A Swirling Mass Of Entropy

 Off late, time has been elusive to say the least and this blog of our's has been relegated to the realm of obscurity.  All those thoughts, experiences and interesting things I intended to share with you a few years ago now remain faint memories. However as the cogs of time turn they have for sure been replaced by far more intriguing and developed avatars of which a few, I promise to share with you this time.

At first I was thinking of shutting down this blog and moving to the more famous and lucrative platforms such as Tumblr or Wordpress. When I saw the stat-counters and analytic figures (one of those shiny new features the folks at Mountain View have added )  I was myself surprised . 9700+ views on a dormant blog with just 4 articles !  Seems quite a few folk (~5950) have been visiting the article (here) on the wallpaper changer GUI , I  hacked up one lazy summer noon 2 years ago as a side hack during my first summer of code. So then the decision was taken to rebuild and revive this blog on these very foundations. In true holiday sweep the dust and frantic remains of time bygone and embrace the all that is new. It's time for a new splash of paint .

After a few hours of work and a whole lot of searching, copying & hacking here is the result. Google sure has don a lot of work, blogger seems way more complete and fits right into their entire integrated "emerald-sea"  vision, a lot of nifty changes and tools too have been added.The Blog now has a a whole new template, the old glassy theme had gotten too 90's for my liking. A new bunch of social widgets were of order ( hey there Google+ ). The new Disqus 2012 system was a pain to hack onto this highly customized blogger template given the numerous changes I had additionally made to it. I had no option but to switch to livefyre but that would mean loosing a lot of comments and valuable insights and history, so that sort of left me with no option. Witht the new 2012 system the real time advantage is now solved too.

A lot has changed , a lot more experiences to talk about , so much more learned . I guess it's about time this place came back to life. A new post will soon follow.

Till then, Adios.

That is a cheeky title (with the Pun Intended)
In fact it's the first status message I put up, when I got the news that my proposal had been selected for the Google Summer of Code 2011.
Yes, It is my first experience with the world of Professional Software Development , and yes,its a small but sure step in that regard .

This post is basically my first account of what the GSoC and more specifically my experiences so far with my project with Samba-Gtk have been.

To those of you who aren't aware ,Samba is a very well known and widely used server software suite for SMB/CIFS clients for cross platform file and printer sharing between Windows and Linux/Unix . To be more specific about my project , I am working on the Samba-Gtk project, which is an effort to build a convenient and easy to use GUI interface to perform many basic and necessary tasks for configuring various  aspects of the server, like - user, group, task and share management. The current methods used to configure the server are based on a flat-file and are rather cumbersome for the average Joe, (at the same time superb for absolute control). The manpage for configuring it runs to a whopping 8000 lines !!!
In fact this is one of the major reasons I got interested in the Gtk suite as this would make the configuration tasks a breeze, which I believe will help boost adoption.

As of its current status my project so far is going great , I have successfully completed my base class for handling shares with the dcerpc server .Unlike any contemporary GUI toolkits that simply manipulate the smb.conf flat file the samba gtk toolkit uses the dcerpc protocol to directly talk to the server to make any necessary settings and changes. This approach not only eliminates many errors but also makes it future proof as it supports any server that is compliant with the srvsvc protocol. Basically it means that this toolkit could very well be used to configure a windows server host too. I have also finished the basic add/connect/edit and delete dialogs successfully (barring some minor fixes and required modifications). Up next is the base Gui with the lists and launchers.


The more interesting part of this post is the experience I have had in these past few weeks.

I started my first expedition into the world of open source  more than half a decade ago and have been an open source enthusiast ever since, rather an addict . I like the entire concept of free and open source software. After a while of using it I got really interested in doing something new and innovative. I enjoyed my own small and playful experiments and useful apps like the public sms redirect and tracking notifications from facebook / google chat by little dbus hacks, or ma,king a cousin half way around the world control the song playing on my player via the very same public chat or a small GUI based audio player that focused more on logging and scrobbling to lastfm and zeitgeist .
 I always wanted to do more and contribute to the open source community, I just didn’t know how to get involved in all the excitement.
 
The GSoC provided me with just that opportunity.

 There is only one word to describe the last few weeks 'INSANE' !!!
Yes its been a lot of work. A few thousand lines of code , 3 manuals from MSDN (never thught I would end up doing that ;)) each nearly 200-300 pages and loads of other related reading just to get started with the project, but as always, it paid off. Not only has my knowledge grown exponentially, the best part is that I got to work and learn things that I wouldn't even have dreamt of, and that too from some of the best developers in the world.

  A special mention of my mentor Jelmer Vernooij is an absolute must, whenever I get stuck or want to discuss something, all I need to do is pop in a friendly 'hello' or 'hey' and then we discuss the issue, and with his help and guidance, invariably find a way through.
Another amazing experience is the entire community, that is what makes FOSS so awesome and unique , its like all of them support you and go out of their way to help in any and every way they can, it almost grows around you and you get this sense of belonging,a sense of being a part of the team  which I think is crucial to students like me.
 
 In fact as a test run and as a learning experience with Gtk and GUI design, I happened to create , the gnome 3 wallpaper a slide show (link) . The fact that little experiment was such a success, that it got published on popular blog omgubuntu and many other linux tech blogs, as a result comments and suggestions poured in from the likes of Dan Rabbit among others. In the process I got to learn so much more about the intricacies of GUI design. What's more, is that it got recognition from many people, and  something I never dreamt of, " a possibility" of my little package being pulled into AUR and AuroraOS. It is such things that want you to do more and more, and keep you motivated.

Through all the GSoC meet ups and Iists and IRC you become a part of this unique community, its great fun and an opportunity to meet so many new extremely talented like minded people  and make new friends.

 So far it has turned out to be one of the best summer I ever had . I doubt I will ever forget that email from the Google aptly titled : Congratulations ! 

Here is the  wiki
My frequent work goes here at  gitorious  


Here are a few screen-shots of my work so far  :)

Delete Dialog

Connect Dialog

Share add Dialog

• Lets you choose the folder via a browser.
• Lets you set the timeout in seconds.
• Lets you chose depth of subdirectory .
• You can enable or disable it with a single click .
• Full-feature tooltips

• git clone git://gitorious.org/gnome-3-wp/gnome-3-wp.git
• run wp-show
• You are ready to go

• Autostart Fixed
• GUI completely revamped (more in-line with  HIG) 
• defaults to /home
• packaging cleanup all backup files placed in tools 
• Top level executable 'RUNME' renamed to wp-show 
• icon updated
• icon for program now fixed

EDIT :
  NOW REMEMBERS  OPTIONS :)

Gnome 3 is all nice and sexy but hay most of my old apps don't work anymore.
 One major app i miss is a wallpaper switcher . The major reason for this being the move in gnome from gconf to dconf. The way wallpapers et'al are handled has changed.


To mitigate this i have made a simple bash script to do the dirty work :
(Yes bash as this is the most efficient compared to python or so for this purpose and i am a fan of efficiency )
Currently its  a simple bash script later , as and when i get more time i will be creating a Gtk3 frontend to configure it , and adding more features .
For now use a folder containing only pictures or you might experience blank wallpapers in the middle :P


Instructions :


git clone git://gitorious.org/gnome-3-wp/gnome-3-wp.git
./install
(follow the instructions)


EDIT : Now Supports Multiple Depth & automatically selects only wallpapers

Yes first up ,You may wonder why "Hello World" ?


"Does this guy lack creativity ???"
"Not again !!!"
"Bah, just another one of those other million blogs in cyberspace that soon fade into oblivion""


 Why the hell is it Hello World ???


OK here goes, as a self professed computer geek it is just the way I am wired, every new language , every new  project every new first move on the "virtual-scape" for me began with with the good 'ol Hello World, Its become a part of my nature , its just ingrained in my DNA if you may . For this blog initially I had created a post "__init__(None):" ,now THAT would be too specific so I choose a universal truth of the tester. For those folks who couldn't give a shit, here goes in a more understandable dialect(s) :


Hello, Hallo , 您好, नमस्ते , مرحبا , Bonjour, привет, خوش آمدید 


Now you get the idea.


So I guess I have done more than my fill of saying hello, and should move on.
I am Dhananjay Sathe from Goa India , and this is my Blog .
I am a open source software enthusiast and developer. Currently I am working on The Samba-Gtk project as a student in the Google Summer Of Code 2011.
As of some of my interests , some of you must have figured its computers specifically  Gnu-Linux, programming , FOSS and so on and so forth.
I also love adventure sports , traveling and happen to be a major foodie . I love playing basketball & football and enjoy swimming. In fact Adventure Sports happens to be my passion #1.


As of why I created this blog ???
Damn right, when I had facebook / buzz / twitter all other n^n social networking sites to post about my self . Why in Gods name was this required ???
The answer is one word "FREEDOM" . In the digital world this is what I believe the corner stone that we have surrendered for paltry gains , and in the days to come I shall , prove it .
All those n^n platforms lock you into their Marshalled legions of a infinite clutter. where what you want to present to the world , what you want to convey is pushed to the background at the sake of the new "Chainsaw I snatched in Mafia Wars" , or some Missie in my friends list likes "Oh just shut up " , or I happen to like a particular group or activity and then my wall is filled with SPAM related to x^n^n people on that community and their likes . Not that I am not a fan of these necessities of the digital age but there is way too much clutter there for any creativity or thoughts to flow. Basically the message is lost in translation.








As for the the Title of the blog indicates what kind of person I am, and I proudly admit that well it just sums me up, and all due credit for that goes to my Dear Friend Jinx who came up with it .


So on this blog I'll i share my views and experiences , apart from a whole lot of Linux ,Ubuntu & arch tips tricks , custom scripts and tech writeups . Keep reading , stay in touch and voice your opinions .
Visit the About page to get in touch !


Adios .