Hi! all. I’m back. The vacation from LJ was nice. I’m currently in my hometown Bangalore, attending a conference on Free and OpenSource Software (FOSS.IN).
It’s a nice feeling to be able to eat home cooked food and sleep in my own cot, in my own room. It was quite a while since I last visited home. I plan to use this trip to catch up with all the people with whom I’ve been out of touch in a while. My nephew has grown quite a bit taller since I last saw him and my sister has finally succeeded in shedding a few pounds! Mom and dad were happy to see me too (I hope!) I met up with my best friend from college with whom I share a birthday (Rakshit Simha) and went out for a beer with him. He was quite happy to have finally landed a job. I also caught up with my friends from school and college (Vinay Sharma and Ravindra). I met up with my good friend and former colleague Surabhi Bhandari and caught a movie with her - Jab We Met. We loved it.

FOSS.IN

I’m meeting people with a lot of ideas and dreams about the future of their OpenSource ventures. A person presented photographs and a video clip about a project involving schoolchildren in a village called Bijra in West Bengal. It’s heartening to note that people are finding time, energy and enthusiasm to do things which are not directly related to their own wellbeing. Today is day two of the convention. The first two days are designated as project days in which people present their projects or project proposals related to opensource technology. Most of the projects were based on localisation. We had a person presenting a package management solution for computers which were not connected to the net. It exported the package information file which could then be imported into a machine with an internet connection. That machine could then download the required packages (the dependencies checked by yum) and the files put into a tar ball. The tar ball just needs to be installed onto the recepient machine to complete the update/installation.
Tomorrow is going to be more interesting with topics ranging from kernel hacking and virtualization.

Bangalore

Bangalore has changed quite a bit since I last saw it. So many new shops, malls, and buildings have come up that it was quite difficult for me to even recognize a few places. I almost got lost quite close to my own house!! The traffic too is now much worse that it was when I was around last. My dad has bought a new twowheeler (Honda Dio) which I’m now using to commute to and from the conference venue. Currently, Bangalore is celebrating Bangalore Habba (Bangalore festival), a fornight long annual celebration of everything the city stands for. The venue is on and around the famous M.G.Road. Each day has a differnent theme, like for instance, it could be a musical celebration on one day with people performing everything from traditional music to rock shows while it could be painting or pottery on another day. I hope to attend it and maybe pick up a few knickknacks for posterity. I had once got a pencil sketch of myself with my then girlfriend done, during a Bangalore Habba. I still have it and it brings back a lot of fond memories. That’s Bangalore and Bangalore Habba for you! Maybe I’ll put up a few snaps soon.