shoulders, and “z” is the back and bent legs.
52
EYSDDHHDDDHY6PEENDYS:cPPHP56PZEDNNHN2D c.s :
DDDPZEEDDHNPYS5PNDS6;cs6HEHDYSDZDPNNNNZH2Y:2.;::..
. .. .:.
:. .::
PHHZPPZHNDDPDS5SYDNH66sc25EDHDPYHDPZEHNNDNSD25;s:..::::::;: ...::.:::::....:
53
PEDEHZYDDDDENEEYcSDDNE66ss:sEPDPHPHDEDDEDNDNZD5522sss;;::::::::cs:;::;::;::; The video that killed the ASCII Star was JPEG,
6HEPZPPPPDEEEDDPZY6ZNHPZ66;scsZSEYEZNHHEEHDHDNPDZPS62;sssss;;::2c:sssss;s::;
54
2PPPPEEDDPZPPDHEEPSYYDNHPDYZs2;;S2PSEYNNEDPDDEDEDEDEDPZYS66256565c2222225665
H62PPPZPDDDPPZZPPDPZ66SZHEZP5Ysc625c6sEPNNEDPDPDZZZZPPDDDEDPPPZZZSYYSSY6S66S
DHHYSPPPPPZDDDDDPPPPZYc6PPDDcS6Y22666cS2Z6NHHHDDPDPPZZZYZYZZPZZPPYZPPYZSZ56S
55
5PZDDPYZZDPEEHHHNDPPYZSYSYNH6Z5SSZssZSS5S2HDHHHHEEDDPPPPPZZPPZZYZSYZZYZYZSYY
262DPPPZYDDY6YZPHHHEPPYY6SSZHH;55S;s::S6Y5S5ZSEEHHDDPPPPPZZZZZPPPSYZZZZYZSSS
56
YS6ZSPDYS66PDDPPDENNHHDP5S;2DPDD sPE;s:.S65262ZYDEEEDPZYYYYZYYZZZYYYZZZSYZZP
HSYZYEEHH656SEHHHPYPHHNHDDs2ssNNYE;2NN2cssS662ZZZYPDHNEPPPPPPZZ6YPPYZYYYYZZY
 EEDHEEEHHNNHHEEEEHHHHHEEEHHEEEEEDDDDEENHNNEHDDDDHHEEDDDDHHHHHHHHHNNNNEEHHEEH
SDPNNNNNNHHHHHHHHHHEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDDEENHNNHHEDHHDDDEPZPZPPPDDEEHEHHNHHENHH
NNNEEDDDPPPDDDDEEHHHEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEHEHHHHHHEEDDEHDDDDPZYYYZZPPPPEENHNHH 01
PYSSS66PPHEHHHHHHHEEHHHHHHEEDDEEDEEHDEDEDDEDEEEEHNHNDPDHHHNNNNDZYSYZYSYYYNNN
PHENNNNNNHEHHHHHHHNNNHHEEEEHHHNNNNHNDDPPZZEDEEHHDDPPHNDZ6666DNNNNEEEDPP66YYP
EHDEDEDEEEEHHHHHEEEEEHHHNNHHEEDDHHDEDEHHHHEEDEDHEEPZZZZPYZ2:s;2ZDNHNHDDPDZZZ
02
PEDHHHEHENNHHEEEEHHEDDEDDPZPDDPPDDDEPDEDHEEEPD6SSYZPYYYSZDDDZS6c2SSNHNNEEDDD
EHHDDEEHHDDDEEEDDDEDPDDEHEDEEEHHPPPPYYYSZYDDENPDZYYYYYPDDEDPPPPYY66YSEENNEEP 03
PHHHHHEHNHNHHHHHHHHDZZZDHNNNNHEDZPDDHEEDEEDDDEZPPPEHDZDDDDEHDZPPPZPYYZZEDNHH
PDPZYDDHNPDEHNNEP626YDNDY6s2ZYDDPPDPDDHEDDEEDEPPYYZZDEYSS6ZDENNEEDDZZSSZYHEH
PDDEEEEZZPES62sccSZDHPY656YYPZPPDDEDEDHEEEEHNNNNNNEEEEHHEDDPPPDDDEEDDDDEDDPD
04
PPPPDYPZD66cs66PPDEZS66YZPHEEEDDHEDZDPEDENENS6PDDHYSZPHHNNHHEDDEEEHHHPDDDZPD
PPD6Y25;;cc66PPYS5222SZPPZYYZZYS52Y6PYHHDH26ZPPE6652YZPPEEEHHHHHEPDDEHHPDYZD 05
Ys2:s6Y;:52YY6552YPPDY26S66622::c:S2HDEE6YPDHNDHY6YY6566DEHNHEEEEDDZZDDEHPDP
6ZPPD66YYDD2;cs5SZP6sc2YDZ52;;ccPSNEZZPDDNPEPHSYPDNNEPYSs ;2YHEEHNNNHDDDDDDP 06
YSSss566S;:s;6YZPs s56Sc :ccYSDYPP6YYZcY c ;c6SS665256DZYYHENHEEEHP
; :.66. ::6Y66;.sccc;.. .:sZSYSS6YP6Y6Z2Y c:s:;:.. ..::6YYZYS525Y655EENNPPD
c;c;:.c2ZD2c..:sssss;.::sYYEPSYZZ6S;c:s:2 ;sc:;..::.
07
:2S6Y6s2DS;;YSNNP
:62:.YZ66sc::s225s:. ..cSYDPPZ5666s2:s.; : :.... ..::::. :ss656cscEZcsNEN
622DD55.:s22522: :2YZDY5522:;sc:s;c;c.;:; ..:::... .:..::. :sYSEZZ662 N 08
s22s2 :5Y . :26S662cs::.;scsc.;.:.: ..:.. ::.. ..:::. 2cYSEZc:
Sc5c5s2 .
c.;.s
5PYS6256c:s22ccss:s.: ..: .
::YZZZ2sss;:scc;s;;.. ....::
....::. ..::. ....:;:: . 2sNN6
..:::;: .:.::..;:s:s P6E
09
;s5 YSPP65ccscss;::.. ..: . ..... ::....:::::::::::;:..:...s.c.Y
s : DD66ss:;;sss;:. ::.... 10
.::... ....:...s:: 2
s:ZZ22;2:: :.:.. ...::.:;;;;;;::::s;;:c
Y6YYc2.;
6YY;c : .
::;:;::.. .:::.::::::... s
..::::.
11
....::::. .::;;;:::;
2 ; ; : .. ..:::;:.. ::s;s
s . . .:::.:...:...::..:.;;:.; 12
: :. ... ... .....::..::ss.:::;
... ... . ....:::.::.:..: 13
. .:;;;::::::;:.:..:

.
..
..
..... ..::::: ...::;:::.::
..:::::::... . ::::...
14
... .. ..:::....::::::;:;;:;.
... .... ..:: 15
:.::....:
:... .. . ... . :.:.:: .
. . .....:..... .....:.:.::::..:
16
. ..;:::;::
. ..:...... ..:
17
:::...:...:.;
. ;
.
.
18 : :
:

:. ..;:;:;
19 . ;
:.... : ;

::.
20
:...:::.:.:.:
..s;css

:.:.:.
:;cccs:.
:::; ..25PDHNNNEDZ666YPDHEZS:: . 21 :

.sc56ZPEDDDHHNHNNNNHHNNNNNNNNHEPPPZYY66655225266EHNNED26
: 6SZDENNNHDPZZPZPPNNNNHNNNENENYP;; 22
.;:..ss6SNHNNS
GIF and PNG. If you’re not familiar with those : 6YSZ6665666YYYYYYZYYZ5Ss2 ; .. .... . 226
:.;;: s;566Y5s;:;5265ssss. :. . : :;:; . .::;sscss;:;;;;s:;s: .
23
names you’ve certainly seen them. 99% of im- : ::. :::. :;sccc2c522csss;65ZZZPYPZYZYZP6Y55;:::;s;:;:;;;ss::::;;;
: : . :.:.;ssc22565S52c66EDNNNNNNNNYPZYNHNNHNEEPZYY5cs:;.;ss:;:;::;;;
ages on the net are in those formats, mostly : s:: ;:26SS6252566ZZDDNHNHHDDPS6HNENNNNNHHEHNNNHHENNNEP5522c225c2scs 24
. : s.s:22662c22c;5PDNHPYYSZZEDHDHDHN6D HPHNEHPDNNNNP25SDNNDD6S262656s
JPEG. ; 22SY2ss;s;6DDHZ22SYHNNNY5NDNHNN6Ns.NEHNHNPD; PNNNNDYc6DEHH6Ys5262
: 5c22;:::s;266S; s5NHED .: NHEPNNNN. NNDPPEDN5 : ;6HEEEEENNNNPHYP5
25
; 2c .:;;s:c6. .6YNDS6 . N6Z5PYDN2sHD66DN65: ::s26PZPZZDDHDD6Zs2c
: ss :;2ZNEY5.: NDY6PDNNDZDHPN. 26
26SY5c6NP56 : .;c;s:
The flower above is a JPEG. From left-to-right : ::
::
.
;SENE65s5YZED665c: 5:DYZP25S66Y
2s :NHED 5; :
.:;:s666SDY6Y ;
;5sc6SYSPDPZS56ZYSS:c . 27
..:

you can see that it gets more and more crappy .:.:
:. Y5;2ssPPs.YPY6c:;s: :;: .:;:;
..::css; ::s 2s:;. 56 .:sc;:: . . .
28
looking. This is an illustration (from Wiki- ;.::
. :;
. s:.:. ;;::;;:::.:;:.
.:.
pedia) to show how the compression works. When :. . . 29
. :;
you compress an image it downloads faster. .
:;
30
. ..::..
. .: ..:.. 31
JPEGs, GIFs and PNGs can produce images that ..
...:.
. .
32
look like, well, images and they rule the Net. .. ...:..
:;. ....
.
.
What is interesting is that many free programs ...... 33 .
.: ..;. .
can convert JPEGs to ASCII without you having .
.. .
:..
.
34
.
.....
.

to painstakingly enter letter-by-letter. . .:.

. . .
35 :
s;22;;sc;; : ..:. . :.:
s s :.;:;:;;;. . 36
. : ;
Today ASCII is seeing a small resurgence, one . : ; PYNNNN65s;scsc: . ....:.;.s
2cc5sHPNNEHPD55s:s2s:. ....:::..
37
;:s:;
because it is easy to go from Image to ASCII 2ccY6ZSYY.: ;2YHYSc.
SSP25:..; .ss55ss .:.
... . :::::::.;
..:::::;;..;:s;;:;;s
and two, because Spammers are nothing if not 6 : . . ......... .::s;::s;s;; 38
c . .... ..:::.:..::c;::.:;;s
creative. ;
.. .
..... ....::. .::::s;::::..:
..:::.::;s;.. s;ss::..;
39
. ..::::..:..:.:::: :. ::;;s
:: . ...:;:::.::: .::s;. :40
ASCII Movies: By mass converting frames, in- .
s:::;s::....;s;:::::. ..
..::::....:;:;: .:: .
..:::::..::::::::.. ......: 41
..:

teprid souls like romanm.ch and projects.c505. S22c.. .:: .;s. :::.. .
;;:22YZs;66ss :::::;sc2css..
.
.. . ..
. :::.:.....:::.. .:: .:::.... :
.::.... ;. ... :
42
com/ascii_index.html have coverted film to text. HNNHENNHDNHEDZP65csccccss2652522 .
2 ; 2.YSSS6S662sccc22c2566626:s
:..:.. ::. ::::.
. . . ..::...: .:.
::;;:::
.;:..:. ;;;
Roman has made mini-versions of The Matrix, : 6YDEHNHHEDDDPZY6SSS6S5YYDsS:2 : . ...... .:... 43
:...:: ::.
NYEEHEDNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNHNcS.s . . ... .:.. :.. ::::;:s
Spiderman, Terminator and more. They play like EYESYSS2c.
.
;: . : ; . . .
. :.::
.... .....:. . :.::... ;
........:::....;:;:::::;
44
regular movies, only with ASCII instead of im- c ::
. ..;s5Y666622csscc:ssc:; .
;;sss;sc;:;s;:;c2;s:;
:: . ::.. .::::::::::::;;;
::. :::.::..:;::: .s;::;:::;:: 45
ages. c505 has made ASCII music videos of Jimi c : cc;:ssssss;;;ssc222 : :.. ::. :;:::.:;: ..:.;:; 2
2sc:; ;:csss;;;sssss2662s ..::.: :.:.. :::;;;:.. .:::;s;;:;:c:s E
46
Hendrix, Queen, and Led Zepplin. 22ccss . ::scc222562s:
::.::;;sssscs552cccss:
..:::: .. ..:.. :::::::::::;;::....::c: Z2N
.:::::. . ::::..::;:::::::.:. ....:sss:. 6sNND
5YS66565555552cccss:::::::..::........:.::::..... :::::::;:.:;;;:s. 22NNNN2 47
26666662522ccc2ccc2c2s::.::::: ..::... .. ..::.. .:::::. : 22NNNN6Y2
ASCII Spam: In a more insiduous development c556655ccssc2sc;:. . ...:: ..............
:: :..
::::::::::. :;::. .YSNNNE26sc6
... :.;;::::::::;;: .:sZDNNNN6Yc252D
48
Spammers are starting to use ASCII images to ::
:.:.. :.:;;:: :;5ZDNNNHZP2652DYH
. ..:.: :.: ccYNNNNNEYY25;cPSNHH 49
get past word-based Spam filters. Porn sites in .....
: ;.::: s:: ssDNNNHHEPZ6S25ZYNPNHH
. ;.. ;.;.: : SPNNNNHHDZZ66c2YYHDHPNHD 50
particular are using this tactic, so we may see . ..: ; ; s s 2sEENNNNDZZZZY6:s66HPSSEPDDH
: : ; s s Y2NNNNHDZZZPZY2.s6ZNEDPHEDDDDD
51
a resurgence in ASCII as erotic art, harkening .
. : : s 2 5.PSNNNNDPYSPNZY5:2SZNE66DPEEHHHHP
. : : s c S:NDNNNNDD65DNEEs ;5PNHPZ56HDHEDEPDP
back to the days of lonely geeks at teletypes. .:. .. . : s.c D2NHNNDEZP65PHPPc:SYDNEEP6YHDDDHHDDSYE 52
::. .: ..::;.2:Y2HZNNNNPDZDSYDHEH6sc;6SDNP5SYPNHDDEEZPDDD
:....:::::.::... :;::::::..:s;52DSNDNNHEZPDHYPDHDE52cs66HNDYS5SDPDDNHZPPZHHP
;::;::;::;:sc::::::::;;sss2255DZNDNDEDDEDHPHPDPEs:ss66ENDDScYEENEDDDDYZHEDEP
53
;::s;sssss:c2::;;sssss;26SPZDPNDHDHEEHHNZEYESZscs;66ZPHNZ6YZPDDEEEDPPPPZPEH6
5665222222c56565266SYZPDEDEDEDEDDPDENNYESP2S;;2sZYDPHNDYYSPEEHDPPZPDDEEPPPP2 54
S66S6YSSYYSZZZPPPDEDDDPPZZZZDPDPDENNPEs6c526csY5PZEHZS66ZPDPPZZPPDDDPZPPP26H
S65ZSZYPPZYPPZZPZZYZYZZZPPDPDDHHHN6Z2Sc66622Y6ScDDPP6cYZPPPPDDDDDZPPPPPSYHHD
YYSZYZYZZYSZYZZPPZZPPPPPDDEEHHHHDH2S5SSZssZSS5Z6HNYSYSZYPPDNHHHEEPDZZYPDDZP5
55
SSSZYZZZZYSPPPZZZZZPPPPPDDHHEESZ5S5Y6S::s;S55;HHZSS6YYPPEHHHPZY6YDDYZPPPD262
PZZYSZZZYYYZZZYYZYYYYZPDEEEDYZ26256S.:s;EPs DDPD2;S5PDHHNNEDPPDDP66SYDPSZ6SY 56
01
02
03
04
05 Flickr (www.flickr.com) is a community with the stated goals of sharing photos and
06
07
finding new ways to organize them. On both counts Flickr is helping Sri Lanka form
08 a vibrant image online. There are now thousands of photos uploaded and organized
09
on Flickr and you can find them using Flickr’s innovating tagging system. Simply visit
10
11 flickr.com/photos/tags/srilanka or flickr.com/photos/tags/lanka to get a sampling of
12 the visual documentation. This section highlights a few of our favorite images online
13
and their talented photographers.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
flickr

30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53 Hanging Flower by Satyajith (flickr.com/photos/sathyajith)
54
55
/it-times/features/photos
56
 01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
“I caught this guy just as I finished buying myself a new pair of flip-flops to replace the pair that had gotten 30
stolen the previous night in Kataragama, Sri Lanka.” Photo and caption by Roman Edirisinghe (flickr.com/ 31
photos/romanedirisinghe) 32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
Sunrise, by Juavenita 48
Mahout Resting, by Baba Steve 49
(flickr.com/photos/juavenita) (flickr.com/photos/babasteve)
50
51
52
53
54
/it-times/features/photos 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30 Pettah Muslim Women by FredR
31 (flickr.com/photos/fredr)
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
Sunday morning in Sri Lanka, we were up in the moun-
39
tains, at a temple. The kid’s had just finished the hindu
40 version of sunday school... by Saisiv (flickr.com/photos/
41 sai)
42
43
44
45
46
47
The Ancient City of Sigiriya is on the UN World Heritage
48
List. The ruins of the capital built by King Kassapa in the
49 fifth century lie on the steep slopes and at the summit
50 of a 370 m high granite peak. The view from the top is
51 well worth the climb. But look out for the monkeys. They
52 may be more friendly than absolutely necessary... by s_st
53 (flickr.com/photos/49079106@N00)
54
55
/it-times/features/photos
56
 01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

flickr
17
18
19
20
Kosgoda Turtle... by s_st (flickr.com/photos/49079106@N00) 21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
Puple Lotus by omnia (flickr.com/photos/omnia)
42
43
To get your photos featured here, simply get a free Flickr account (www.flickr.com). 44
45
Since Flickr’s purchase by Yahoo, you can now sign in with a Yahoo user/pass. Simply
46
tag your photos as ‘srilanka’ or ‘lanka’ and they’ll get noticed. In fact, anyone search- 47
ing for visuals of Sri Lanka can see your photos. Flickr is also a vibrant community 48
with comments and ratings, and if you’re a good photographer you can get a lot of 49
attention fast. It is also an awful lot of fun. 50
51
52
53
54
/it-times/feature/photos 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15 BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen as Borg, himself, and a woman. From bitconjurer.org

16

BitTorrent
17 epIII_trailer.avi). Banda, who has the
18 complete file is called a ‘Seed’. A per-
19 son who doesn’t have the complete
20 file is called a ‘leech’ or ‘leecher’. Both
these types can be commonly called a
21 changing the face of downloading ‘peer’. (e.g. I am downloading this file
22
23
off 1 seed and 3 leechers. This means
I’m connected to and downloading
24 by Raveen Wijayatilake from 4 peers) So what happens is, a
25
seed sends a different part of the file
26 to each leecher. Each leecher in turn
27 transfers parts of the file to other
28 how it works leechers. This way, if a seed discon-
29 nects, 100% of the file will still be
30
31
32
P eer to Peer Networking (p2p) was
once synonymous with software
such as Napster and Kazaa, as is still
So how does this new ‘king’ of p2p
work? Let’s take a general example
here. Imagine you are in a room with
able to be downloaded since there’s a
full copy amongst the leechers.

the case for most in Sri Lanka. How- three other people. One of these do it yourself
33
34 ever, something new and more so- people (lets call him Banda) has a
phisticated has been taking the world complete jigsaw puzzle with him. The Now that you know how the protocol
35 works, it’s time for some hands-on
of p2p by storm for a few years now. objective is to transfer a copy of the
36 experience. You’ll be happy to know
Basically, someone invented a better jigsaw to each of the other three peo-
37 way to transfer a file from A to B and ple in the room in the most efficient that all software needed to delve into
38 everyone loves it. way possible. Initially, Banda transfers the BitTorrent world is free... and free
39 a portion of the file to a person in the of spyware/adware/malware and
40 the story goes like ... room. Simultaneously, he transfers a other annoying *ware’s. (you won’t
41 different portion to the other, and find a BitTorrent ‘lite’ on the net,
42 In 2001 a computer geek named yet another portion to you. Now we simply because it can’t get any ‘liter’)
43 Bram Cohen, then 25, visited the an- have three different portions of the
nual Defcon ‘hacker’ convention in jigsaw puzzle, which if put together This is what you will be doing in
44 short. In the BitTorrent world, all you
Las Vegas to show off his new toy... make one hundred percent. While
45 download off websites are small files
BitTorrent. It then debuted at Code Banda continues to transfer the rest
46 Con 2002 the following year and of the jigsaw puzzle, each person in called torrents. (with a .torrent exten-
47 gained popularity, being featured on the room can now transfer their por- sion) Once you download the torrent
48 many an online p2p magazine as well tions to each other as well. onto your computer, you run it with a
49 as a few respectable news sites. Fast BitTorrent client. The BitTorrent cli-
50 forward a few years, and a significant Let’s get a little geeky and use Bit- ent handles everything for you.
51 percentage of internet traffic belongs Torrent lingo, which you will need to
to BitTorrent usage, the MPAA and know if you ever decide to venture What you need to get started is 1) A
52
RIAA hate it and Microsoft is at- into torrent territory. The jigsaw here BitTorrent client and 2) Torrents.
53
tempting (unsuccessfully) to copy it. is a file... let’s say a movie (Star_wars_
54
55
/it-times/features/p2p
56
 01
02
03
For the readers who got totally lost reading all that, 04
here’s a brief summary of how to get torrents working 05
06
07

0 Download a BitTorrent client 08

09
10

1 Find the torrent you want online

11
12
13

bittorrent client 2 Open 14

There are as many BitTorrent clients
out there as there are budding Rock
groups in Sri Lanka. (ok maybe I was
exaggerating, there are far more bud-
ding rock groups in SL) Each client
having its own strengths and weak-
nesses. I recommend ‘BitComet’
which I myself use, though there are
a few other really good clients. The
official client is available at bittor-
rent.com and a popular open source
downloader is at azureus.source-
forge.net. A simple Google search
will link you to many more.
The client is the software that keeps
track of all your downloads. It’ll also
present you with more information
than you’ll know what to do with.
Your client can allow you to chat to
others, prioritize certain files in the
torrent, etc. If I just confused you
it’s ok, you probably don’t need those
features anyway.
torrents
After you’ve downloaded and in-
stalled BitComet (ver 0.59 at the
time of writing) you will need to find
yourself a torrent of your choice.
These can be downloaded off web-
sites. Usually these sites have search
facilities which allow you to search
for the torrents you want. So if you
are looking for the new Harry Pot-
ter movie trailer, you get yourself to a
torrent site, search for ‘Harry Potter
Trailer’. You will be presented with
the results. Pick a result that suits
your liking. You will then be able to
download the respective torrent file
15
16
17
3 Download 18
19
20
4 Enjoy 21
22
23
24
25
to your hard drive. Don’t worry, tor- Next, open the torrent file with your 26
rent files are usually less than 50kb’s chosen BitTorrent client. What the
27
in size. Popular sites are: next screens look like depend on the
28
respective BitTorrent client, but ini-
tially the client will ask you where you 29
• thepiratebay.org
• mininova.org want to save the file. Select a nice and 30
• isohunt.com spacy partition on your hard drive 31
• araditracker.com (registration) and click ok. That’s it! You can leave 32
your computer and indulge in your 33
A small note about torrent sites that favorite extra curricular activity while 34
require registration - As a member the torrent downloads. 35
of the site, you have to maintain a 36
decent upload/download ratio. This Small tip for ADSL users: It is recom-
37
means you can’t only download and mended to limit your upload speed to
80% of your maximum upload speed. 38
not upload to fellow members. If you
don’t share, you get kicked out. This (e.g. for a 512kbps connection the 39
assures you that the site will give you maximum upload speed should be 40
really fast downloads. 16kbps. 80% of 16 would be roughly 41
13kbps. Since we don’t really get that 42
At this point, many users new to tor- maximum upload speed, setting it to 43
rents are surprised at how a 100mb around 10-12 kbps is safe.) By limit- 44
plus trailer downloaded in 5 seconds. ing your upload, you are avoiding sat- 45
It didn’t. What actually downloaded urating your connection. If you let all
46
is a TORRENT file and not the ac- 16kbps of your upload bandwidth to
47
tual movie trailer. Think of a torrent be used, you will get really bad down-
load rates. 48
as a small file telling your BitTorrent
client where to find the 100mb file 49
from. Student by day and gamer by night, Raveen 50
is known to get very little sleep. We know 51
Right. At this point you have the items his writing doesn’t show it, but that’s because 52
on my very short ‘what you need’ list. we inject him with caffeine now and then. 53
The complicated part is over. 54
/it-times/features/p2p 55
56
01
02

Spyware
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18 by Indi Samarajiva
19
20
21
22 They are also paying taxes on that profit,
23 cause the US government hasn’t outlawed the
24 practice yet. Since most Spyware companies
25 If you don’t know what Spyware is, are American, the whole world will keep get-
ting junk until they get it together.
26 then you have it
27
The basic business model is to install soft-
28
As of 2004, Spyware is the #1 reason people ware on a computer which watches what the
29 user is doing. If the user goes to a car website
seek professional computer repairs (Wikipe-
30 dia). They go in complaining that their com- the software will pop-up a Thrifty Car Rental
31 puter is slow and ‘not working’, but Spyware ad. If you click the ad then Thrifty will pay
32 is the cause of the problem. In the simplest the Spyware a commission. This software
33 terms, Spyware is an advertising parasite. It can be removed from the Windows Control
34 infests your computer and begins spitting Panel, but many users don’t know that. The
35 ads at you. Or worse. extra evil companies don’t let you uninstall
their software at all.
36
If you notice a new homepage, weird brows-
37
er toolbar, and countless pop-ups, then Spy- Beyond this lies purely criminal behavior.
38 Companies like CoolWebSearch and Xu-pi-
ware has invaded your computer. You may
39 also notice slowdowns since Spyware loads ter will
40 when you startup and uses your bandwidth hijack your browser.
41 to relay information about you back and
42 forth to its corporate controller. If the Spy- If you enter dhs.com the spyware will send
43 ware is really out of control then Internet you to ups.com, or if you type in google.com
44 Explorer will basically be unusable. In some they may just bounce you to a porn site. The
45 cases the Spyware will block normal sites al- next level beyond hijacking is fraud. Spyware
together and redirect your traffic wherever it like XXXDialer will use your phone line to
46
wants. One friend kept getting directed to a call 1-900 numbers and run up huge bills,
47 which you have to pay. And finally, wiretap-
page asking for his email - to sell to Spam-
48 mers. ping. Backorifice and various keyloggers will
49 record your browsing habits and keystokes
50 Spyware is horrible, but it is also a business. - including passwords and possibly even
51 The biggest company, Claria (formerly Ga- credit card numbers. All of these programs
52 tor), made 90 million USD in revenue last will slow-down your Internet, computer, and
53 year and 35 million in profit make your life worse.
54
55
/it-times/features/security
56
 01
02

Spy-Aware
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Limewire is a good desktop client, though Bit- 20
Torrent is probably the safest overall. If you’d
21
1. Clean Your Computer. Now. like to know what you’re doing visit www.zero-
22
paid.com for in-depth reviews.
23
Antivirus won’t do it. You need specific soft- 24
ware. Fortunately, that software is easy and 3. Lay Off The Porn 25
free. Visit spychecker.com.
26
If you walk around in a swamp you will get
SpywareBlaster: This not only cleans your 27
leeches. The best thing is to avoid porn alto-
computer, it also fixes the dumb code in In- gether, but at least wear boots. Internet Ex- 28
ternet Explorer that lets Spyware in. plorer is the equivalent of barefeet. If you re- 29
Spybot Search & Destroy: This is one of ally love IE then download Service Pack 2 and 30
the oldest and the best. It cleans your PC and pray. However, they’re cracking Service Pack 31
keeps it protected, though not as tightly as 2 as we speak. There are also pr0n-specific 32
Blaster. It does clean really well, though. browsers like Abyss (Google: ‘abyss browser’). 33
AdAware: LavaSoft has the slickest interface, The best option in general is to... 34
but you’re only pressing one button for all
35
these programs anyways.
4. Switch Browsers 36
Running any (or a few) of these programs 37
Most Spyware is written for Internet Explorer. 38
should fix 99% of your problems. In order to
Even if you browse in the most moral fashion
prevent new problems you need to... 39
you will still get Spyware. If you don’t use IE
40
you won’t get Spyware.
2. Avoid Pirates 41
The basic reason is pretty simple. IE uses some- 42
KaZaA and Grokster pay their legal bills thing called ActiveX to interact with other pro- 43
through Spyware. Sri Lanka has real-life pi- grams. Spyware uses ActiveX to screw up your 44
racy of software, movies, and music - so it’s computer. Firefox doesn’t use ActiveX. Hence 45
almost a moot point anyways. If you’d still like no Spyware. Firefox is also really fun to use. 46
to download then here’s a handy table: 47
Switching browsers and running Spyware scans 48
EVIL NOT EVIL will pretty much solve your Spyware problem.
49
The other suggestions are helpful, but they’re
Kazaa Kazaa Lite 50
really lifestyle choices.
Morpheus Limewire 51
Grokster eMule (movies) abstinence is best, 52
Anything Else BitTorrent but always practice safe browsing 53
54
/it-times/feature/security 55
56
01

Virus
02
03
04
05
06 On Error Resume Next
Birth. Sex. Crap. Death.
Rem // I hate Mawanella incident The life of a virus
07 Set W_S = CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
08 Set fso = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
set file = fso.OpenTextFile(WScript.ScriptFullname,1)
09 vbscopy=file.ReadAll As a paying Windows customer, you are free to destroy your computer. From com-
main()
10 mand line (command.exe) you can type the words “del /F /S /Q *” and erase
11 sub main() everything. That’s fine. The problem is that Window is so full of holes that it lets
12 On Error Resume Next other people do that. The most obvious flaw is something called ‘buffer overflow’.
dim wscr,rr, strMsg
13 Imagine that Windows is a house-party. The system files are in the parlor, so you
set wscr=CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
14 close the door. However, if the party gets big enough people will inevitably spill into
Set dirwin = fso.GetSpecialFolder(0)
Set dirsystem = fso.GetSpecialFolder(1)
the parlor and break stuff and throw up in the wastebasket. Good code prevents
15 Set dirtemp = fso.GetSpecialFolder(2)
this, but Windows doesn’t. If you’re a hacker you can dump an excess of data into
Set cFile = fso.GetFile(WScript.ScriptFullName)
16
a legitimate buffer and it lets you into the system files. That’s bad, but manageable.
cFile.Copy(dirsystem&”\Mawanella.vbs”)
17
After all, it’s just one computer. Or not. 97% of computers use Windows, so if you
Set OutlookA = CreateObject(“Outlook.Application”)
18 can hack one computer you can hack them all. Oh, and everybody uses Internet
19 Explorer and Outlook, so if you can break into one computer, you can break into all
If OutlookA = “Outlook” Then
Set Mapi=OutlookA.GetNameSpace(“MAPI”)
20 of them. This monoculture makes writing a virus pretty simple. First you write code
Set AddLists=Mapi.AddressLists
21 that breaks in through Windows, Explorer, or Outlook. Then you tell that code to
For Each ListIndex In AddLists
If ListIndex.AddressEntries.Count <> 0 Then
copy and be fruitful. You can include an evil payload like “del /F /S /Q *”, but
22 ContactCountX = ListIndex.AddressEntries.Count
23 that’s not
For Count= 1 To ContactCountXeven necessary. If your virus spreads fast enough it can crash the whole
24 Internet with just copies of itself. Birth, sex, crap, death.
Set MailX = OutlookA.CreateItem(0)
Set ContactX = ListIndex.AddressEntries(Count)
25 ‘msgbox contactx.address

26 Birth- Every computer virus has a human parent. Very often that human hasn’t
‘Mailx.Recipients.Add(ContactX.Address)
MailX.To = ContactX.Address
27
mastered
MailX.Subject = “Mawanella”conventional reproduction, but they can type. Any teenager can down-
load a virus kit, re-package
MailX.Body = vbcrlf&”Mawanella is one old
of code and Lanka’s
the Sri release a Muslim
low-level virus. It takes more
28 Village”&vbcrlf intelligence and yes, creativity to write a truly original virus. The German teenager
29 ‘Set Attachment=MailX.Attachments
Sven
‘Attachment.Add Jaschan is& the
dirsystem latest wunderkind - accounting for 55% of virus reports in
“\Mawanella.vbs”
30 2004 with Netsky and &Sasser.
‘Mailx.Attachments.Add(dirsystem Many hackers look upon virus writing as a creative,
“\Mawanella.vbs”)
31 Mailx.Attachments.Add(dirsystem & “\Mawanella.vbs”)
rebellious act. In the stifling Suburbs of Microsoft it seems only right to spray-
MailX.DeleteAfterSubmit = True
32 If MailX.To <>paint the walls. However, the new strain of viruses are actually pure evil. Today the
“” Then
33 MailX.Send motivation is money and the payload is Spam.
End If
34 Next
35
Next
End If Sex
- Replication is the primary duty of a virus. If you don’t reproduce, you won’t
36 Else exist, plain and simple. The extinct virus that forms the background of this page
37 does to
msgBox “Please Forward this justeveryone”
that. The Mawanella virus says hello and promptly emails itself to everyone
End if
38 in your address book. What you notice is just another annoying email. The network
39 strMsg= “ ) administrator of your company notices 10,000 emails. An hour. That’s a problem.
(“ & vbcrlf
strMsg= strMsg & “( ) ( ) “ & vbcrlf
40 strMsg= strMsg & “ ( ) ( )” & vbcrlf
41 strMsg= strMsg & “ ( Crap
) -( A virus is)”destructive,
& vbcrlf whether it carries a payload or not. The Internet
strMsg= strMsg & “ -------------------------” & vbcrlf and it can only take so much crap. If you have
has a finite amount of plumbing,
42 strMsg= strMsg & “ / ( ( ( /\” & vbcrlf
strMsg= strMsg & “ / a virus
( copying itself/ over-and-over
\” & vbcrlf that clogs the whole thing up. The Sapphire
43 strMsg= strMsg & “ / virus copied
( ( itself so
/ much \” that it crashed South Korea. The country. This wasn’t
& vbcrlf
44 strMsg= strMsg & “ --------------------------------” & vbcrlf
because Sapphire made a brilliant attack, it was just a crapflood. Many viruses today
strMsg= strMsg & “ | --- | |” & vbcrlf
45 strMsg= strMsg & “ | -----go above |and |beyond.| The most |” &lucrative
vbcrlf ones hijack your computer and use it to
46 strMsg= strMsg & “ | | send
| thousands
--- of Spam | messages an hour.
|” & vbcrlf
strMsg= strMsg & “ | | | | |” & vbcrlf
47 strMsg= strMsg & “ --------------------------------” & vbcrlf
48 Death - Viruses eventually die. Windows issues a patch for their leaky ship (which
strMsg= strMsg & “Mawanella is one of the Sri Lanka’s Muslim Village.” & vbcrlf
49 nobody
strMsg= strMsg & “This brutal downloads)
incident happenedandhere
the antivirus
2 Muslim companies
Mosques clean
& 100 up the mess. All viruses thus
Shops
50 are burnt.” & vbcrlf far have been stopped, but companies and nations still lose days of productivity and
strMsg= strMsg & “I hat this incident, What about you? I can destroy your com-
51 puter” & vbcrlf
billions of dollars. Nothing has knocked down the Internet yet, but Sapphire (Slam-
52 strMsg= strMsg & “I didn’t mer) camebecause
do that really close.
I am It
a crashed 5 of thecitizen.”
peace-loving 13 nameservers. If you knock out all 13
53 then the Internet is officially down.
msgbox strMsg,,”Mawanella”
54 End sub

55
/it-times/features/security
56
 01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

Anti-Virus
19
20
21
22
image by Chuckmo (flickr.com/photos/chuckmo/) 23
by Indi Samarajiva
24
25
As long as you use Windows you’ve got a corner office Stuff happens - viruses, power failure, demon possesion.
in the World Trade Center. Or, to be metaphorically ac- If you care about the information back it up. You can 26
curate, the Tower of Babel. get a DVD burner from someplace like PanAudio (Rs. 27
15,000 - 20,000) and backup 5 Gigabytes at a time, or 28
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech... get an external hard-disk and backup everything at once 29
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have (best). Backing up is boring, but when you system (inevi- 30
all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will tably) crashes you’ll be so so happy. 31
be restrained from them. Go to, let us go down, and there con-
32
found their language, that they may not understand one another’s update 33
speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon
the face of all the earth: (Genesis 11:1-9) 34
Windows automatically tells you when there are updates
35
to download. Download them. One of the weird things
Aside from incurring the wrath of God, monoculture also about viruses is that people often start writing viruses af- 36
breaks with biology. The Irish Potato Famine happened, in ter Microsoft issues a patch. The patch tells virus writers 37
part, because all the potatoes had the same inbred genes. exactly where Windows is broken. Half of Windows us- 38
One virus was enough to kill them all. In short, don’t put ers don’t download the patches and they get hit. If you 39
all of your eggs in one basket. This isn’t Microsoft’s fault, don’t have Service Pack 2 already, get it (Google). It fixes 40
it’s just the price of success. Things like buffer overflows, a lot of problems and downloads new patches automati- 41
however, are just sloppy programming. The obvious solu- cally. 42
tion is to use a different operating system. Linux is the
43
ideal cause it comes in 8,000 flavors, but Mac is beautiful. scan
This solves the root problem of monoculture, but it’s still 44
too much for most people. At the very least run a secure 45
This step is actually the least important, but the most
browser like Mozilla Firefox and an email program like common. For free antivirus just Google ‘Panda Software’
46
Thunderbird. That way viruses can’t crack your browser or ‘Trend Micro’ (makers of PC-Cillin) and you’ll be able 47
and they can’t find your email contacts. These Other solu- to run the scan from there. It’s always updated, but it’s 48
tions are really just band-aids. better to have a desktop solution like Norton or McAfee’s 49
running at all times. You can get pirated versions round 50
backup Colombo, but it’s better to buy a registration key online to 51
get the updates - the only thing that matters. Everybody 52
This is the most important step of all. You have to as- has Norton’s so try and go with McAfee’s. See God’s rea- 53
sume that everything on your PC will be gone tomorrow. sons above. 54
/it-times/feature/security 55
56
01
02

Spam On
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10 SPAM is a meat of dubious composi- As it is, the Spam industry
11 tion. Or was. In 1970 Mont Python is remarkably centralized.
12 performed a skit where a hapless Spamhaus.org estimates
13 couple was in a restaurant trying to that about 200 people are
14 order a meal. To their dismay they responsible for 90% of the
found that the server offered noth- Spam people receive. The
15
ing but “Spam! Lovely spam! Lovely ROKSO list has the names
16
spam!” At this point a nearby table of and contact information of
17 Vikings joined the chorus, drowning most of them. For exam-
18 out all conversation. When marketers ples, the top Spammers for
19 began flooding email and forums with 2004 were:
20 junk advertisements the phenom-
21 enon was named Spam in honor of ○ Alan Ralsky
22 the sketch. SPAM (all caps) is still an ○ Scott Richter
23 official trademark of Hormel Foods, ○ Bill Waggoner
and the SPAM the tinned meat is still ○ Michael Lindsay
24 viruses like Netsky and Bagle take
available at stores like Cargill’s and
25
Keells. Spam (the junk mail) is avail- Alan Ralsky is one of the most pub- over computers and turn them into
26
able in your Inbox. lic characters. After 2 convictions for Spam spewing zombies. Over half of
27 fraud Ralsky declared bankruptcy. As all Spam comes from zombie com-
28 a fresh start he bought 2 comput- puters (Sophos, Sandvine). You can
what? protect your computer by installing a
29 ers, some mailing lists, and the Spam
King was born. firewall or Windows Service Pack 2,
30 Spam is unsolicited commercial email.
but that will eventually get cracked.
31 According to AOL’s statistics, the
Sending Spam through you is the best
32 most common Spam subjects are: how? method available since it completely
33 covers the Spammers tracks.
34 ○ Viagra, Xanax, Valium, Cele- At the entry level your local penis-pill
brex vendor can Google “bulk e-mail” and
35 why?
○ Online pharmacy find many services that will Spam for
36
○ Get out of debt about Rs 10 per address. A big player
37 ○ Sexual enhancement like Ralsky charges about Rs 2,200,000 Because it works. As Ralsky says,
38 ○ Online degree or diploma for a single mailing to his 250 million “You figure it out. When you’re send-
39 ○ Low mortgage rates address database. That breaks down ing out 250 million e-mails, even a
40 ○ Low insurance rates to about Rs 0.0088 per address. The blind squirrel will find a nut.” The
41 ○ Work from home Antispam section at right details how teenage Spammer Braden Bourni-
to protect your address. val left an order log at his site open
42
which gave Wired News access to
43 who? some direct data. Over 4 weeks 6,000
44 You can send Spam from any com-
puter, but most Internet Service Pro- people bought his penis-enlargement
45 There are two levels of Spammers.
viders will notice if there’s that much pills for Rs 5,000 each. That’s about
The first is the company selling the
46
outgoing email traffic (Port 25). Rs 30,000,000 in revenue. The pills
product - be it Viagra or a Mortgage.
47 Spammers get around this by rout- cost Rs 500 to make.
They can spend as little as Rs. 500 for
48 ing mail through another port, using
a CD with a million addresses on it.
49 amoral ‘Bulletproof ’ ISPs, or simply The average Spammer expects a re-
Now, if they really want the marketer
50 moving around. Ralsky seems to be sponse of around 0.01% to 0.5%.
can send all the emails themselves.
bouncing around Chinese servers The cost for sending bulk emails is
51 Usually, however, they contact the
right now. extremely low and the payout is high.
52 next level, the people who Spam for
In an unregulated economy Spam will
53 a living.
Oh, and you send Spam. Worms and continue to exist and grow.
54
55
/it-times/features/email
56

protect your address
Spammers have thousands of spam-
bots searching the Net for any ad-
dresses that appears online. Even if
your address doesn’t appear online,
there’s a chance that it’ll get sold
around and end up with a Spammer.
However, if you don’t give out some
address you can’t really experience the
Internet. Everyone from news sites
to shopping to blogs require email
addresses, and in most cases the ex-
perience is better for it. It is, however,
important to keep your ‘real’ email
safe. Here are a few methods:
1. Lie. If the site isn’t a friendly blog
or doesn’t use your address to send
you a password, then just make one
up.
2. Lie better. Many sites like the
New York Times require registration.
You can use usernames and password
provided free by bugmenot.com.
3. Use aliases. The best practice is
to setup dummy email addresses that
forward to your real one. For example,
the address indi@indi.ca isn’t a ‘real’
address, it just forwards to a Gmail
account. If you use a forwarder then
you can give out a dummy address
online and save your real address for
real people. If you ever get hit with
Spam then just stop forwarding and
your real email is safe. This works
01
02
Spam Off
03
04
05
06
07
08
is OK as it has a working filter built 09
best if you have your own
website and webserver. in. There are still some options to set- 10
up, however. Just Google: ‘Outlook 11
avoid monoculture Spam Tutorial’ and it should set you 12
semi-straight. 13
According to Forbes, 33% 14
of people use Hotmail Mozilla’s Thunderbird is probably the 15
and 30% use Yahoo Mail. best desktop client for fighting Spam. 16
This makes life easy for It avoids the Microsoft monoculture.
17
Spammers. They run dic- and hundreds of open-source pro-
18
tionary attacks that simply check grammers keep it on the bleeding
edge. Thunderbird has a learning 19
whether logical addresses like jaya-
system built in. If you mark a mes- 20
nath.spam@hotmail.com are taken.
These attacks can be fought at the sage as ‘Junk’ the filter learns from 21
server level, but Microsoft has been that. Over a week or so it should 22
somewhat lax. If you’re using Hot- block about 99% of your Spam (this 23
mail or Yahoo you will be targeted figure is based on anecdotal evi- 24
no matter how carefully you pro- dence). This magazine likes Mozilla 25
tect your address. At the moment and opensource in general. In fact the
26
Gmail is less Spammed in general. bird protecting the message above is
27
The best option is to get your own Thunderbird itself.
28
domain and server. This gives you
29
unlimited forwarders and a name sue and legislate
30
that no-one will run dictionary at-
tacks against. A domain name costs The Internet is not lawless. Right now 31
Rs 800 - 1,500. www.register.com is it is a frontier, but frontiers eventu- 32
on the high end, but is also not evil ally get tamed, settled, and zoned 33
like some registrars. For the full ser- into safe and boring suburbs. Sites 34
vice www.easydns.com will give you like spamhaus.org show that about 35
a name and 100 forwarders for Rs 200 people are causing 90% of the 36
4,000 per year. crap in your inbox. Those people can
37
be found and they can be stopped.
38
filter your mail Australia has written a strong ‘Opt-
In’ law which makes it illegal (and 39
very expensive) to send Spam to 40
Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail all filter
anyone who hasn’t agreed to receive 41
your mail to some extent. Hotmail
gets about 3 billion Spams a day and commercial mail. This law has been 42
filters about 1.7 billion of them. Ya- very effective in preventing Austra- 43
hoo also has decent filters in place, lian Spammers. Unfortunately about 44
and Gmail’s are excellent. 42% of Spam comes from America, 45
and their law is ‘Opt-Out’. This ba- 46
If you want to take more control sically legalizes Spam cause people
47
then use a desktop client. Outlook can’t be bothered to find the list and
48
Express and any version of Outlook sign-up. Of course, the most satisfy-
ing response to Spam is simple. 1) Go 49
below 2003 are pretty much useless.
to the Spammer’s door (addresses at 50
You can theoretically use them, but
you have to write the Spam Filters spamhaus.org) 2) put dog poop in a 51
yourself. You might as well write a bag, 3) light bag on fire, 4) ring door- 52
decent mail program. Outlook 2003 bell, 5) run. 53
54
/it-times/features/email 55
56
01
02

Open
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10

L
11
12
13
14
15

A
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
M P
28
29
30
31
32
33
Many websites you visit every day use free and open
source software to return your searches, serve you L inux is the standard base of a FOSS web
server. It runs the computer and man-
ages the basic infrastructure for everything else.
email, and deliver cricket scores. Notable examples
34
include Google and Yahoo. Every piece of data on Linux was actually really low-level infrastructure
35
the Internet is stored on some computer spinning and GNU tools did most of the interesting stuff.
36
away. This computer is called a server, but it looks The common dropping of GNU/Linux from the
37 much the same as a PC. When you have to buy thou- proper name still irks many hackers (page 35).
38 sands of computers and keep them secure it often
39
40
41
makes good economic sense to go the free and open-
source route. A pache mediates between the computer and
the outside world, in this case the World
Wide Web. When you type http://www.google.
42 Not that there isn’t money in it, however. Qualified com it takes that HTTP request, talks to Linux
43 open-source professionals make oodles of mon- and gets what you were looking for.
44 ey consulting and customizing for big companies
45
46
and start-ups all over the world. The speakers at
FOSSSL were all travelling on the open-source jun- M ySQL is a database that stores and orga-
nizes data. Rather than keeping your data
in an unstructured pile MySQL (or PostgreSQL)
47 ket. In this feature story on the 2005 Free and Open
48 Source Software Sri Lanka conference, we will be- files it away nicely.
49 gin with an overview from Mahangu, live blogs from
50
51
the conference, and a view on what FOSS means for
one designer. As a brief introduction, this graphic P HP (or Perl) is the presentation layer. It
talks to the MySQL layer and then auto-
matically writes the HTML that you see on the
52 illustrates the different parts of the traditional FOSS
53 stack that drives websites the world over. web. MySQL on its own is very plain, but nice
54 PHP can write beautiful and dynamic web pages.
55
/it-times/features/opensource
56
 01
02

Source
03
04
05
06
07
08
The sun is setting on Galle Face Green as 09
10
Rasmus Lerdorf, the lead developer of
11
PHP, wraps up his three hour talk on the 12
subject. It’s Free and Open Source Week in 13
Sri Lanka and I’m in a room full of geeks at 14
a tutorial. It’s question time, and a hand 15
goes up behind me... 16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
“So basically anybody can take the PHP source, repack- 27
age it and sell it?”
28
29
Rasmus nods. “Yeah, PHP is distributed under the BSD 30
license, which means that you can pretty much do any- release early, release often 31
thing you want with it. Basically the only thing the license 32
says you can’t do, is release your fork as something like This, in essence, is the FOSS Mantra. What has made the 33
PHP Version Seven, because obviously that would be Free and Open Source Software community so successful 34
very confusing. Apart from that, you can pretty much do is the fact that the software it creates is always close to a 35
anything you want with it.” release. This, among many things, also ensures that there
36
is always a version that can be run. It may not always be
37
He pauses for a moment, and smiles, before continuing. perfect code – but at least it’s code, and not just a design
draft that’s still in text. 38
“Of course,” he says, “your new product would have to 39
compete with me and a thousand or so friends of mine.” Whereas major software companies often take months 40
(and sometimes even years) in the planning stages, FOSS 41
PHP, which is arguably the most popular server side development teams typically get a rough model together 42
scripting language on the web, was started by Rasmus as a and start writing the actual code. The idea is that the soft- 43
hobby project just under a decade ago. Today the language ware will be fixed as it matures. By releasing early, and 44
powers the majority of the world’s major web based ap- releasing often, developers are able to gather feedback, 45
plications. Some of the more prominent users include fix bugs, and improve the quality of their code while still
46
Google and Yahoo! (by whom Rasmus is now employed). pushing the product forward.
47
It is updated and maintained by hundreds of developers
from around the world. one tree, many branches 48
49
Currently, Microsoft’s server side scripting language ASP Typically, FOSS projects have different branches. There 50
(Active Server Pages), and Sun Microsystems’ JSP (Java will be a stable branch that contains code that has been 51
Server Pages) fall far, far short in usage statistics. The suc- cured of bugs and tested for stability. On the other hand 52
cess of PHP, and of Free and Open Source Software in there will also be a bleeding edge or development branch 53
general has to do with its release model. which will contain untested code. Whereas the lay user 54
/it-times/features/opensource 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09 The real beauty of this however is that the process con-
10
11 tinues down the line, with projects like Wordpress and
12 Mambo evolving their own developer communities. In
13
14 the process, the Free and Open Source community in-
15 creases both in quality and quantity.
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24 will probably prefer the stable branch, developers, tweak- begets many children. Thanks to its open license many
25 ers and tinkerers will love the development branch for its open source developers and development teams have
26 new features. chosen PHP as their language of choice in creating web
27 based programs. From simple weblog systems like Word-
28 The beauty of the process is that the tweakers and tinker- press to fully customizable Enterprise Content Manage-
29 ers who download this branch will find bugs, suggest fixes ment Systems like Mambo, PHP has spawned a huge
and maybe even patch the code – over time transforming FOSS community of its own.
30
the development release in to a stable release. The devel-
31
opers on the other hand will be busy adding more features The real beauty of this however is that the process con-
32 to the next development release. And so the recursion tinues down the line, with projects like Wordpress and
33 continues, ensuring quality code for the user and enough Mambo evolving their own developer communities. In
34 new features to play around with for the tinkerer. the process, the Free and Open Source community in-
35 creases both in quality and quantity.
36 An excellent example of this process is found in the Red
37 Hat Linux development cycle. Red Hat, one of the oldest lamping it
38 GNU/Linux distributions, recently split their empire in
39
two. The company now has two main products – Red Hat Having PHP on its own however is akin to having sand-
Enterprise Linux and the Fedora Core. The Fedora Core wich paste without bread and butter. Whereas PHP is a
40
is the above mentioned development branch of the com- simple and effective solution to server side application
41
pany. New features are poured in to this, and the source needs, it would be nowhere without the an operating sys-
42 is released as FOSS, ensuring that the community will tem, a web server, and a database management solution.
43 be able to find bugs and patch code. On the other hand,
44 the stable branch of RH is known as Red Hat Enterprise This is where LAMP comes in. Linux, Apache and MySQL
45 Linux (RHEL), and is sold commercially, with support. provide PHP the foundation it needs to perform. These
46 four applications together form what is commonly called
47 Apart from being an excellent illustration of how FOSS the original LAMP stack. Over time however, other data-
48 companies can be financially viable as well, the RHEL bases such as PostgreSQL and programming languages
– Fedora brotherhood is a great working example of the such as Python and Perl have crept in to the LAMP defi-
49
release cycle which FOSS projects typically implement. nition.
50
51 Rasmus illustrated this clearly during his presentation at
children, grandchildren and family tree
52 the Asian Open Source Symposium during FOSS week
53 Another advantage of a FOSS project is that it typically when he said that at Yahoo! Inc, where he works, they use
54
55
/it-times/features/opensource
56
 01
02
03
04
FAMP – FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL and PHP. license gives users the right to customize their software
providing that they hand the changes back to the com- 05
Similar variants to LAMP exist in the form of LAPP (sub- munity free of charge. 06
stituting PostgresSQL for MySQL), WAMP (Windows in 07
place of Linux), MAMP (Macintosh instead of Linux) The Open Source Movement on the other hand, pushes 08
and LAMJ (Java Server Pages instead of PHP). for a what they believe is a more complete freedom and 09
thus does not enforce any restrictions upon the user. Thus 10
This, if any, is an excellent example of the flexibility that many Open Sources licenses such as the BSD License 11
Open Source Software gives you to mix and match soft- (used by PHP) and the more recent Apache Licenses
12
ware to suit virtually any need. (used by the Apache Software Foundation in licensing its
13
products) are almost totally unrestrictive, giving users the
opportunity to embed Open Source code in commercial 14
gratis/libre/free software vs open source
software. Thus, many Open Source advocates claim that 15
Free as in Speech (Libre) and Free as in Beer (Gratis) are their licenses are in fact “more free” than the GPL and 16
terms used by the FOSS community to differentiate be- other licenses of the Free Software Movement. 17
tween the two meanings of the English word free. 18
The attitude of the Open Source movement was clearly 19
Libre refers to freedom (like everyone’s right to freedom brought out by Apache Foundation Chairman Greg Stein 20
of speech),and the ability to customize and edit software during the closing panel discussion of FOSSL05. Speak- 21
for your own needs. Gratis on the other hand refers to the ing on the user’s responsibility towards the community,
22
a piece of software being distributed free of charge, like Greg said “To me it doesn’t really matter if the user gives
23
beer at a party. back to the community or not. I write code because that’s
what I like doing – if the user just wants to use the soft- 24
ware, that’s fine with me.” 25
Though confusing at first, this differentiation is an impor-
tant one for the FOSS community. The term Libre is also 26
the reason why the FOSS community is sometimes called Perhaps the easiest explanation for the phenomenon lies 27
the F/LOSS community, meaning Free / Libre and Open herein – Although not all Free Software is Open Source, 28
Source Community. all Open Source Software is definitely Free Software. Due 29
to the heavy overlap that exists between the two, the 30
One of the problems with Free and Open Source Soft- name Free and Open Source Software has been coined as
31
ware however is that it has become very hard to define. an attempt to cover all ground.
32
The movement is roughly separated in to
33
two groups – The Free Software Commu-
34
nity and the Open Source Movement.
35
These two groups differ on a few licens- 36
ing and technical issues. The Free Soft- 37
ware Community believes that the con- 38
tinued freedom of software should be 39
safeguarded with the use of binding li- 40
censes that stipulate that derivatives and 41
byproducts must be handed back to the
42
community free of charge.
43
On the other hand, the Open Source 44
Movement believes that users should 45
have the right to do whatever they want 46
the software – even repackage it in a com- 47
mercial product without giving anything 48
back to the community. 49
organizer Sanjeeva Weerawarana watching the panel discussion 50
Traditionally, the Free Software Move- 51
ment is strong in advocating Libre. The
52
movement has at its heart the GNU Pub-
53
lic License. Also known as the GPL, this
54
/it-times/features/opensource 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07 foss sri lanka
08
09 Personally I found that one of the most exciting things
10 about FOSS Week was the public introduction of Tapro-
11 bane, a GNU / Linux distribution being worked upon by
12 a handful of local programmers. The current Taprobane
13 distribution runs off a Live CD, meaning you can try it
out at no risk. There’s no thirty-day-money back guaran-
14
tee though. Why? Because there is no money – it’s free,
15
both as in speech and in beer.
16
17 You can just go to http://taprobane.org, download the
18 .torrent file and open it with your favourite BitTorrent
19 client. Once the .iso file has downloaded, just burn a CD
20 and boot with it. Version 0.4.1 was the current version at
21 the time of going to print and contained the features like
22 Linux 2.6.12.4, Open Office, a running web server, KDE
23 3.41, and educational software.
24
Although we didn’t have the time to do a full review of
25
the distribution, we poked around quite a bit, and found
26 it very much to our liking. The boot sequence is a big im-
27 provement (time wise) on other Live CD Linux distribu-
28 tions we’ve tried, and certainly more picturesque.
29
30 The distribution ships with the KDE display manager, and
31 the team has included most applications that an every-
32 day user would need - Open Office 2, Gimp 2.2, GAIM,
Firefox. Naturally it’s a little slow because as a Live CD it
33
loads everything from memory, and this is another rea-
34
son why a hard drive installer should be released soon.
35 IT Times learns from reliable sources that the feature is
36 in the works, and will hopefully be a part of the next re-
37 lease. Hard core geeks on the other hand may like to try a
38 manual partition and install, instructions for which can be
39 obtained from the official mailing list.
40
41 For forums, mailing lists and other ways of getting in-
42
volved with the distribution of Taprogane visit the proj-
ect’s official website at http://taprobane.org. The distri-
43
bution is an initiative of the Lanka Linux User Group
44
(LKLUG) who meet online at http://linux.lk and http://
45 lug.lk.
46
47 As Sri Lankans, Taprobane is one opportunity we have to
48 support local Free and Open Source Software. For start-
49 ers we urge you all to try and get your hands on a copy. Al-
50 though downloading it is the easiest way to go, if all else
51 fails, drop me an email and I’ll burn you a disk. Personally,
I can’t wait to try Taprobane on my hard drive. Seeing
52
that it’s built on Debian, my Linux flavour of choice, the
53
transition should be that much easier.
54
55
/it-times/features/opensource
56
 01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
View of Mihintale. Photo by Badley (flickr.com/photos/nonevent/)
13
14

Lighting Up The Hospital 15

16
by Dulan Abeyratne 17
18
19
One of the biggest issues with software applications are owned by them. Therefore, Free and Open Source was
that they don’t always take in to account the end user. selected as the way to go. 20
As a result, there are many people who have issues eas- 21
ily solved, that aren’t solved because they don’t have the In Sri Lanka, Health Service is handled by the govern- 22
necessary knowledge. Dr. Nandalal Gunaratne used to be ment and is mostly free. Therefore Free and Open Source 23
just an end user, but now he’s become part of a program makes even more sense, as it would save public money. 24
to make good use of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and 25
PHP/Perl/Python) for the Health Services. Dr. Gunaratne also mentioned a number of open source 26
tools available for the medical community - like GNUMED
27
Dr. Gunaratne started off his presentation by mentioning and FreeMed. He also talked about how Medical Imaging
28
his postition as an end user and asked everyone to bear had not much support in the FOSS community maybe
with him if he doesn’t use as many technical terms as the two years ago, but how the support had grown signifi- 29
other speakers. After that, there was an interesting men- cantly since then. 30
tion of the ruins of an ancient hospital in Mihintale. The 31
story behind this would be explained later. The support of Andrew P. Ho and LinuxMedNews had 32
been of great use to the Dr. Gunaratne. The spirit of co- 33
Apparently, there’s a huge need for Health Information operation through this mailing list has enabled the doctor 34
Technology (HIT), so that’d be a great place for people to greatly increace his knowledge of LAMP and finally es- 35
start looking into. This is mainly due to the fact that data tablishing a system based on OIO for use at the hospital. 36
needs to be collected, manipulated and analysed a lot.
37
Also, there was a need to shift from text based applica- The main advantage of LAMP, according to the doctor,
38
tions (which had been in use earlier) to Graphical User was the similarity to Lego toys. The ability to put together
Interfaces (GUI) in order to enable the applications to be various applications so that the final required product 39
used by non-IT staff - i.e. doctors, nurses etc. could be used has been very useful. 40
41
One of the main highlights of the presentation was the However, it seems that the project is currently suffering 42
statement made with regard to the need for Electronic from a lack of publicity. The doctor appealed to everyone 43
Medical Records (EMR) which the doctor says, are re- present to help ensure that this project doesn’t suffer the 44
quired “from Womb to Tomb”. So much so, that some- same fate as the hospital in Mihintale, which while having 45
times the staff ask parents at Kalubowila (Colombo been of immense use in its time, now lies in ruins - of
46
South) Hospital for the kids’ names, before they’re even interest to archealogists and sightseers only.
47
born. This is probably quite disturbing for the parents,
since many would be waiting to check for auspicious In conclusion, the doctor made another interesting point 48
names based on the time the kid is born, but I digress. - that Apache was like the sun, bright, but difficult for 49
someone like him to work with directly, but Zope was 50
The standard format for EMR could not be proprietary. the moon - easier for him to deal with. In summary - the 51
If it were, it would present a significant problem for the presentation added to the growing argument that govern- 52
stakeholders of the hospital - like for instance, the gov- ment data needs to conform to open standards for it to be 53
ernment, as the data would be based on a format not of the best use. (originally live blogged at www.nidahas.com) 54
/it-times/features/opensource 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22 A fishing net buoy, resting on the beach, by (flickr.com/photos/wavesofhope)
23
24
25
Opensource vs Tsunami
26 by Dulan Abeyratne
27
28 - with the support of the tech com-
The word “Sahana” means “relief ”. and keep track of them
29 munity and experts in Humanitarian
Sahana was set up in response to the 3) Prioritize the required courses
30
need for a disaster management ap- of action in an efficient manner ICT and Emergency Management
31 plication right after the tsunami of 4) Facilitate cooperation among sounds good.
32 December 26, 2004. the various stakeholders by pro-
33 viding a common platform There is already a great deal of in-
34 Disasters have a tendency to cause 5) Efficiently match needs with terest in Sahana - from IBM, NGOs
35 havoc, even when you think that pledged assistance and also Richard Stallman, generated
you’re well prepared for them. So 6) Ensure transparency when Chamindra was in Cambodia
36
its no surprise that the disaster you doing a presentation about Sahana,
37
weren’t prepared for really causes Due to the non-commercial nature as well as from the various awards it
38 has won.
havoc. and ethical perspective involved in
39 disaster/emergency management, the
40 In his presentation, Chamindra de best option available was to go for a In order to go ahead with Phase II,
41 Silva of the Lanka Software Foun- FOSS solution. Sahana will be implementing a hybrid
42 dation (LSF)/Virtusa described the FOSS development model - similar
43 steps involved in setting up Sahana At present Sahana has completed to the Mozilla Firefox development
44 - which he admits, was at the time “a Phase I of its implementation. The - a sponsored core team will ensure
quick hack”. presentation today went on to further the code and also support the com-
45
describe the manner in which Phase munity.
46
The potential for IT in Emergency II would go ahead. In light of the
47 So if you happen to be involved in
Management (EM) was shown as fol- natural disaster in New Orleans - it
48 GIS, mobile devices, PDA/Satellite
lows: seems that there is a very visible need
49 for tools to help manage disasters. phones, SMS/MMS or XHTML/
50 1) The ability to connect people to- CSS/AJAX technologies, then per-
51 gether quicker and more efficiently When you consider that even the haps you’d like to join the effort at
52 than traditional noticeboards and richest governments in the world may Sahana.
53 similar methods not have budgeted for disasters and
2) Account for and track people their management, a FOSS solution (originally live blogged at nidahas.com)
54
55
/it-times/features/opensource
56

The Value of Free
by Prabath Sirisena
Today, September 10th, is the Soft-
ware Freedom Day. It’s a day when
FOSS geeks celebrate the glory of
Free Software, and in a broader
sense, Freedom. Although a designer
at heart, and more consumer than
producer when it comes to software
tools, I’m compelled to throw my
0.02 rupees in, because one man on
the other side of the world managed
to convert me into a faithful admirer
of the Church of St.IGNUcius some
time back.
If not for RMS [Richard Stallman,
innovator behind GNU], worshipped
by many, hated by even more, and
feared by all, it would be frightening
to imagine what the software land-
scape would be today. In a world in-
creasingly defined by code, as Prof.
Lessig says, his words, works, and
indeed, life, is an inspiration for all
of us to think beyond the corporate
rhetoric. I need not say much here;
visit the GNU project philosophy
section, and read. It changed the way
I see things, and it will change yours.
However, Free Software has had
its difficult times. Like when Open
Source became the “in” thing (I guess
it still is). RMS’s no-bs, uncompromis-
ing attitude irked some of the mas-
ters in the hacker community, who
forked the Free Software movement
to create the Open Source Initiative.
It resulted in him being pushed to the
sidelines as the next generation of
easy-going hackers like Linus and the
rest of the Open Source camp became
the idols of geeks around the world.
Open Source was the new kid on the
block, and Free Software was going
to be history: something that served
it’s purpose during it’s time, and has
gone to inevitable retirement to make
room for better, sexier things.
May be I’m blowing things out of
proportion here. May be I’m idol-
izing RMS too much. But then I see
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
how often the GNU part is dropped As web developers, creating business, 08
from Linux, and I can’t help blaming social, and educational sites, we turn
09
the Open Source folk for not giv- this dream into reality.
10
ing credit where it’s due. As Andrew
Leonard mentioned in the Salon Thus starts the WaSP FAQ, and even 11
magazine, “If the pragmatists of the in that document, they put “ensure 12
open source cause sacrifice him to that everyone has access to the in- 13
make free software safe for business, formation we are providing” before 14
it seems to me, they risk losing their other reasons. 15
movement’s soul.”. 16
Fellow web standards freaks will agree 17
I like to believe that the Open Source that our primary reason for keep-
18
community understood their mistake, ing code clean is never the “business
19
learnt from it, and are trying to fix it. benefits”. They are the carrot for the
For example, it’s not an Open Source client. We love web standards mostly 20
Software week we have here in Sri because it’s the right thing to do: sen- 21
Lanka these days; it’s a Free and Open sible use of the power we have of 22
Source Software week. More people delivering content over http. WaSP 23
are learning to talk FOSS instead of has done a good job in convincing 24
Open Source, and that’s great. the masses with an argument based 25
on ethics. 26
Web Standards Project, on the oth- 27
er hand, has incorporated the best But has this “morals first” stance af-
28
of both worlds in their mission. In fected WaSP negatively? It was never
29
fact, it seems they are more like free easy, but more big companies are
software advocates than open source listening to them now than ever be- 30
advocates in their thinking. Their fore. Microsoft is working with them 31
challenge was not as daunting as on making a better IE. That says it 32
changing the way people deciphered all (Of course, here they get in to 33
“software”, but it was tough nonthe- the “open source” mode and preach 34
less. And just like RMS did with the pragmatism. That’s good marketing, 35
GNU project, WaSP had the guts to as long as they don’t compromise 36
put ethics first. their stand on ethics to lure business-
37
es, like OSI does).
38
The reasons to adopt web standards
were never purely business oriented: Therefore it’s only right that standards 39
it had more to do with making the compliant web designers use the 40
web free (as in freedom) for all. Of term Free and Open Source Software 41
course, using web standards makes instead of just Open Source Soft- 42
a lot of business sense, but that was ware (I can’t emphasize this enough: 43
never the primary argument. Using Free Software is not free as in free 44
standards compliant code results in lunch, it’s free as in free speech, or 45
faster, elegant sites that are yummy free labour. Free Software is about 46
for search engines, but that was a re- Freedom). The correct phrase would
47
sult, not the cause. be “FOSS Web Professional”, not
48
“Open Source Web Professional”.
Tim Berners-Lee’s dream for his in- 49
vention, the World Wide Web, is a If you’re thinking “wtf, both are the 50
common space where users can share same no?”, read this again. 51
information to work together, to play, 52
and to socialize (The World Wide (first posted on www.nidahas.com) 53
Web, A Very Short Personal History). 54
/it-times/features/opensource 55
56
01
02
03

ubuntu linux for human beings

04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
If you ever thought that Linux is only for elite
12 programmers who code in front of monochrome
13
14
monitors till the wee hours of the morning. well…
15 you’ve missed out on one of the biggest and
16
17
most colourful revolutions in computer history.
18

u
19
20
21
22 buntu Linux (more af- Ubuntu comes with two CDs - an
23 fectionately known as installation CD and a live CD. Live
“banku banku”, just kid- CD is a nice way to get a feel for the
24
ding) is the quite craze these days. It’s system because you don’t have to in-
25
easy to install and best of all, works stall it to your computer. Just change
26 perfectly with almost all new hard- the BIOS sequence to boot from the
27 ware (on one occasion it even de- CD and put the live CD to your drive
28 tected my PCI wireless ethernet card and restart. After few minutes you’ll
29 during the installation). be running Ubuntu Linux! It runs
30 directly from the CD, and once you
31 For many years, obtaining Linux CDs remove it and restart the computer
32 was bit of a painful process, as you everything will go back to normal.
33 had to order it online and pay for Among other things, it’s really a nice
shipping or find someone who owned way to trick dad in to thinking that
34
a CD and make a copy of that. you just killed all his important docu-
35 by Chintana Wilamuna ments by replacing the entire OS.
36
If you’re a student you might not
37 even have a credit card, putting you in The Ubuntu Live CD also contains
38 a tight spot if you need a free operat- Windows versions of some popular
39 ing sytem very badly. But guess what? free and open source programs. It has
40 The nice folks at Ubuntu are now are OpenOffice (a complete office suite),
41 willing to pay for the shipping and Mozilla Firefox (standards compli-
42 send you Ubuntu CDs for free of ant, secure web browser), Mozilla
charge. Hard to believe? Believe it! Thunderbird (email client), AbiWord
43
(lightweight word processor), GIMP
44
If that wasn’t enough, you can even (the Photoshop replacement), Audac-
45 select the number of CDs you want ity (an audio editing program). If you
46 to receive so you can extras to you want to install any of these boot your
47 friends. Skeptical? Go to shipit.ubun- computer to Windows and insert the
48 tu.com and send in your order today! CD - the autorun should guide you
49 from there.
50 Unlike most other proprietary soft-
51 ware, you can safely make any num- When using the live CD the time it
52
ber of copies of Ubuntu Linux and takes to load programs is solely depen-
redistribute them, as is the case with dent on the speed of your CDROM
53
most open source programs. drive. In short, the Live CD option
54
55
/it-times/tutorials/linux
56

is fun for a start, but if you want to
get serious with the OS, you’ve got to
install it to the hard drive.
Now, let’s see how that’s done. First
of all, unlike other Linux distros like
Redhat, you don’t get a partition re-
sizing tool in the Ubuntu install.
Thus, I recommend that you make
some free space using a tool like Par-
tition Magic.
To be on the safe side allocate about
4 - 5 GB of space and then proceed
with the installation. As I said earlier,
there are Linux distributions which
come with graphical tools similar to
Partition Magic which you can use to
resize any existing partition to make
room for a new installation. I’ll show
how and what they are in a future is-
sue when it becomes relevant.
Coming back to banku… err…
Ubuntu, I’ll now walk you through
a step by step process of installing
Ubuntu onto your hard drive. I in-
stalled Ubuntu on a 2 GB partition
with only 150 MB of swap space.
Swap space is used when you run out
of physical memory. If you try to run
another program when your RAM
is full several data portions of your
RAM will be written to the disk to
make space for the new program.
01
02
Fear not my friend, you came 03
this far after all. We’ll just tackle 04
one little big step at a time. First 05
in the language selection menu, 06
choose English. You can use ar- 07
row keys for navigation and press
08
enter to select. See, that was easy,
09
wasn’t it?
10
Now the location setup. Select 11
Other and find ‘Sri Lanka’ and 12
press enter. This will be used to 13
configure the package manage- 14
ment system. In Ubuntu you can 15
install a package by issuing one 16
command and the relevant pack- 17
age will be fetched over the Inter-
18
net and be installed automagical-
19
ly. Country selection will be used
to determined a mirror site that 20
will be near to you. If you select 21
Although I allocated 150 MB for United States, packages will be 22
the swap space I recommend you fetched from us.archive.ubuntu. 23
to allocate about 300 MB so that com and if you select Sri Lanka, 24
you’re on the safe side. If you have packages will be fetched from 25
less than 128 MB of RAM it will lk.archive.ubuntu.com. 26
help the a lot with the smooth op-
27
eration of the system. Saying that Next you’ll be presented with the
however, it’s highly unlikely you’ll 28
choosing of keyboard layout. In
need more than, say, 500 MB as the this case, the default is fine so just 29
swap partition on a desktop ma- press enter. Next, the automatic 30
chine . Allocating more than that hardware detection system will 31
will be a waste of disk space. try to detect your hardware. The 32
installer will try to auto configure 33
Ok, after you make some free space you Ethernet card and if it fails 34
it’s time for us rock 35
‘n roll… please re-
main seated, there’s
please remain seated, there’s no need 36
no need to stand to stand up. Put the Ubuntu installation 37
up. Put the Ubun- 38
CD in and reboot the computer.
tu installation CD 39
in and reboot the 40
computer. will give a menu in which you can 41
either choose manual configura- 42
You’ll be presented with the Ubun- tion or select not to configure 43
tu welcome screen. Aha! the mo- the network settings at this time. 44
ment of truth. Press the enter key If you’re connected to a net- 45
now and throughout the following work your network administra-
46
paragraphs I’ll show you how deep tor should be able to provide you
the rabbit hole goes. Remember 47
with this info. If you’re a home
what I present you is only the truth user go with the option not to 48
- nothing more nothing less. configure it at this time. You can 49
make changes after the system is 50
First however a warning - in Ubun- installed if you decide to do so. 51
tu you don’t get a graphical instal- For the hostname go with the de- 52
lation system so you have to go fault, and just press enter. 53
through a menu driven interface.
54
/it-times/tutorials/linux 55
56
01
02
03 Ok, here comes the partitioner. Put tions’ and press enter. A warning
04 your daily dose of caffeine on the message will appear asking for your
05 table and read carefully. You’ll have confirmation - select yes and proceed
06 two major options. You can can ei- with the installation.
07 ther erase the entire hard drive and
put Ubuntu on it, or you could man- You’ll see a progress bar saying ‘in-
08
ually partition it. Since you created stalling the Ubuntu base system’. Af-
09
free space earlier as I suggest choose ter that you’ll be prompted for the full
10 manual partition. (Of course if you name of the user. I don’t think you’ll
11 want to erase your Windows installa- need any guidance to type your name
12 tion you should go with the former here. And after that the installer asks load cd
13 option.) Find the free space that you for a username which will be used to
14 created on the correct disk and press login to the system.
Ubuntu linux can run the
15 enter.
whole os directly off the CD
16 Once this is completed, the installer
- no install required
17 Choose create new partition. First tries to get a package list from the
we’ll create a swap space. Set the size Ubuntu home site over the Internet.
18
to 300 MB and press enter. Choose a I didn’t have a net connection while
19
‘logical partition’ and then select ‘be- installing and the installer stalled for
20 ginning’ to create the partition in the a long period of time which really an-
21 beginning of the free space. noyed me. My advice would be not to
22 do anything at this point. Wait for it
23 In the partition settings menu select to complete. This step is placed for
24 Use as item and press enter. This the benefit of Internet users who can
25 will allow you to set the file system use this feature to keep their installa-
26 type of the partition. Choose swap tions up to date with ease. partition
area and press enter and then choose
27
‘done setting up partition’ and press In the next step, the installer installs
28 tools like partition magic let
enter. Well done! The swap area is the GRUB boot loader which will act
29 you install both Linux and
setup now. Let’s move on to the root as a gateway to load Ubuntu. Once
30 Windows on the same drive
partition where all of the Ubuntu this is done, your CDROM will be
31 files will be stored. ejected automagically and you’ll be
32 prompted to remove the disk and re-
33 Select the other free space area and boot the machine.
34 press enter. Just like before, select
35 ‘create new partition’ and press enter. Once rebooted, Ubuntu will try to
36
Don’t make any changes to the default configure all the packages and will
size of this partition, just press enter. prompt you to select a screen reso-
37
It will use all the available free space lution. Select whatever resolution
38 for this partition. Then select ‘use you’re comfortable working with and
39 as item’ once again and press enter. after some time it will present you
40 Here you can give a file system type with a graphical login asking you to install
41 for your root partition. Traditionally login. Type in the username and the
42 Linux file system has the Ext3 as the password you chose during the instal- watch various bar graphs
43 type. Ext3 replaced the former Ext2 lation. Voila, welcome to the Ubun- fill up and remember how
44 by adding journaling capabilities. tu! Try playing with the system and to spell your name
45 However there is an even better al- get comfortable. We’ll explore every
ternative called ReiserFS which gives nook and cranny of this beast in the
46
much faster performance due to its months to come. In the mean time,
47
architecture. So we’ll go with that, please feel free to send in your com-
48 choose ReiserFS as the file system ments, suggestions, problems, rants.
49 type and press enter. After that you Happy Ubunting!
50 should choose the mount point as /
51 and select done setting up partition. Chintana is a guy with an 8 letter name
52 who has fun with a 5 letter operating
53 Ok the disk is setup and we’re ready system. Not Vista. He occasionally finds
54 to go. Select ‘finish setting up parti- time to brush his teeth and bathe.
55
/it-times/tutorials/linux
56
 01

taking back the web 02

03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
A female Argiope Aurantia spider on its web. Photo by Evil Greg 3000 (flickr.com/photos/evilgreg) 27
28
by Prahbath Sirisena 29
30
31
This series will give you the basic toolset for building web- the project 32
sites with Web Standards and accessibility in mind, teach 33
you about separation of content from style, and hope- The subject matter for the tutorial will be a personal web-
34
fully leave you with skills that are becoming an industry site for an individual where she can share information
35
requisite. with family and friends. Such sites are often called blogs
(or web logs). Later on we will discuss how to approach 36
We do not expect you to have any prior experience de- different web design problems, but for beginners, this is 37
veloping websites. However, by understanding and apply- as good as any subject matter. 38
ing the techniques and methods we discuss here, you will 39
already be one step ahead of many professional web 40
designers. Sounds tempting? Let’s begin. get organized 41
42
Create a folder for our design project wherever you like to 43
what you will need work. Inside this folder, create a text document, and name 44
it index.htm. This will be our web page. Create another
45
 A text editor like notepad, textpad, vi or emacs. We do text document, and name it style.css. This is going to be
46
not recommend Frontpage, Word, or your fancy WYSI- the style sheet you’ll soon learn about.
47
WYG editor. Let’s keep it as simple as possible.
 You need a modern web browser like Mozilla/ 48
Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer 6 or Safari to view your 49
creations. Internet Explorer version 5.5 and older are very 50
common, but they are just not good enough for us. 51
 As we go on, a graphics program like Gimp, Mac- 52
romedia Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop, or MS Paint will index.htm style.css
53
come handy. 54
/it-times/tutorials/web 55
56
01
02
03
04
05 1. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN”
06 “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
07 2. <html>
08 3. <head>
4. <title></title>
09
5. </head>
10
6. <body>
11 7. <div id=”container”>I want to take back the web.</div>
12 8. </body>
13 9. </html>
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23 the basics adding content
24
25 Open index.htm in your text editor and type the code Inside the <body> and </body> tags, type in the fol-
26 shown above. Now let’s go through the code we just lowingHTML:
27 typed. At the top we have the doctype. It tells the web
browser what type of a document you have created, and <div id=”container”>I want to take
28
how to render (display) it properly. back the web.</div>
29
30 Then follow the xhtml tags. You will notice that they We have just created a div element, and given it a unique
31 come in pairs, like <title> and </title>. We call name, an id, as container. This id attribute of the div ele-
32 the first the opening tag, and the latter the closing tag. ment will be used as the selector in our style sheet later.
33 The two tags and whatever stuff you have inside them are Although we called it container, the id could be anything
34 collectively called an element. you like, as long as it’s one word and doesn’t start with a
35 numeral. For example, ‘peaceOnEarth’ would work fine
36 As you may have already guessed, XHTML is a language as an id. However, keep in mind that we should always use
made up of tags which tell the browser what to do and semantically correct names. Funny names aren’t so funny
37
how to present the information contained inside them. six months later when you’re making an update to a com-
38
The first xhtml tag in our document is <html>, which plex style sheet.
39 is the mother of all tags. Inside <html></html> are
40
40 the head and body elements. Head contains data about There’s another way to name an element, using class. The
41 the document, while body holds the actual stuff. Think difference between id and class is that an id uniquely iden-
42 of the head as the cover of a book, while the body is the tifies a single element in a web page, while more than one
43 real content: the pages. element can have the same class. This will begin to make
44 more sense as we learn more about XHTML and CSS.
45 Inside head is the title element. It’s an important part of
46
the page which defines the, er, title of the web document. styling the markup
Let’s add a title to our web page by typing it between
47
<title> and </title> like this: All this time we were working on index.htm. Now is the
48
time to open up the other file we created, style.css. CSS
49 <title>I love web standards</title> stands for Cascading Style Sheet. We’ll leave that Cascad-
50
ing part for the next time. Style Sheet is exactly what it
51 We can now forget about the head and focus on the actual sounds like: a document that contains the information on
52 content of the web page, which is inside the <body> how to style something. In this instance, a web page. Now
53 and </body> tags. This is where we will be doing the we can open style.css and fill it in as on the next page.
54 bulk of our work.
55
/it-times/tutorials/web
56
 01
02
03
04
1. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” 05
“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”> 06
2. <html> 07
3. <head> 08
4. <title>I love web standards</title>
09
5. <link href=”style.css” rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” />
10
6. </head>
7. <body> 11
8. <div id=”container”>I want to take back the web.</div> 12
9. </body> 1. #container { 13
10. </html> 2. width: 650px; 14
3. height: 500px; 15
4. background-color: #DDDDDD; 16
5. } 17
18
19
20
21
22
#container. Hmm… sounds familiar. This is the se- <link href=”style.css” 23
lector which we mentioned earlier, which targets the div rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” /> 24
named container in our index.htm. Note the # sign in 25
front of the name. That is how ids are referred in CSS. This is one of several possible ways you can add a style 26
sheet to a web page. In the link element, the href attri-
27
The stuff inside the braces (curly brackets) are called dec- bute points to the name and location of the css file, the
28
larations. The selector, braces, and declarations are collec- rel attribute defines the relation of the linked file to the
tively known as a style rule. A style sheet can have many web page (in this instance, a style sheet), and the type at- 29
style rules like this. tribute identifies what type of a document is being linked 30
(here, a text file containing style rules). 31
Now that we have both the XHTML and CSS ready, it’s 32
time to open the web page in a browser. Go ahead and Both files should now look like the examples above. Now 33
point your web browser to index.htm. view your web page in a browser. 34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
Not bad, but doesn’t seem to be styled at all. That’s be-
46
cause the browser doesn’t know that this XHTML file has
47
a style sheet associated with it. We need to link the CSS
file to our XHTML for the style rules to take effect. 48
49
making the connection 50
51
Add the following line after the title element in your in- 52
dex.htm - 53
54
/it-times/tutorials/web 55
56
01
02
03
04 1. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN”
05 “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
06 2. <html>
07 3. <head>
08 4. <title>I love web standards</title>
09
5. <link href=”style.css” rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” />
6. </head>
10
7. <body>
11
8.
12 9. <div id=”container”>
13 10. <div id=”header”>I am the header</div>
14 11. <div id=”maincontent”>I am the main content column</div>
15 12. <div id=”subcontent”>I am the sub content column</div>
16 13. <div id=”footer”>I am the footer</div>
17 14. </div>
18 15.
16. </body> 1. #container {
19 2. width: 650px;
17. </html>
20 3. height: 500px;
21 4. background-color: #DDDDDD;
22 5. }
23 6.
24 7. #header {
25 Whoa! Our words are now inside a grey box. We have cre- 8. width: 650px;
ated a web page adhering to web standards, following the 9. height: 125px;
26
concept of separating content from style. It doesn’t look 10. background-color: #C00;
27 11. }
very exciting yet; let’s do something to make it better.
28 12.
29
beyond the grey box 13. #maincontent {
30 14. width: 650px;
31 Delete “I want to take back the web” from the container div, 15. height: 125px;
32 and hit Carriage Return (Enter) a few times to give your- 16. background-color: #FC3;
33 self some room between <div id=”container”> 17. }
34 and </div>. Then insert the four more divs right in 18.
there, as shown above. 19. #subcontent {
35
20. width: 650px;
36
You will get a basic idea of what we are planning to do 21. height: 125px;
37 22. background-color: #3C3;
38
with these divs just by looking at their ids – a main charac-
teristic of semantically correct id and class names. 23. }
39 24.
40
Let’s save index.htm now and move to style.css to add 25. #footer {
41 some CSS goodness to our edited web page. 26. width: 650px;
42 27. height: 125px;
43 Type in the style rule we’ve already created for container 28. background-color: #36C;
and add the rules shown above. 29. }
44
45
46 Look at the first style rule in this lot: the selector, #header,
47 says we are targeting an element in our XHTML with an
id of header. The following brace { tells the browser that
48
some declarations are coming up for this element, which
49
go something like “I want this element to be 650 pixels
50 wide ( width: 650px; ), 125 pixels tall ( height: 125px; )
51 and have a red background ( background-color: #C00; )”.
52 Note that we must use American spelling of colour, color.
53 The closing brace } says that we are done with styles for
54 this particular element.
55
/it-times/tutorials/web
56
 01
02
03
We’ve also used a strange syntax to specify colours. For 04
example, #C00 stands for a shade of red, while #FC3 is 05
a shade of orange. These are the hex values of colours 06
in their shortened format. Colours on the web are repre- 07
sented by a hexadecimal number, which comprises of a
08
group of six numbers preceded by a hash # symbol. Bro-
09
ken down these hex numbers are RGB values simply rep-
resented grouped together. You can read #003366 as R00 10
G33 B66. Such numbers where two digits are repeated for 11
R, G and B can be shortened, like #036, whereas num- 12
bers like #203040 cannot. Thus, the red we used, #C00, 13
has a hex value of #CC0000. If you have an advanced 14
graphics program like Gimp, Fireworks or Photoshop, try 15
the colour palette in RGB format to find out more. 16
17
Will the browser follow our orders? Save the CSS file, and in summary 18
point your browser to index.htm. If your web page con- 19
tains a box with red, orange, green and blue stripes, you’ve We learned the basics of XHTML and CSS in this tutorial,
20
done well. and successfully set up a basic, standards compliant web
21
page. We also got an idea of semantics and the separation
Before we wrap up for this month, let’s have a look at two of content from style. Feel free to explore and experiment 22
more things: on your own, and see what cool effects you can come up 23
with. Next month we will discuss web page layouts, and 24
In our style sheet, we used ‘pixels’ to specify dimensions. A how CSS could be used to position elements. 25
pixel is the smallest unit of measurement on screen, so di- 26
mensions in pixels can’t have decimals like 0.5px or 2.4px. Prabhath is our resident web standards freak and usability expert. 27
There are pixels in computer graphics too, where they are When not working as an information architect at Vesses, he 28
used to create images. These pixels are tiny squares 1px spends his time tracking down and torturing IE4 users.
29
tall and 1px wide, which can be given a single colour.
30
31
nightime spiderweb by Zach-O-Matic (flickr.com/photos/thegroundabove)
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
/it-times/tutorials/web 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27

your own personal web server

28
29
30
31
photo by Atom Tiger Zoo (flickr.com/photos/atomtigerzoo). licensed as cc attribution-share-alike
32
33 by Mahangu Weerasinghe
34
35
36 It’s post dot-com hangover and ev- and PERL to develop server side XAMPP Lite variety, which is a
37 eryone wants a website. Yes, even scripts. By the end of this column significantly smaller download at
38 the kottu stand at the of top of you should understand the very just 23mb.
39 the road wants it own online pres- basics of developing with PHP.
40 ence. The problem is, developing After you’ve got the fix, you’ve
41 a dynamic site is not an easy task. getting the fix just got to execute it, and fol-
42 It takes time, and it takes money. low the easy-peasy installation
43 Oh wait, it doesn’t take money any First of all, I’m going to assume through to completion. Once
44 more. Thanks to the wonders of that you don’t have access to an you’ve got XAMPP Lite running,
45 XAMPP, you can develop a truly Internet server. Thus, this short you need to find your /htdocs/
46 dynamic, data driven website for section will run you through the directory. It’s usually just inside
47 no money at all. installation of your very own per- your XAMPP Lite installation di-
48 sonal web server. rectory. If you’re having trouble
49 Writing server side applications on The dealer is apachefriends.org, with anything, the page where
50 a Windows machine used to mean and the stuff is free. Go to apache- you downloaded from has lots of
51
just one thing - ASP. However, friends.org/en/xampp-windows. helpful hints that may be useful.
52
as Apache’s Win32 fork matured, html to pick your flavour. For If you’re done installing, you can
53
there developed a chance to use this tutorial, I’m going to assume open up the folder and click on
54
free tools such as MySQL, PHP that you chose to download the the xaamp_start short cut.
55
/it-times/tutorials/web
56
 01
02
03
Now that you’ve got your personal web server run- 04
ning let’s get on with the code. Open your favourite 05
text editor (notepad is fine) and type in the following 06
code - 07
PHP: 08
09
1. <?php phpinfo(); ?> 10
11
Save this as index.php and put it in your /htdocs/ di- 12
rectory. Fire up your web browser, point it to http:// 13
localhost (or http://127.0.0.1) and you should see 14
something like the warning-label readout at right. 15
The rows of data you see is just PHP telling you ev- 16
erything it knows about itself. For now though, you 17
can safely ignore all this and glow in the knowledge 18
that your XAAMP installation is working. 19
any formatting, restructuring or any such tomfool- 20
ery to make your php scripts work with web based
brewing your first cup 21
markup. 22
PHP, like all programming languages, is rather addic- 23
This next exercise will prove this to a great extent.
tive. Before you embark on the process of learning to 24
You can safely edit any of the text inside the quota-
harness the power of PHP, let me first warn you that 25
tion marks, and use xHTML markup to change its
you will spend many, many hours typing code in to 26
formatting. For example,
your text editor - code that doesn’t seem to work. All 27
this however will be easily outweighed by the warm 1. < ?php
28
feeling you get when you spot and squash your very 2. print(“<strong> 29
first bug. But I digress. Let’s get started with your Hello World</strong>”); 30
first php real script. 3. ?> 31
32
1. <?php will render your message in strong text, like this - 33
2. print(“Hello World”); Hello World. Also, 34
3. ?> 35
1. < ?php 36
Type that in to your text editor, and save it as it.php. 2. print(“<em>Hello World</em>”); 37
Done? Load up the file in your browser. You should 3. ?> 38
see the words “Hello World” displayed at the top of 39
the page. Well, if you see these results, I’d say that will render your code with emphasis, like this - Hello 40
congratulations are in order. Well done! You’ve just World. 41
written and executed your first php script. 42
In short, if you know xHTML, you’re already half on 43
Although this little piece of code doesn’t do anything the road to understanding PHP. On the other hand, 44
remotely useful, it stands the foundation on which if you have no idea what xHTML is, do not despair 45
you will build on in the next issues of this tutorial - there is an excellent beginner’s tutorial in this issue 46
column. written by our resident web junkie Prabhath Sirisena. 47
I’d suggest you read page 39 if you haven’t yet. 48
PHP and xHTML 49
As for PHP, we’re pretty much done for this issue. 50
Before we wind up for today however I thought I’d Next time around, I’ll be showing you the wonders 51
take some time to explain the relationship between of the include() function as well as a few other nifty 52
PHP and HTML. For one, your PHP is already xHT- tricks you can use to take your site from static to dy- 53
ML enabled. That means that you don’t have to do namic. Till next time then, happy hacking. 54
/it-times/tutorials/web 55
56
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23 by Raveen Wijayatilake
24
25
26 photo by Vinicius Lopes (flickr.com/photos/httpwwwflickrcompeoplenadar)
27
28
29
30
Instead of creating a whole new network of their own, Google Talk uses the Jabber
31 Network as their protocol base. Jabber is an open, XML based protocol for instant mes-
32 saging. Using the Jabber protocol has (amongst many others) two main advantages, of
33 which Google Talk only uses one.
34
35
36
Whether its a community service, an experiment in real many others) two main advantages, of which Google Talk
37 world software or just another step towards world domi- only takes advantage of one.
38 nation - Google recently ended months of speculation by
39 releasing their first Instant Messaging client.  Any Jabber client can connect to the Google Talk ser-
40 vice Unlike the MSN and Yahoo! networks where constant
41 Although the Google Talk Beta didn’t blow anyone out protocol changes make it difficult for 3rd party clients to
42 of the water, its minimalistic approach to instant messag- connect to the service, Google boasts that their service is
43 ing has left ample room for evolution and stable growth. ‘open’ since it can be connected to via a user’s favourite
Now that the obligatory introduction is over, you have a client. Well yes, it’s a step in the right direction. But let’s
44
choice - you an either stay with me for the the geeky bits take a look at the second advantage, which is neglected.
45
about services and protocols, or go straight to the tutorial
46
for instant gratification.  Jabber allows interaction between different severs. Un-
47
like the MSN and Yahoo! networks that only allow mes-
48 the service saging within their network, the Jabber protocol allows
49 messaging between domains. (appu@saivarakade.com can
50 Now that I’ve got rid of the noobs, let me explain how message saman@kiribomu.com etc) This is what Google
51 this works. Instead of creating a whole new network of Talk hasn’t taken advantage of yet. At the moment Gmail
52 their own, Google Talk uses the Jabber Network as their users can only message other Gmail users. Google says
53 protocol base. Jabber is an open, XML based protocol for this will change once they sort out security and spam is-
54 instant messaging. Using the Jabber protocol has (amongst sues. Google Talk is in beta after all.
55
/it-times/tutorials/chat
56
 01
02
the jabber tutorial 03
04
<!-- Editor’s Note: As of press time there are rumours If you don’t feel like using the official Google Talk client, 05
that Google Talk will soon be able to interact with AOL that’s all right. You still have a choice of many different 06
Instant Mesenger (AIM). This will clearly give the service clients to work with. 07
a major advantage in North America and we predict that 08
we’ll be seeing Google Talk talking to even more IM ser- GAIM (gaim.sourceforge.net) 09
vices by this time next year. -->
10
Gaim is a multi-protocol instant 11
the client messaging client for Linux,
12
BSD, MacOS X, and Windows.
Not satisfied with giving their users the option of user a 13
It is compatible with AIM and
Jabber client, Google went ahead and released their own ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, 14
software. Right now, the program is almost completely IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, 15
devoid of the features clients like MSN Messenger and and Zephyr. 16
Yahoo! are famous for. In fact, it could easily be com- 17
pared to two people writing messages on a piece of paper  Download and open GAIM 18
- it’s that basic. No text formatting, no emoticon images...  Click ‘Accounts’ at the bottom of the login page. 19
none of those bells and whistles. The user interface is  Click ‘Add’ after the ‘Accounts’ window opens. 20
really simple and reminds you of Google’s uncluttered  Enter the following in the ‘Add Account’ window:
21
search (home) page. Chat windows are equally simple,
22
having only two buttons on them - E-mail and Call. One protocol: Jabber
big draw back in the current version is the lack of support screen name: full Gmail username 23
for multiple user conversations. server: gmail.com 24
password: Enter your Gmail password 25
On the other hand, Google Talk is very good at transmit- alias: leave this field blank 26
ting audio via its Call feature, which makes use of state of 27
the art VoIP (Voice over internet protocol) technology. It  Click the ‘+’ next to ‘Show more options.’ 28
offers extremely high quality voice communication which  Enter the following in the section that appears: 29
rivals the likes of Yahoo! Messenger and Skype, and goes
30
far beyond the quality of MSN Messenger. jabber options: only check ‘Use TLS if available’
31
port: 5222
Users with little RAM to spare will be happy to know that 32
connect server: talk.google.com
Google Talk is very light on memory. It’s almost insanely proxy type: Use Global Proxy Settings 33
responsive and opening, minimizing and starting chats is 34
almost instantaneous on any machine, unlike some of the  Click ‘Save.’ 35
bulkier IM clients. The software seems very stable on the 36
whole, and this is impressive seeing that it’s still in beta. Psi (psi.affinix.com) 37
Many other public betas of other IM clients are chock 38
full of bugs. Unlike MSN Messenger which ensures its  Open Psi. 39
constant use, you won’t often find yourself reaching for  Click the Psi symbol in the 40
CTRL+ALT+DEL to end Google Talk. bottom-left corner, and select 41
‘Account Setup.’
They say good things come in small packages and this 42
 Click ‘Add’ in the ‘Psi: Jabber
is indeed true with Google Talk. At 900kb, the installer 43
Accounts’ window.
takes just three minutes to download on a 56k connec-  Enter a name for your ac- 44
tion. Compared to the multi-megabyte downloads of oth- count in the ‘Name:’ field (we 45
er IM clients, Google Talk is excellent for downloading suggest ‘Google Talk’). Also, make sure that the box next 46
and using anywhere, quickly and efficiently. Download, to ‘Register new account’ is not checked. 47
enter your Gmail account details, and connect. It’s just  Click ‘Add.’ 48
that simple.  Enter your full Gmail email address in the ‘Jabber ID:’ 49
field (including ‘@gmail.com’). 50
To go ahead and get started you can download the Google  Open the ‘Connection’ tab.
Talk client at - http://talk.google.com. The download is 51
 Check all boxes.
3 mb, or about 3 minutes on dial-up. 52
 Enter ‘talk.google.com’ in the ‘Host:’ field, and enter
‘5223’ in the ‘Port:’ field (5222 will not work). 53
54
/it-times/tutorials/chat 55
56
01
02
03  Click ‘Save.’
04
05 Once you’ve configured Psi to connect to the Google Talk
06 service, you may receive a warning message stating that
07 the ‘gmail.com certificate failed the authenticity test. This
08 error message is incorrect; click ‘Continue’ to sign in.
09
Miranda (miranda-im.org) Our minds believe what our eyes see
10
(Morpheus, The Matrix)
11
Basically another multi-protocol
12
client. But this needs no installa-
13 tion, so it can be carried around on
14 a floppy disk or a flash drive and
15 run off that.
16
17  Open Miranda.
18  Select ‘Options...’ from the Mi-
19 randa menu.
20
 Under ‘Network’ in the ‘Miranda IM Options’ window,
select ‘Jabber.’
21
 Enter the following information in the ‘Miranda IM
22 Options’ window:
23
24 username: enter your full Gmail username (everything
25 before ‘@gmail.com’)
26 password: enter your Gmail password
27 login server: gmail.com
28 use SSL: check the box
29 Manually specify connection host: check the box
Host: talk.google.com
30
port: 5223
31
keep connection alive: check the box
32
33  Click ‘OK.’
34 Hello and welcome to the intriguing world of com-
puter graphics, where reality blends with that of the
35 the low down digital. This is the first in the series of graphic tutori-
36
als that will guide you through 3D modeling, from A
37 So overall, is Google Talk any
to Z. Before we get down to the specifics (namely
38 good? Depends. In my case, I al-
the tutorials) let us begin with a primer into the world
39 ways keep Google Talk running
of 3D.
40 as backup in case (or rather, for
when) MSN Messenger fails. If
41 3D means three-dimensional – essentially having, or
voice communication is what I
42 appearing to have length, width and depth. While this
want, Google Talk is my service of
43 is about the concept of 3D let us also examine the
choice. Other than that however, I don’t see a significant
44 tools to develop this imagery. Two of the biggest
user influx to Google Talk and thus only a small percent-
products that have revolutionized the way graphics
45 age of my contacts are currently on it. But since Gmail
work are
46 was the in thing sometime ago, (and probably still is, for
47 some unenlightened people) you can count on everyone
48
48 having an account. Try it. If you like it, it’s up to you to
get your friends to convert.
 3D Studio Max
 Maya
49
50
Happy IMing!
51
52 A list of Jabber clients can be found at: jabber.org/software/cli-
53 ents.shtml. You can learn more general info about Jabber at
54
by Zafar Issadeen
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabber.
55
/it-times/tutorials/chat
56
 01
02
03
04

DIGITAL 05
06
07

DREAMS 08
09
10
11
12
With 3ds Max, you can create 3D places and characters, also possible. Very advanced physics based simulations 13
objects and subjects of any type. You can arrange them are possible as well where refraction values will be in rela-
14
in settings and environments to build the scenes for your tion to the materials and their density. Shadowing is also a
15
play. You can animate the characters, set them in motion, useful tool that will be discussed at length in future issues.
make them speak, sing and dance, or kick and fight. Then, These are just a few amazing things that a 3Ds Max can 16
shoot movies of the whole virtual thing. deliver. The possibilities are only limited by your imagina- 17
tion. Next month we’ll cover basic modeling and getting 18
These tutorials will show you how to perform basic func- around the system. 19
tions in 3D studio max. Initially we will look at setting up 20
3D max. Zafar Issadeen lives in a world where wire meshes, light simula- 21
tions and refraction values are a part of every day lingo. A tal- 22
 Load the CD and click on Setup. ented 3D artist, he has produces stunning motion and still graphics
23
 Enter the registration key. for posters, books and television. Post your views and ideas into
24
 Select the software driver option zafar@issadeen.com
25
Congratulations, and welcome to the world of 3ds Max. 26
Next let us see what features are available. These features 27
are generally offered by any 3D graphic application. 28
29
STILL LIFE MODELING 30
31
Still Life modeling and material assigning is possible 32
which makes for real life photorealistic imagery. Complex 33
reflections and light simulations are possible and one can 34
even give an ‘organic’ look to these 3D objects 35
36
37
CHARACTER MODELING 38
39
Character Modeling wIand skin like looks on characters
make this program indispensable for character animators. 40
Contours and complex biological elements such as hair 41
can be modeled with ease. 42
43
44
ATMOSPHERIC ELEMENTS 45
46
Atmospheric elements such as skies and mountains, and 47
the almighty sun can be modeled making for photo real- 48
istic outdoor imagery. Even geometric elements such as 49
mountains and lakes can be simulated. In the weeks to
50
come we will learn about creating sandstorms and other
51
real life earthy events.
52
Advanced lighting such as reflections and refractions are 53
54
/it-times/tutorials/3D 55
56
01
02
03 and paint over the eye. Voila! Instant red-eye correction!
04
05 The next tutorial teaches you how to create a simple
06 trendwhorish signature, which you can use on graphics
07 forums, or just pick up a few design tips from. I chose
to start with a deep aquamarine colour, #137D9F. Next,
08
I added these round shapes. You can do this by using the
09
rounded rectangle tool (Shift + U), and defining a radius
10 of about 75 pixels. Fill it with a lighter shade of blue like
11 #179BC5.
12
13 Next, right-click the layer in the Layers window, and ras-
14 terize it. Then, hold Ctrl and click it to select its outline.
15 Click Select > Modify > Contract, and enter a value of
16 25 pixels. Fill the selection with #158CB2. Repeat this
17 contraction and fill this selection with #1382A5. Last-
ly, contract the selection by 15 pixels and hit Del, and
18
press V to deselect. Once you have this shape, click Edit
19
> Transform > Rotate, and enter a value of -45 degrees
20
21
Bye Bye Red Eye in the field next to the angle-shaped icon. Once you’ve
done this, drag the shape to the bottom-left area of the
22 canvas.
by Abhimanyu Ghoshal
23
24 Now we’ll add some text. I’m going to go with plain white,
25
Over the past decade, digital imaging has evolved at warp- and add my online alias ‘abe’, using the font Rezland. I’m
speed, thanks to major breakthroughs in graphics editing going to use a large point, to add some drama to the piece.
26
and authoring software. The front-runner in the field is Next, I’m going to add a bit of grunge to the background.
27
Adobe’s Photoshop, currently in its 9th version (dubbed There are two ways to do this: use a stock photo with a
28 Creative Suite 2). Photoshop offers powerful features and dirty texture, or use a grungy brush. If you have such a
29 ease of use, a combination rarely seen in industry-standard stock photo, select the wall area, click Image > Crop and
30 programs. Plus, the massive pool of resources available in then go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Re-
31 the form of plug-ins, filters, actions, and so on make PS duce Saturation to 0. Now, click Edit > Define Pattern.
32 the weapon of choice for designers everywhere. Next, go back to your signature, and on a new layer, use
33 the paint bucket, select Fill > Pattern and pick your wall
34 With Photoshop, the possibilities are endless. Once you texture. Fill the new layer with this texture, reduce the
get to know your way around the workspace, you can set layer’s opacity to 25%, and lastly, use the Eraser to remove
35
your imagination free and create just about anything. Its some areas of the wall texture.
36
also great for adding depth to 3D modelling work. Here
37 are a couple of tutorials to get you started with Photo- I’m very into typography, which is basically the use of
38 shop. You don’t need the latest version for these, v7.0 and text in various forms as elements in a piece. Lets add a
39 upwards will do just fine. random number, with a grunge feel, in the background
40 colour itself and with a huge point size, say, twice as large
41 Fixing a red eye in Adobe Photoshop is fairly simple, and as the alias text. Add a stroke in black, of say 7 pixels.
42 takes just a couple of minutes. To do this, open up the Now add some really small text in different colours like
43 image in Photoshop, and click the ‘Create New Fill or white and deep blue, as shown. I also added a barcode
44
Adjustment Layer button’ (fig. 1). Select Channel Mixer in using the font Code 128, and cut out the bottom to add
the context menu that pops up. some random numbers. I then rasterized and merged the
45
2 layers (numbers and barcode), and used an Eraser to
46
Next, in the Channel Mixer options, adjust the Source ‘grungify’ it a bit.
47 Channels as follows: Red = 0, Green = 50, Blue = 50.
48 Your image may get discoloured, but don’t worry, its just For the final touches, I simply added some concentric
49 temporary. circles, on different layers with varying opacities. I also
50 added some black text on the right, and put in a few ar-
51 Now, fill your Channel Mixer Layer with black, by select- rows, which you can get from the shapes tool, or from
52 ing the paint bucket and clicking in the image window. dingbat fonts or brushes. That’s it! Obviously you can
53 Next, select the Paintbrush Tool, and choose a brush size mix and match elements and ideas, these are just pointers,
equal to or smaller than the eye. Select the colour white, showing you how to use some of the tools in PS.
54
55
/it-times/tutorials/photo
56
 01
02
03
Follow these simple tips to stay ahead in design: 04
05
 Get to know your tools. Open any file, and try using 06
every single tool on it, just to get an idea of the power 07
of Photoshop. Knowing what you can do (there are few
08
things that you can’t) increases your range, improves your
09
style and kicks up your efficiency by several notches. For
example, try out the Measure tool (hold the Eyedropper 10
button). You can use it to measure distances, as well as 11
angles. This helps when you’re working with typography 12
or with stock images. 13
14
 Learn keyboard shortcuts for as many functions as you 15
can. This not only cuts down on the time spent on your 16
work, but the improved efficiency will also trigger addi- 17
tional creative ideas. Run your mouse over the tools to
18
see the respective keyboard shortcuts. Essential shortcuts:
19
Zoom In/Out, Brush/Pencil, Airbrush, Eraser, Eyedrop-
per/Measure, Inverse Select, Switch Foreground/Back- 20
ground Colours, and Save/Save As. 21
22
 Save often. If possible, create new folders for new im- 23
age authoring projects, and save major steps separately. 24
These can be used for tutorials, different projects, or just 25
for reworking your current project. 26
27
 Use as many layers as you (and your workstation) can
28
handle. Layers are very flexible to work with, since they
allow you to add effects, use selections, or simply remove 29
the elements they hold. 30
31
 The web has thousands of resources to add to your 32
Photoshop experience. Get hold of new brushes, actions, 33
fonts and tutorials to enrich your work. 34
35
 Visit graphics forums and art communities to get an 36
idea of the latest trends in design, to pick up ideas for
37
your work and to cultivate your own unique style.
38
39
The Free Alternative
40
GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program, is the 41
best free image authoring and editing software available 42
these days, and runs on Unix, Linux, Windows (9x/2k/ 43
xp) and Mac OS X. 44
General Public License, which means that you are free to 45
The original GIMP was created by Spencer Kimball and share and change the source code as you wish. Support is 46
Peter Mattis in 1995 as a computer science project. A the in the form of online forums, and help comes mainly
47
beta was released in 1996, and a stable version released from other GNU community members. Check it out at
48
in May 1998. Since then, the GIMP has undergone major http://www.gimp.org. You can find several tutorials, tips
and tricks to help you get started at http://gimp-savvy. 49
changes and development, and has come a long way since
its conception. com/book/. 50
51
Chock full of features, GIMP is very powerful and highly Abhimanyu Ghoshal is a graphic designer and writer from Banga- 52
versatile. Migrating from other programs doesn’t take lore, India. He can be contacted at abhimanyughoshal@gmail.com, 53
much effort. Furthermore, GIMP comes under the GNU or through his web page at http://abe-x.deviantart.com. 54
/it-times/tutorials/photo 55
56
01

adoh
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
introduction to ADO.NET
15
16
17 technologies used It is assumed that the readers will have
18 some experience writing SQL queries and
19 ADO.NET at a minimum some exposure to VB.NET.
20 Visual Basic.NET
Visual Studio 2003
21
SQL Server 2000
22
Since this is the first issue of this tutorial column, I will
23 offer a brief introduction to using ADO.NET in Visual
24 Basic.NET. When Microsoft created the .NET Frame-
25 work and updated Visual Basic and C#, they didn’t stop
26 there. ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) also received a ma-
27 jor makeover and is now known as ADO.NET. It shares
28 a couple of characteristics with its predecessor: as well as
29 we will cover how to being able to connect to multiple types of data sources,
it has the ability to manipulate the data in a disconnected
30
1. connect environment. But that is where the commonality ends
31
2. retrieve data – gone is the traditional RecordSet that most developers
32 3. display are accustomed to.
33 4. update
34 5. delete In this article, I’ll take you through the basics of using
35 ADO.NET, and as always, we’ll be using the standard
36 Northwind database on SQL Server. Before we get
37 too far into this, we should look at the structure of the
38 namespaces and classes involved. Figure 1 shows the
39
layout of the ADO.NET classes, all of which are in the
System.Data namespace. The ones we will be using are
40
DataSet, DataTable, DataColumn and DataRow. In a
41 nutshell, a DataSet will contain one or more DataTables,
42 which contain one or more DataRows, which in turn can
43 contain one or more DataRows. There is one more, the
44 DataReader that we will also be going over.
45
46 To get things started, open VS.NET and create a new
47 Windows Application project (see figure 2.) On the
48 form, add the following controls:
49
Command Button
50 Name: LoadProducts
by Chris Anderson
51 Text: Load Products
52 DataGrid
53 Name: ProductList
54
55
/it-times/tutorials/dot-net
56
 01
02
DimNWAdaptor 03
As New SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter(SelectProducts) 04
NWAdaptor.SelectCommand.Connection = DBConnection 05
06
Now we can create the DataSet and fill it with our data. 07
08
System Dimds
As New System.Data.DataSet 09

Data NWAdaptor.Fill(ds, “Products”) 10

11
system Calling the .Fill method of the adapter takes the con- 12
DataSet
nection, opens it, and then executes the command. The 13
DataTable results are then sent to the dataset, in a DataTable called 14
“Products.” Now that the dataset has a DataTable with
15
system
DataColumn data in it, we can now bind it to the DataGrid and have
16
the results displayed.
DataRow 17
ProductList.DataSource = ds 18
system
Constraint ProductList.DataMember = “Products” 19
DataRelation 20
The setting the DataMember to “Products” is impor- 21
tant. The DataSource of the grid is set to our DataSet. 22
But remember that a dataset can contain one or more
23
Double click the command button. This will open up DataTables. The DataMember allows us to specify which
24
the code view and add the event handler for the button’s DataTable to display. The DataMember setting cor-
responds to the name that was given to the DataTable 25
click event. To make some of the coding more efficient,
add a constant at the top to hold the connection string. when we filled it. 26
27
Public Class Form1 Now if we run the application and click the button, the 28
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form grid will be filled with the contents of the Products table 29
from the database (see figure 3). 30
Private Const MyCONNECTIONSTRING
As String = “Server=(local);Database=Northwind;Trusted_ 31
Remember when we filled the DataSet, we passed in the 32
Connection=True”
table name “Products” and then later we used this name
33
to set the DataMember of the grid? It just so happened
Now let’s add some code to retrieve a list of products to also be the name of the table we selected the data 34
from the database. We’ll need to create a connection, a from. It doesn’t have to be this way. By changing the 35
select command, a data adapter that uses the connection name in the Fill statement, we can give the DataTable a 36
and command, and finally fill the DataSet with the data. new name. 37
38
Creating a connection is straightforward: NWAdaptor.Fill(ds, “ProductList”) 39
DimDBConnection 40
Now run the application again and click the Load
As New SqlClient.SqlConnection(MyCONNECTIONSTRING) 41
Products button. As shown in figure 4, this generated an
42
error when setting the DataMember property. This is be-
Creating the Command object is similar to classic ADO. 43
cause there is no longer a DataTable called “Products.”
Create the object and set the command text. 44
Change it to ProductList and run the application again.
This time clicking the button will populate the grid as it 45
DimSelectProducts
As New SqlClient.SqlCommand(“SELECT * FROM Prod- did originally. 46
ucts”) 47
Now add a second button to the form, name it Load- 48
The Adapter is a new class added to ADO. It sits be- Customers and change it’s Text property to “Load 49
tween the Command and the Connection classes and Customers.” Copy the code from the Click event of the 50
acts as a binder of sorts. When you create the Data- LoadProducts button and paste it into the click event of
51
Adaptor, you specify the Select Command to be used to the LoadCustomers button. Change the SQL to “SE-
52
retrieve the data. Be sure to set the Connection too. LECT * FROM Customers”. Make all of the necessary
code changes to use Customers instead of Products. 53
54
/it-times/tutorials/dot-net 55
56
01
02
03 Complete code: ing between the two DataTables by first checking the
04 DataMember property. If it is set to “Customers” it will
05 DimDBConnection As New SqlClient.SqlConnection(MyCON switch to “Products” and vice-versa. Run the application
NECTIONSTRING) and click the Load All button. Once the grid is loaded,
06
Dim SelectCustomers As New SqlClient. try clicking the Switch View button a couple of times.
07 SqlCommand(“SELECT * FROM Customers”) The data in the grid should switch back and forth.
08 Dim NWAdaptor As New SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter(SelectCu
09 stomers)
NWAdaptor.SelectCommand.Connection = DBConnection Now let’s update some of the information, and learn
10 how the CommandBuilder works. Add another button
Dim ds As New System.Data.DataSet
11 to the form, called UpdateCustomer. The code for the
NWAdaptor.Fill(ds, “CustomerList”)
12 ProductList.DataSource = ds click event looks like this:
13 ProductList.DataMember = “CustomerList”
14 DimDBConnection
15 Run the application and click one of the buttons. Now As New SqlClient.SqlConnection(MyCONNECTIONSTRING)
click the other button. Now you can switch between the Dim SelectCustomer
16 As New SqlClient.SqlCommand(“SELECT * FROM Custom-
17 Products listing and the Customer list.
ers”, DBConnection)
18 Dim CustomerAdaptor
Now we are going to make some changes and show As New SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter(SelectCustomer)
19
how a DataSet can contain multiple DataTables. Create Dim CmdBuilderCustomer
20 a module level variable called NorthwindDataSet, and As New SqlClient.SqlCommandBuilder(CustomerAdaptor)
21 make it a new System.Data.DataSet type. Add a third CustomerAdaptor.UpdateCommand = CmdBuilderCustomer.
22 button to the form called LoadAll, and a fourth but- GetUpdateCommand
23 ton called SwitchView. Add the following code to the CustomerAdaptor.Update(NorthWindDataSet, “Customers”)
24 LoadAll button click event:
25 The first three lines should look familiar, it establishes
DimDBConnection As New SqlClient.SqlConnection(MyCON the connection, create the Select Command, and initial-
26
NECTIONSTRING) izes the adapter. The next line create what is called a
27 Dim SelectCustomer As New SqlClient. CommandBuilder. It can create an Update, Delete and
28 SqlCommand(“SELECT * FROM Customers”, DBConnec- Insert SQL commands based on the provided Select
29 tion) statement in the Adapter. Once the UpdateCommand
30 Dim SelectProduct As New SqlClient.SqlCommand(“SELECT
has been created, we add it to the adapter, then call the
* FROM Products”, DBConnection)
31
Dim CustomerAdaptor As New SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter(Sel Update method of the Adapter to save the changes to
32 ectCustomer) the database. Run the application, click the “Load All”
33 Dim ProductAdaptor As New SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter(Sele button. Then change any of the information in the grid
34 ctProduct) (except for the ID col). Then click the “Save Customer”
35 CustomerAdaptor.Fill(NorthWindDataSet, “Customers”) button. Stop and then restart the application. When the
ProductAdaptor.Fill(NorthWindDataSet, “Products”) grid reloads, you will see your changes that you made.
36 ProductList.DataSource = NorthWindDataSet I really is that simple. The Delete works in the same
37 ProductList.DataMember = “Customers” manner, just set the DeleteCommand in the Adapter
38 after using the Command Builder. There is one caveat
39 And add this code to the click of the SwitchView but- to this process. The CommandBuilder must be able to
40 ton: determine what the table’s Primary Key is. If there is no
41 Primary Key defined, and error will be raised.
If ProductList.DataMember = “Customers” Then
42 ProductList.DataMember = “Products”
43 Else There you have it - the basics of ADO.NET. I’ve shown
44 ProductList.DataMember = “Customers” you how to select data from a database, display it in a
End If grid, and update the data in the grid. It is extremely easy
45
ProductList.Refresh() and doesn’t take very much code to create a powerful
46
database editing application. Join me for the next install-
47 The LoadAll creates a connection, then uses two ment of .NET Developer and I’ll show you how to
48 SQLCommand and two DataAdaptor objects to fill the access Stored Procedures through ADO.NET.
49 NorthWindDataSet with two DataTables, one called
50 “Customers” and one called “Products”. Then the Data- Chris Anderson is a Senior Software Developer for EnSite
51 Source of the grid is set to our NorthWindDataSet, and Incorporated. He has been developing in Visual Basic for the past
52 the DataMember is set to “Customers”. This causes the 10 years, from VB3 through VB.NET. When not in front of
53 Customers DataTable to be displayed in the grid. The a computer developing code, he can be found working on his never
54 code behind the SwitchView button allows for switch- finished book, or spending time with his family.
55
/it-times/tutorials/dot-net
56
 01
02
03
04
05
06
raveen wijayatilake features/games Grand Theft Auto 07
08
09
indranil dasgupta ../computers Mac Mini Review 10
11
indi samarajiva ../art OS Tan (Japanese Anime) 12
vinita agarwal Code as Art: Flash 13
indi ASCII Art 14
15
../photos Digital Photos From Sri Lanka 16
17
18
19
raveen wijayatilake ../p2p BitTorrent 20
21
indi ../security Spyware, Spy-Aware 22
22
23
Virus, Anti-Virus 24
25
Spam, Anti-Spam 26
27
mahangu weerasinghe features/opensource Opensource 28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
chintana wilamuna tutorials/linux Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings 36
37
38
prabath sirisena ../web Taking Back The Web, HTML/CSS 39
40
41
42
43
mahangu weerasinghe ../web Personal Web Server, PHP 44
45
raveen ../chat Google Talk and Jabber 46
47
zafar issadeen ../3D Digital Dreams, 3ds Max 48
49
abhimanyu ghoshal ../photo Bye Bye Red Eye, Photoshop 50
51
chris anderson ../dot-net Introduction to ADO.NET 52
53
54
55
56
 01

it-times/index
02
03
04
05
06
07 07
08
09
10 . ::SZEHDPY666ZDENNNHDP52.. ;::: .:.:.: 10
62DENNHE66252255666YYZPPPEHNNNNNNNNHHNNNNHNHHDDDEPZ65cs.
11
SNNHNS6ss..:;. ;;PYNENENNNHNNNNPPZPZZPDHNNNEDZS6 :
622 . .... .. ; 2sS5ZYYZYYYYYY6665666ZSY6 :
12
. :s;:s;;;;:;sscss;::. . ;:;: : . .: .ssss5625;:;s5Y665;s :;;.:
;;;::::ss;;;:;:;s;:::;55Y6PZYZYZPYPZZZ56;sssc225c2cccs;: .::: .:: : 12
;;;::;:;:ss;.;:sc5YYZPEENHNNHNYZPYNNNNNNNNDE66c25S56522css;.:.: . : :
13
scs2c522c2255PENNNEHHNNNHEHHNNNNNENH6SPDDHHNHNDDZZ6652526SS62:; ::s : 13
s656262S6DDNNDS52PNNNNDPHENHPH D6NHDHDHDEZZSYYPHNDP5;c22c26622:s.s : .
14
2625sY6HHED6cYDNNNNP ;DPNHNHEN.sN6NNHNDN5YNNNHYS22ZHDD6;s;ss2YS22
5PYHPNNNNEEEEEH6; : 5NDEPPDNN .NNNNPEHN :. DEHN5s ;S662;s:::;22c5
;
: 14
c2sZ6DDHDDZZPZP62s:: :56ND66DHs2NDYP5Z6N . 6SDNY6. .6c:s;;:. c2 ;
15 : 65PN6c5YS62 .NPHDZDNNDP6YDN
:s;c;. :.5YENZ2;: ss :
:.. ; Y6YDS666s:;:. Y66S52PZYD:5 :c566DEZY5s56ENES; ::
16 16
17
18
19
20 20
21
22 22
23
24
25
26
27
28 28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36 36
37
38
39 39
40
41
42
43
44 44
45
46 46
47
48 48
49
50 50
51
52 52
53
54
55
/it-times/index
56