A closer look to AADHAAR number.

What is AADHAAR?

AADHAAR is a 12 digits number that will act as unique identification to every residents in India.

The Indian government has guaranteed successful identification of the residents possessing an AADHAAR number across India and enabling each for various utilities like financial services, government schemes etc.

After acquiring an AADHAAR number, you will not have to carry and submit additional identification documents . Your unique AADHAAR number will now adequately fulfill this need.

Whether AADHAAR a Card or a Number?

AADHAAR is a 12 digit number and NOT a card. And, this AADHAAR number will be sent through speed post to your home address,

wherein the letter will contain details like your AADHAAR number, enrollment id, name, address, year of birth, your guardian or spouse name and your photo.

Snapshots of letter containing AADHAAR details:

Material of the letter looks like a plastic coated/laminated paper. The quality of paper does not seem that good. The dimensions of the letter is 3.5x8.5". 

AADHAAR Envelope: Front Side

AADHAAR Envelope: Back Side

Unpacking AADHAAR

 

AADHAAR Letter: Front Side

AADHAAR Letter: Back Side

Feel good every time you solve a reCAPTCHA.

If you spend much time on-line, chances are, you have been required to solve distorted letter puzzles like below when you submit information.

CAPTCHA Examples

Facebook CAPTCHA

It is an Anti-Spam program called CAPTCHA. It stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart. As soon as Yahoo! started using it, every other website started using and it really turns out to be extreamly effective to stoping spam.

Co-inventer Luis von Ahn says, "it is effective because only people, not computers can figure it out".

Luis von Ahn, Carnegie Mellon University

At first, he felt proud of its impact, then Luis started feeling bad because the thing was each time we type a CAPTCHA, essentially we waste 10 seconds of our time and if we multiply that by 200,000,000 we get the humanity as a whole is wasting like 500,000 hours everyday typing those annoying CAPTCHAs.

But he was also aware of another problem. Some libraries use computers and scanner to transcribe old books and news papers into digital archives. The problem is that letters often look murky. So, computers often transcribe words incorrectly. The reason the computer can not decipher many of those words is prescisly the same reason why computers can not read CAPTCHAs, is because they can not read distorted text.

But since people were already decoding distorted text, von Ahn revised CAPTCHA to use the hard to read text from old books as the puzzle. He has to make 20,000,000 words a day a digitize with the new program he calls reCAPTCHA.

reCAPTCHA

People are usually very happy about this as they say that well at least my time is not wasted any more. So feel good next time you have to solve those words problems. You might be helping to preserve a part of history.

How to add reCAPTCHA gadget to your blogger website.

If you try to add a reCAPTCHA gadget to your blogger website following "Design->Page Elements->Add a Gadget" link on your blog, you will find that there is no stand alone gadget for reCAPTCHA.

However, by editing some simple HTML/JavaScript code in HTML/JavaScript gadget, you can have one.

Just follow these simple steps:

Step #1: Add an HTML/JavaScript gadget: Go to "Design->Page Elements->Add a Gadget", and select HTML/JavaScript gadget under Basic gadget category.

Add an HTML/JavaScript Gadget

Step #2: Paste the following HTML code snippet into content text box and click on SAVE button.

<table>

<td width="544" align="left" valign="top" style="padding-top: 48px"><div class="normal" style="padding-top: 0px">

<h1>Help Digitizing Books One Word at a Time</h1>

<script type="text/javascript">

      document.write("<div style='padding-top: 10px;'>\n");

      document.write("<iframe src='http://www.google.com/recaptcha/demo/' "

                     + "allowtransparency='true' height='220' width='500' style='border:0px;' "

                     + "scrolling='no'></iframe>\n");

      document.write("</div>\n");

    </script>

</div></td>

</table>

Paste HTML code and Save

Step #3: Save the template and you're done!

Now, your reCAPTCHA gadget is ready for others to help digitizing old books and news papers.

Interesting Information about Government Inter College (GIC), Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh.

GIC Bijnor - Main Gate

Inside Main Gate

Government Inter College, Bijnor (Hindi: राजकीय इण्टर कॉलेज, बिजनौर) or more popularly know as GIC Bijnor, was established by British as "Bijnor District School" in 1872. Well, according to the government records, It was functioning as a Primary School since 1872. However, the students' records are present in the college since 1881.

Main Building

Inside Main Gate

That time, Uttar Pradesh was known as North-Western Province & Avadh, and there was no Education Department. GIC used to come under the Department of Public Instructions.


The very first student who was enrolled into the college, was Jyoti Prasad Kayasth son of Shri Bhagirath Prasad Kayasth. He was a resident of Bijnor.

Playground

Playground

Remove vocals from an audio song using Audacity: a free audio editor and recorder.

Many of us have a singing talent and want to sing on a good playing music. But many a times we don't get the write kind of music on which we can sing. We also sometime listens to a song and think I wish I could fit my vocals into this song. And we start searching the way to make it possible.

So here is something that can make it possible.

This post displays a step by step description to removing vocals from an audio file (e.g .mp3, .wav etc) using Audacity, which are recorded in stereo type. Follow these steps:

Step 1: Download and install Audacity from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ . Run it.

 

Step 2:  Go to File->Open and select the file you want to remove vocals from. This will import the audio track.

Step 3: Click on the down arrow on the left hand side top corner of the imported track menu and select Split Stereo Track. This will split the single stereo track into two; Left and Right.

Step 4: Select the 'Right' track by clicking on the area above 'mute' and 'solo' buttons. This will highlight the 'Right' track.

Step 5: Go to Effect->Invert.

Step 6: Change 'Left' track to 'Mono' channel by clicking down arrow of 'Left' track.

 

Step 7: Change 'Right' track to 'Mono' channel too similarly as above.

 
Step 8: That's it for removing the vocal. You can now play the song and observe the difference. Follow next few steps to export this vocal removed track to an .mp3 file.

Step 9: Go to File-> Export. And give the file name and other information you what to have for this track.

Step 10: Now, to export the track to an .mp3 file you need lame encoder. If you have it, then its OK. If you don't click on the Download button and install it. And then browse the location for lame encoder (in Windows case lame_enc.dll).

LAME Encoder for windows

 

This will export the vocal removed track to a .mp3 file.

That's it! You are done!

Please write your comments, suggestion, inputs, as they are always welcome.

How to compile and debug VLC player source code in eclipse IDE on Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid)?

I had been searching for compilation and debugging of the VLC source code in eclipse IDE for a long long time. I could not get much success though. But, finally I got it by myself. And now, I want to share my experience with others, so that guys like me can take the advantage and explore further.


Here is the step by step process of how to compile and debug the source code of VLC media player  in eclipse IDE on Ubuntu 10.04.


Prerequisites:
1. eclipse IDE for C/C++
[can be downloaded from: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/downloads/release/helios/SR2/eclipse-cpp-helios-SR2-linux-gtk.tar.gz ]


2. source code for VLC media player
[can be downloaded from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/vlc/files/1.1.9/vlc-1.1.9.tar.bz2/download ]


3. Working Internet connection.[probably you may have to download some libraries/packages]


Steps:


Step 1: Download and extraction of code:

    1.1: Download the source code of vlc and save it somewhere [e.g /home/<username>/Downloads]. I am using the latest one [i.e vlc-1.1.9.tar.bz2 ].
    1.2: Extract it. To extract...

-open terminal: Applications-> Accessories-> Terminal

-go to that directory in which source code is kept.
-and run the command: $tar -xvf  vlc-1.1.9.tar.bz2
-this will extract the contents into folder vlc-1.1.9


Step 2: Configure the source code: this step may take several iterations while configuring. Why?, because you may have to resolve some errors while configuring
    2.1: to configure...
-go to the folder vlc-1.1.9
-run the command: $./configure
-if no errors appear, then you are done with configuring the code. Move on to the next step.
-if there are errors, then resolve those error by some means and again run $./configure command.


Error examples: In my case one of the errors was...

To resolve this error, I downloaded and installed libdbus-dev library. For that I did the following...
-open Synaptic Package Manager [System-> Administration-> Synaptic Package Manager]. It will need root/admin password. And enter the library name which needs to be installed.

-right click on the selected library and select 'Mark for Installation'.
-After that click on Apply button[green tick].
-A summary dialog box will open. Click on apply.

-This will download the library and apply the changes[installation].
-After change have been applied. Run the $./configure command. If still errors appear. Do repeat the same process until no errors appear and configuration is successful.
Note: if that doesn't solve the purpose, you may try disabling that library/package by running $./configure –disable-<pack/lib name1> –disable-<pack/lib name2> –disable-<pack/lib name3> ... .

Step 3: Creating and compiling vlc project in eclipse.


    3.1: Download and extract the eclipse file [eclipse-cpp-helios-SR2-linux-gtk.tar.gz] to a folder. Go to eclipse folder and run eclipse executable to run the eclipse IDE.

3.2: Choose a workspace folder.

3.3: Now go to File->New->Project... . A wizard will open.
-Select C/C++ -> C Project, and click Next.

-Enter the project name same as the configured vlc source code folder name [in my case vlc-1.1.9]


-Select project type as Makefile Project-> Empty Project
-Select tool chain as Linux GCC and click on Finish button.

3.4: Importing source code:
-Right click on the project name [vlc-1.1.9] in Project Explorer [left pane] and select Import... . A wizard will open.
-Select General->File System and click on Next button.
 

-Select from directory of configured source code.
-Check the check-box to select all the files inside source folder.
-Click Finish button.

This will import the source code into the project. And start indexing and then after building the source code automatically if Build Automatically option is checked under Project menu of eclipse.


3.5: Building the source code: Once the indexing is done...
-Go to Project-> Build All. And the code will start building...

3.6: Running the vlc after build.
-Right click on the project name [vlc-1.1.9] in Project Explorer [left pane] and select Run As->Run Configurations... . A wizard will open.
-Click on Search Project... button and select vlc as below...

-Click on OK button and then Run button.


This will run the vlc player.

This is it!


And now, as you have vlc-1.1.9 source code configured on your eclipse IDE on Ubuntu 10.04(lucid), you can go through the code, explore it, play with it, and debug it accordingly.

Enjoy!!


Please write your comments, suggestions, inputs as they are always welcome.