Tuesday, November 12, 2013

FUD of potable water.

So, Water has been downgraded and termes as a "need". That is it is not critical for the survival of mankind and that it can be industrialized, trademarked and sold at many times the cost of bottling it. So, we will have stars endrosing different variants of bottled water suited to hte whims and fancies of the elite. If humans could intake gold in solid form, then we mahy have bottled water with gold dust. Some countries could come out with medicnal bottled water with precious body parts of various endangered species stored withing the bottled water.

This is an awesome indusry. The beauty of this industry is the wide spectrum of investment possible. You can have a cottage industry serving the local area or an MNC bottling in one country and selling it across the world. The domestic filteration companies in a bid to sell their kits have classified tap water as non-potable. Governments have not done anything in clearing this FUD. Right from  ultra developed countries to the developing ones and stagnated ones. They have not tried to educate the people nor improve the arcane technology being used to clean water and make it potable. No action has been taken by any government to stop this FUD regarding water in any way.

We now have people drinking nearly De-mineralized water and then to compensate for the minerals, we have doctors prescribing vitamins and other processed foods.

Now, the thing about bottled water is, you cannot start with De-mineralized water as a base and then star adding the required amounts of nutrients which were already present. If this was possible all these companies would have harvested the sea and humanity would definitely be happy with this endeavour. Since this is not the case, the base of any bottled water has to be , naturally occuring water. This is then to be treated to selectively eliminate the supposedly harmful constituents and then add a propreitory mixture of supposedly healthy constituents which in the end should have a pleasing effect on the sensory organs.

The argument in monetizing water is only one. That is, people are wasting it. Whenever anything is in abudance we tend to waste it. Now, bottled water is sold at geographical locations where water is definitely available in abundance. It is sold at a premium both at the areas of abundance and also where it is meagre in availability.

There was a time I enjoyed drinking water from a flowing river. Now, I a cant do that. That is because now I know that there are various industries along the flow path of the river which dump unprocessed industrial waste right into the river. Plain business. Plain bottom line.

I also always thought that smaller companies in their rush to grow up do not follow certain ethics towards the environment, will cut corners and end up damaging the external environment. But as they grow, they become more responsible(like humans). But it is not so, the larger organizations are cutting bigger corners in order to grow bigger(like humans). All this dumping makes the traditional water treatment and transport facility outdated. This in turn feeds the filteration mafia and in turn the bottle water industry. Modern business are waiting for any new demand being created. They are ready to supply to the demand. Just show me the demand. Here you have exceptional demand where doctors also join in by qouting the ill-effects of tap water. So, maintaining one's health is a great demand. With countries being told that globalization is the way to grow and survive in future economic scenarios, It is very easy for trans-national companies to heed the demand of countries across the world. If the FUD worked in one country it will work in another.

In the bottling industry investment can be minimum and also very high. For MNC's it is as easy as gobbling up a local bottling plant. Since a bottle of water is costlier than the same volume of soft drinks there is no doubt as to the reason of all the soft drinks companies having their own brand of bottled water. All these comapanies have cordoned off portions of rivers, springs and put their stamp of ownership on these natural resources, keeping it out of reach of the common man.

FUD related to air ended up with setting of oxygen bars. This failed miserably owing to the "un-controllable" natue of air. But water, can be contained, cordoned off. The time is not far off where we will have water bottled with a tinge of lemon, orange, strawberry etc. So, what about the common man? He makes up 99% of the world population, what about animals, birds......... Governments allowing bottling of water and then allowing it to be exported to other countries risk the natural rain cycle.

With no clouds, natural rain cycle, we will be a "RED" planet in the future and nobody will be there to see it.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Is freedom worth the fight

Is freedom worth anything? Countries fought for freedom and several others continue to do so. Do they know the value of freedom? Countries which have been free from eternity, do they know the value of freedom? Countries who fought and are fighting, in that country do everybody know what freedom is or what are they going to do when they "get" it. Do everybody in the country fight for it? Do everybody in the country want it? Are people so much engrossed in their "walled garden" that they dont want to skip the ecstasy of staying in a "walled garden"? Are people programmed to such an extent that they dont want to look beyond the garden? Are they getting whatever they want in that garden? Is it only "that much" they pine for or made to pine for? The infinite human brain, is it reduced to the pea sized brain of the dinasour? Are human capabilities going back? Can freedom wake people from their walled gardens and make them to look beyond the garden? Can freedom yield brains with capabilities as huge as the dark energy. Is freedom the panacea for all the problems in the world? Will freedom allow the human brain to overcome the law of least resistance?

Are people, who fight for freedom, fight for everybody, or for an elite group of enlightened people. Is fighting for freedom and interpreting it, the job of an elite group of people? Is the largesse independent of the freedom school of thought? Is the largesse there just to enjoy the benifits of the struggle by this elite group of freedom fighters? And after getting the much sought out freedom, is the largesse free to carry on enjoying in their walled garden. Is that the aim of the struggle? Were there no people who were happy slaving around just to keep themselves and their walled garden happy? Are the largesse supposed to continue with status quo without any inhibitions, without any contributions back to the society? Are people fighting for freedom in their own "walled garden"?

Is creativity, improvement, social attributes, general good, world citizen, not embedded in the spirit of freedom? Is freedom a seperate word? Is the word freedom in its own "walled garden" Is it an "ideology" which the largesse dont understand or they think that they should not understand, or they think that it is not their job? Is the present societal setup such that people are made to forget the value of freedom and made slavery a more shiny word to use? Are the largesse happy with the perpetual freedom handed over to them by the big corporations? Do the corporations change the scope and meaning of it every now and then?

Ok. So, You have freedom. How many are using it? Has it affected the brain usage of the largesse in any way? You tell me, this is what freedom is about. In summary you are making these statements

I am whatever I am, however I am, I will be "I"
I will strive to be "me"
I am here to prove Newtons laws of motion
I will resist, if futile, I will take an equillibrium position taking the least resistance path
If not acted upon, but still the external environment is changing, I will not, why should I, I am happy with whatever I am
I will try with all my effort to make the environment around me a shield so strong, I cannot be acted upon
I love me being elitely me
I think of only myself
I am happy that the knowledge of the world is free because of freedom. But I dont want freedom. I am happy with me not knowing anthing about freedom.
I am in a free world but I dont care about freedom
I use all the facilities coming with freedom
I dont care about all the drawbacks it has. Oh, come on, when I didnt care much about freedom do i care about the lack of it
The society is just there. It was created in a fraction of a second. Mankind is whatever it is, just like that created again, in a fraction of a second.
I have my place on this planet. But, that is not the result of freedom. It was just there.
I am happy with my walled garden. I dont care how it was raised. It may be full of holes, I am happy with it.
I dont have any problem in staying in a walled garden full of loopholes to be exploited.
I care a damn about freedom or the lack of it.


Long live "Freedom"

Monday, August 12, 2013

AOSP on Sony xperia Z

Disclaimer: I dont take any responsibility for the damage of your equipment. If you point your ire at me, I will have the last laugh. USE THE INFO AT YOUR OWN RISK.



Sony android phone team has taken the android philosophy very seriously. This is one team within sony which is passionate w.r.t idea, philosophy and legality of FLOSS. If we compare the android and the GNU/Linux eco-system, I would sum up the relation between them by using Android/Linux for android and GNU/Linux for the desktop OS which we are familiar with. While GNU used the Linux kernel for coming up with a complete Desktop OS, Google built the UI shell and other mobile telephony stack over the Linux kernel. But, the similarity ends there.

The two components of GNU/Linux are licensed with "free as in freedom" philosophy with the GPL.(Though the linux kernel is licensed with GPL V2 and the GNU utils are mostly licensed with the latest GPL version). The source code of the original program and all its improvements are always and should be made available in source form for public consumption.

If we come to Android/Linux, the first part is licensed under the Apache license. This is a permissive licensing philosophy, wherein, the original source and its improvements "may" be provided in source form if the author wishes, or else the source can be withheld and only the binaries "may" be provided for public consumption. So, the author, google, and other mobile manufacturers who licence android from google are not compelled to share the original source code(scripted by google) or any variations of it for use by various mobile manufacturers with the general public. The result is, if google wants to put out the source for its newest shiny android version it will, if it is not in a mood to do it, then also, google is honoring the apache license. The second part, the linux kernel, is licensed under GPL v2, google and all the mobile manufacturers have to honor the license and give out the kernel with all their additions and alterations for public consumption.

This post is about sony, let us continue. Sony is the only phone manufacturer which honors the GPL for the linux kernel meticulously, it is almost like clockwork. Even if the sony mobile team has released a beta kernel for a specific device, the source is out within a week. But, But, with Xperia S, sony took their commitment to the FLOSS philosophy a step ahead. They went ahead and release the "android" portion of the OS also for public consumption, again, of course under the apache license. There your are. You have the entire gamot of source code of "Android/Linux" in your hands, now, Go Play.

Once the sony smartphone team released the source for xperia Z, their flagship phone for 2013(while other manufacturers closely guard their flagship phones for nearly a year by not releasing the kernel source which they are supposed to do with the release of the device), I had decided that will be my next phone. It does not match with my primary requirement of hardware keyboard, but, the hardware specs was awesome and the purple color was beautiful on this phone.

The XDA forums is full of various spins of upmarket roms with "n" number of customizations. You will be spoilt for choice. Only one rom of mention still struggling is the MIUI. But devs are on it and I definitely believe they will succeed in running it on the Z.

Oh, let us get back to our topic, FLOSS. Google releases the source code after baking the lates version of the android OS in-house. It is released under the label "AOSP" ie, the Android Open Source Project. This will be the most generic tree of the source. Normally, it would be difficult to compile this vanilla version as it is and run it on a phone. It would be missing the device specific code required to get it running on a specific phone. The other missing thing, vital, would be the binaries which are required to use the all the hardware(SoC) properly.

Now, we have a completely new word here, binary, yes all FLOSS enthusiasts hate it. Every manufacturer makes use of an Arm SoC or an Intel SoC. The manufacturer provides the drivers for these hardware components. But, the hardware manufacturers dont play well with the FLOSS philosophy. They guard their hardware, its implementation and usage with hawk eyes. The driver are always release in the form of blobs(Binary large objects). They have to be linked in during the compile stage of the rom to result in a fully working rom to be installed on your device.

We now have one non-freedom component on our otherwise "free as i freedom" system. But, we are somewhat ok with it.(Apologies to RMS). Anybody can compile an AOSP rom for the xperia z. The sources are at github with clear instructions for building it. You just have to have good bandwidth, patience, building on GNU/Linux (64 bit)(building on windows,..... forget it) and a lot of googling to use the experience of developers over the XDA forums.

If you dont want to compile it, An XDA developer going by the username pabx, has done it for us. Before I proceed, if you are an XDA member go and thank him. If you have a paypal account donate to him. This rom compiled/developed by him is awesome. It is one of the minimal rom I have seen and used. When I backed it up with CWM, with all my usual apps installed, the backup size was, believe it (or not), 560MB. How awesome is that. Compare it with the stock rom whic is approx 1.7GB. Now, that is light. But do remember that it is minus all the bells and whistles. It may not be visually appealing compared to the stock rom. Few quirks might be lurking here and there. My major quirks were two. One, the volume is awfully low(Stock rom with purexaudio is awesome. Hear it to believe it). Two, Plugging an earpiece without mic will result in phone calls not being audible both for the caller and the receptor. The number two problem does not exist for earpiece with mic(for eg, the sony supplied one). One more issue is the video playback. On the stock rom it is great even when the processor is underclocked to 800MHz with the hardware decoder. On the AOSP rom you have to use the software decoder for better performance.

How do we install this awesome effort on our phone?

Before you unlock your bootloader, try this tool. This is to backup the TA partition which is required for the Bravia Engine to work(Just remember that the Bravia engine comes into play when you watch a video or photographs. Otherwise the BE does not do anything during the general use of the device.) I have not tried this. But please go through the thread. It is quite big and intimidating. I did backup the TA partition but not tried to restore it back. But there are numerous examples on the thread where people have restored the TA partition and got back the BE. Please do remember that for restoring the TA, you should be back on "pure" stock(kernel and the rom).

If possible make an .ftf of your current stock rom or download one(Just in case)
Install flashtool
Install fastboot drivers from within the flashtool installation(The installer is in C:/flashtool/drivers). Double click the .exe in that folder. If you are using windows 7 or windows 8 go here)

1. Unlock your bootloader go here
2. Root the device go here
3. Install CWM recovery go here
4. Backup the stock rom with CWM recovery brief intro
5. Enter CWM and clear data, cache and dalvik cache
6. shutdown the phone
7. Connect one end of the USB cable to the computer and plug in the phone end of the cable to the phone while simultaneously pressing and holding the volume up button
8. Download pabx's effort from here
9. Extract the archive (unzip pabx_aosp_yuga*.zip) to c:\flashtool\x10_flasher_lib\
10. Open the cmd window on windows and change directory to x10_flasher_lib

run the command below
  
fastboot devices

 -- It should list the device name (not exactly the name of the device) If you get an output, then continue, otherwise you have problems regarding fastboot drivers. If you get an output, run these commands(wait for completion of the command befor entering another)

fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash system system.img

If this is an initial installation,
also run:

fastboot flash userdata userdata.img

# NOTE: The above command will wipe all your data and the internal SD card - only do this on first-install of this rom.

Now run
   
fastboot reboot  ---Or just disconnnect and reboot

Now, we have to root this rom. Download superuser and copy it to the external sd card of your device. reboot the device, press the volume up button continously as the phone reboots, you will enter CWM(the swiss army knife). Choose Install zip/Install from external sd card and choose the file.

reboot

Now you are rooted with an AOSP rom.

Now, we should boot into pure vanilla experience. Of course, you need google apps like the play store, gmail, maps etc... Download this, copy to external sd card and repeat the procedure for installing it via cwm.

reboot

You now have the play store. Go ahead and install your favorite apps.



Advanced:-

To get more realestate from your phone, edit the build.prop in /system with root explorer and change the lcd density to 320.


Operating the phone using the softkeys at the bottom of this huge phone is tricky. Install LMT launcher. start the app, start the service, click the option of start this app at boot. Then edit the build.prop in /system and add the following line at the bottom


qemu.hw.mainkeys=1

reboot

If the media players are not able to save the album details and they show empty libraries, then Edit file /system/etc/permissions/platform.xml

    Find text

    name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"
        group gid="sdcard_rw"


    And replace it with
permission name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"         group gid="sdcard_rw"
        group gid="media_rw"   ---> Only this line is to be added in the format exactly as in the file with the arrows and the backslashes

    Reboot

    Make it with caution. XMLs are very syntax sensitive. Any mistake may make your phone inoperable.


Thanks to all the users and fantastic devs at XDA for bringing in excitement into the phone arena. The info has been culled from various resources. If any user/dev requires a mention please comment. It will be immediately updated.

UPDATE: 12.11.2013:   Owing to un-ethical kang of pabx's rom, his builds and discussion will now happen http://www.blinkenlights.ch/ccms/android/yuga.html
He has succesfully compiled kitkat for our device. The most important of all we now have double tap to wake for our xperia z thanx to championswimmer, dev at the xda. It is now available for this AOSP rom also. For further instructions please visit the above link and also visit his thread on xda. 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Installing Arch GNU/Linux on Macbok air Version 4.2(Late 2011) part 4

Disclaimer: I dont take any responsibility for the damage of your equipment. If you point your ire at me, I will have the last laugh. USE THE INFO AT YOUR OWN RISK.

 So, you have now rebooted to your liberated computing experience and have started loving to being master. Let us continue

WINDOW BORDERS NOT BEING DISPLAYED

add the line below in settings - settings-manager-session and startup-application autostart
/usr/bin/xfwm4 &

SWAP SPACE ON A FILE

Create 8GB swapfile instead of a swap partition(which we did not create while installing)
in the root partition.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=8388608  -- Red hat recommends twice the ram
if you are going to use the hibernate feature. If not you can halve the size of the swapfile
But, I believe that air users would love to use the hibernate feature. With hibernate the
entire ram contents are dumped to the swap partition and is read back when brought back
from hibernation.

swap is responsible for many a hacks on Unix/Linux systems. Restrict permissions
by using

chown root:root /swapfile
chmod 0600 /swapfile

mkswap /swapfile   -- To convert the file to swap file type
swapon /swapfile   -- To start using the file as swap, now.

To use the swapfile at every boot up

/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0


ENABLE/DISABLE KEYBOARD BACKLIGHT

$su
#echo 100 | tee  /sys/class/leds/smc\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness  --- for full backlight brightness
#echo 00 | tee  /sys/class/leds/smc\:\:kbd_backlight/brightness  --- for backlight off


HARDWARE ACCELERATION

To use it with Arch, you simply need to install the xf86-video-intel package, this has the SNA patch included and should work with the most recent Xorg. It's then a simple case of creating /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf and adding:

Section "Device"

Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "AccelMethod" "sna"

EndSection

check your log to see if SNA is being used with the below command:

cat /var/log/Xorg* | grep SNA


INCREASE LIFE OF SSD

To make all these changes, open up a terminal and run:

sudo nano -w /etc/fstab

Then for all SSD devices in your system remove 'relatime' if present and add 'noatime,nodiratime,discard' so it looks something like this:

/dev/sda   /   ext4   noatime,nodiratime,discard,errors=remount-ro 0 1

SWAP WRITE MINIMIZE

echo 0 > /pro/sys/vm/swappiness

CHANGE THE IO SCHEDULER


    echo noop > /sys/block/sdX/queue/scheduler

Or better, use udev rules to check for rotational media.

#'deadline' is recommended by the author of CFQ for SSDs, replace it with 'noop' if you want.

    Create a file with a name like 10-ssd.rules in /etc/udev/rules.d containing:

# set a larger readahead size
ACTION=="add|change", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]", ATTR{queue/read_ahead_kb}="1024"

# set deadline scheduler for non-rotating disks
ACTION=="add|change", KERNEL=="sd[a-z]", ATTR{queue/rotational}=="0", ATTR{queue/scheduler}="deadline"


now, verify the scheduler

$ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler  -- The output would be. The selected scheduler is indicated in brackets.

noop [deadline] cfq


Replace "relatime" with "noatime" to stop the system from writing the last access times as discussed above. Next, add the following lines to fstab to put temporary and log files in RAM instead of on the solid state drive:

tmpfs   /tmp       tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777   0  0
tmpfs   /var/log   tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=0755   0  0
tmpfs   /var/spool tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777   0  0
tmpfs   /var/tmp   tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777   0  0


NEW CONFIG FILES FOR ADJUSTING TIME( from arch wiki )

Comment all time related lines in /etc/rc.conf

HARDWARECLOCK=...

and other time related entered in the previous steps

run   hwclock -w --localtime as root
It will create a file /etc/adjtime
cat /etc/adjtime
you should get some output with LOCAL in the end

Reboot


UPDATED LOCALE/TIME CONFIGS

emacs /etc/locale.gen
uncomment en_IN UTF8

emacs /etc/locale.conf
add the following

Lang="en_IN.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_TIME="en_IN.UTF-8"
export LANG=en_IN.UTF-8

run this command   hwclock --systohc --localtime


sound getting disabled once in a while

Keep using the system for a week/fortnight it will get repaired automatically


BRIGHTNESS OF DISPLAY

If the fn keys stop working for changing the display brightness then,

run the following commands

cat /sys/class/backlight/max_brightness
cat /sys/class/backlight/brightness

enter a value from 0 to max_brightness to change the brightness by

#echo 245 | tee brightness

Increase or decrease based on requirement.

UPDATE: The aboe step is not required. since brightness can be easily adjusted via plugins in xfce.

Frequency driver issues

Linux 2.9 and above are using the newest frequency driver called intel-pstate. This is for newer cpus. Tha macbook air was running hot. So remove it until the previous old processors are supported by this driver.
1. add intel_pstate=disable to the kernel line
2. echo acpi-cpufreq >/etc/modules-load.d/acpi-cpufreq.conf

If you dont like the colored borders behind the names of icons on the desktop do this

 It is possible you may have a .gtkrc-2.0 file already. If so, the
following lines can be added to it. Otherwise you will need to make this
file yourself and paste the below lines in the .gtkrc-2.0 file.

To make the file, just open a text editor and paste the following:

style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {
    XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 0
    }
widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view"

So you want to connect your latest android smartphone

 Install packages gvfs gvfs-afc gvfs-mtp for automounting of USB devices
But just remember that mtp sucks on GNU/Linux as well as windows.

Thats it folks!!!. I dont think I have forgotten anything. All the best with your freedom.

Installing Arch GNU/Linux on Macbok air Version 4.2(Late 2011) part 3

Disclaimer: I dont take any responsibility for the damage of your equipment. If you point your ire at me, I will have the last laugh. USE THE INFO AT YOUR OWN RISK.

So, You are not used to being a master. You are used to situations where you adapt yourself to the Operating system(Master) and tells what you should be doing. So, be careful, what happens from now on is different. You tell the Operating system what is to be done and how it is to be done.

Let us begin.

After successful boot u will be logged in as root with the root prompt. Type the commands below as described. Majority of this info has been culled from the Arch wiki.


# nano /etc/hostname
enter your hostname press ^o and ^x to exit


# nano /etc/locale.gen

en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8

# locale-gen
# export LANG=de_DE.UTF-8

#wifi-menu
select your wifi connection from the list given. It will prompt for the password. Give the password and you are connected to the public network.

#cgdisk /dev/sda

Be careful here. remember the partition scheme you had decided in the beginning. delete the partition you had created in osx for linux. Now create a partition and select the type as "linux". cgdisk is an ncurses interface for the gdisk tool. I created only one partition. cgdisk manages a GPT parititon table, rather than the traditional MBR-style partitions. If swap is required we can always create swap on a file in the regular file system. Remember the partition number you created. You can always find out the partition number by

#lsblk /dev/sda

format it to your favorite file system

#mkefs.ext4 /dev/sda5

mount the partition

#mount /dev/sda5 /mnt

Since we are on an efi system, we have to mount the first partition

# mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
# mount /dev/sdax /mnt/boot/efi

 Select a mirror

Before installing, you may want to edit the mirrorlist file and place your preferred mirror first. A copy of this file will be installed on your new system by pacstrap as well, so it's worth getting it right.

# nano /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

    Alt+6 to copy a Server line.
    PageUp key to scroll up.
    Ctrl+U to paste it at the top of the list.
    Ctrl+X to exit, and when prompted to save changes, press Y and Enter to use the same filename.

If you want, you can make it the only mirror available by getting rid of everything else (using Ctrl+K), but it's usually a good idea to have a few more, in case the first one goes offline.
Tip: Use the Mirrorlist Generator to get an updated list for your country. HTTP mirrors are faster than FTP, because of something called keepalive. With FTP, pacman has to send out a signal each time it downloads a package, resulting in a brief pause.

 Install the base system

The base system is installed using the pacstrap script.

# pacstrap /mnt base base-devel


 Generate an fstab

Generate an fstab file with the following command. If you prefer to use UUIDs or labels, add the -U or -L option, respectively. It's also a good idea to check it before continuing:

# genfstab -p /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab
# nano /mnt/etc/fstab


 Chroot and configure the base system

Next, we chroot into our newly installed system:

# arch-chroot /mnt

At this stage of the installation, you will configure the primary configuration files of your Arch Linux base system. These can either be created if they do not exist, or edited if you wish to change the defaults.

 Locale

Locales are used by glibc and other locale-aware programs or libraries for rendering text, correctly displaying regional monetary values, time and date formats, alphabetic idiosyncrasies, and other locale-specific standards.

There are two files that need editing: locale.gen and locale.conf.

    The locale.gen file is empty by default (everything is commented out) and you need to remove the # in front of the line(s) you want. You may uncomment more lines than just English (US), as long as you choose their UTF-8 encoding:

# nano /etc/locale.gen

en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8

# locale-gen

This will run on every glibc upgrade, generating all the locales specified in /etc/locale.gen.

    The locale.conf file doesn't exist by default. Setting only LANG should be enough. It will act as the default value for all other variables.

# echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
# export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Note: If you set some other language than English at the beginning of the install, the above commands would be something like:

# echo LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
# export LANG=de_DE.UTF-8

To use other LC_* variables, first run locale to see the available options. An advanced example can be found here.
Warning: Using the LC_ALL variable is strongly discouraged because it overrides everything.


Timezone Available time zones and subzones can be found in the /usr/share/zoneinfo// directories.

To view the available , check the directory /usr/share/zoneinfo/:

# ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/


Create a symbolic link /etc/localtime to your zone file /usr/share/zoneinfo// using this command:

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Calcutta /etc/localtime

Daemons

A list of available services (and their running status) can be found using the command:

# rc.d list


 Hostname

Add your hostname in /etc/hostname:

# echo myhostname > /etc/hostname


Wireless

     Install the required packages:

# pacman -S wireless_tools netctl

If you use WPA/WPA2 encryption, install:

# pacman -S wpa_supplicant wpa_actiond
#pacman -S dialog(for using wifi-menu it is a dependency)

initrd will be generated automatically during the install

#modprobe dm-mod



     Connect to the network with wifi-menu (optionally checking the interface name with ip link, but usually it's wlan0), which will generate a profile file in /etc/network.d named after the SSID. There are also templates available in /etc/network.d/examples/ for manual configuration.

# wifi-menu



GRUB



For 64-bit aka x86_64 UEFI firmware:

# pacman -S grub-efi-x86_64


The UEFI system partition will need to be mounted at /boot/efi/ for the GRUB(2) install script to detect it:

# mkdir -p /boot/efi
# mount -t vfat /dev/sdXY /boot/efi

Install GRUB UEFI application to /boot/efi/EFI/arch_grub and its modules to /boot/grub/x86_64-efi (recommended) using:

# modprobe dm-mod
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck --debug
# mkdir -p /boot/grub/locale
# cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo


While using a manually created grub.cfg is absolutely fine, automatically generating one is recommended:
Tip: To automatically search for other operating systems on your computer, install os-prober before generating it:

# pacman -S os-prober

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

After all this a .efi is installed in /dev/sda1/EFI/arch_boot/
This will read the grub.cfg in /boot/grub/grub.cfg

#passwd    change the root password


pacman -S xorg xorg-apps xorg-drivers xorg-fonts



#mkdir /home/vanisri
#useradd vanisri
#passwd vanisri
#chown  -R  $USER:$USER  $HOME

reboot

Hold the option button. This will choose the previous working refit screen. Here select osX. Once in osX re-install refit.
reboot
Hold the option button and see everything is fine.
reboot
Now you will get back the old refit which you have been using previous to installing arch. This is required since the step to install grub discussed above installed grub to the efi partition thereby overwriting the previous refit and you boot directly into grub instead of refit.


pacman -S xfce4 xfce4-goodies
pacman -S gstream.....
pacman -S firefox
pacman -S flashplugin
pacman -S alsa_utils alsa_oss ffmpeg alsa_plugins libva-driver-intel ttf-dejavu
#cat /etc/group
#gpasswd -a vanisri audio (Like this add yourself to the other groups)

pacman -S lightdm

pacman -Syu


#emacs /etc/rc.conf
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"
TIMEZONE="Asia/Kolkata"

To display the correct time.

To check whether time is set properly

run the commands below
# hwclock --show
$ date

Both the commands should show the same time. Else run the following

# hwclock --hctosys

Now check the two commands above. They should be the same.


That completes a near 90 percent of Arch GNU/Linux installation on the Macbook air. Little more tips/adjustments/betterments in the next post.


Installing Arch GNU/Linux on Macbok air Version 4.2(Late 2011) part 2

 Disclaimer: I dont take any responsibility for the damage of your equipment. If you point your ire at me, I will have the last laugh. USE THE INFO AT YOUR OWN RISK.

To start, let me make a very strong statement about the state of support for the hardware of this version of Macbook air. The Linux kernel has "Out of the Box" support for all the hardware on this version. So, If you choose any distro which has excellent efi support and the latest bleeding edge Linux kernel you are good to go and try any distro.

I have gone with Arch GNU/Linux and I am loving it. The capability of hand tuning what you want on your laptop or desktop with Arch GNU/Linux is awesome. Coming from Debian GNU/Linux, where there is "flowing" installer where you chose all the options and then finalize the installation, it was different when my arch installer just dropped me to the root prompt and stood there blinking for my command. The exact way how a computing experience should be, You, the user, is the master.

Please go through all the resources I have linked in the previous post. Form your own procedure then You can fine tune it with any gotchas you find in my writeup. Let me be clear here that majority of what I have written here is verbatim copy of the Arch wiki. All the gratitude/thanks/kudos go to the Arch community of devs and users.

Preparation

    Download the most recent archboot ISO
    Write the ISO to a USB stick using dd or unetbootin(hugely recomended) or burn it to a CD/DVD.
    Prepare hard drive in OSX: (shrink your OSX partition in Disk Utility)

Download refit.dmg(the image file for a mac). Install it on the mac osx
reboot the air and hold the option(alt)key on the keyboard when u hear the start up sound.Boot into osx and reboot two to three times in the same way.
Now plugin the usb stick created and reboot(I would suggest you to get hold of an external dvd r/w, Yes, U can use any USB external dvd r/w. Because I have heard users comment that the dd method is not the best for efi based systems).

Reboot the air and press the option(alt) button at the startup sound.
Wait for a few seconds while refit loads and shows all the bootable files on the air. You will have two images whose logo will be that of a cd disc. One will be named windows and the other will be something like efi.. with the same logo(only the recent arch images have two options)
Select the image with the efi.. on it. Dont do anything on the terminal, wait for 6 seconds, arch will bootup and give you the root prompt and wait for its master's commands.

Be Carful here, Dont select the windows one as suggested in the above guides. There will be some extra steps since grub doesnt play well with efi.
Allow arch to boot.

Now go here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide/Preparation#Preparation

GNU/Linux on Apple Macbook Air 4.2 (Late 2011) part 1

 Disclaimer: I dont take any responsibility for the damage of your equipment. If you point your ire at me, I will have the last laugh. USE THE INFO AT YOUR OWN RISK.

This post is my continuation of my earlier post where I drooled over the hardware implementation of Macbook air. After that post I have seen all the notebook manufacturers try to make a clone and majority have failed except for the samsung versions which have better connectivity options compared to the Air. But Macbook air is still the king in lightweight laptops. Why do I drool over the Airs being a hardcore freedom software evangelist? Hardware, exquisitely crafted hardware.

Let us get down to freeing the Macbook air from propreitory software it is running. I have chosen Arch GNU/Linux as my GNU OS of choice having read reports of it running beatifully on Mac hardware and not interested in running the Microsoft of the windows world, Ubuntu GNU/Linux.
Coming from Debian GNU/Linux, I saw that the ncurses interface for installing the basic OS is very similar. There was a shocker waiting for me. After downloading the latest x86_64 build, I connected the external DVD drive borrowed from my friend and booted it. What happens, The installer starts and dumps me into a root prompt. Thats it. I have installed slackware GNU/Linux and Debian GNU/Linux with neat installers though still ncurses based.

Time to search the public network. Now I see that the ncurses installer has been done away with. You have to install everything manually. Ofcourse there are lot of tools provided by the Arch GNU/Linux project to make the process simple and straight forward. At this juncture I would like to mention about the Arch WIKI. This is one of the most detailed wiki documentation I have gone through seconded or equalled only by the Gentoo GNU/Linux wiki.The wiki is written beautifully and is very easy to comprehend by anybody with a basic GNU/Linux background. In the process, I chrooted to another GNU/Linux installation for the first time and the raw power of the UNIX philosophy hit me on my face. KUDOS to all the "freeedom" developers.





Here are the links/resources/works/efforts I made use of in liberating my Macbook Air.

http://d.goodlad.net/articles/arch_linux_on_mba_42/

http://blog.billsdon.com/2011/12/triple-boot-13inch-macbook-air-4-2-2011-model/

http://www.billsdon.com/2011/12/install-linux-mint-12-lisa-13inch-macbook-air-4-2-2011-model/

http://plopez.nfshost.com/2011_macbook_air_pure_efi_dual-boot

http://calummacrae.blogspot.in/2012/06/control-freaks-macbook-air-introduction.html

http://maketecheasier.com/install-dual-boot-ubuntu-in-macbook-air/2012/08/27

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/10/10/dual-boot-windows-7-and-ubuntu-12-04-on-a-pc-with-uefi-board-ssd-and-hdd/

The next post will be having all the gory details of installing Arch GNU/Linux on the Macbook air.


Saturday, June 22, 2013

Making history

I am now creating history. I am not a historian/politician/economist/author. It is just this habit of seeing the past with my own mindset, bring it to the present and try to extrapolate to the future. The ideas mentioned are my own. These days you not only stand on the shoulder of giants but have to confront many number of chauvinistic giants, chauvinistic for various reasons.

The caste system. Why didnt I write about this all these days? why? May be, I, thought that a lot has been told and written. A sense of DejaVu. I will be going to write about history, present and future of the caste system. This topic is unlike any other topic which I have written about. I have to tread carefully, there are a lot of historical chauvinists. My definition of truth is very simple. "Past is the truth" and it is the only truth. How do we know the past? How do we come to know about the past? Through history. Shall we change my one liner to "History is the only truth", NO. History is and will be subjective. I have not come across any objective historical material because it is impossible to have one. Why? It is impossible to write one. When you write, you are limited by the language, time and other external subjective influences.

How do we add objective dimension to history? By asking many many people to write one. Homogenising these various writings will make us tend towards objectivity of the subject in question. I used the word "tend" to indicate that the number of people required to get a real objective estimate has to tend to infinity, which is humanly impossible. And if at all it happens, homogenising will be IMPOSSIBLE in the required time. Truth is always difficult.

History has been the recorded views of the elite. Ther is no record of the lives of all the other 99%. Why? Gods and kings were supreme. Everybody others were just "people". We have an account of all the Gods the elite prayed to. Do we have the same account of gods worshipped by the artisan, the laborer, the road cleaner, the cobbler, the blacksmith. etc... NO. What have we done to enslave them further. Further we have made them forget the gods whom they prayed for, all these years and made them embrace the flashy and the costlier gods of the elitist society.

Why did all the ancestral sufferings get forgotten so easily? Majority of the sufferings was due to the exclusitivity of these elitist gods and all the rules regarding their worship. Was a cleaner allowed to think of various building materials, was an artisan, an artist, laborer ever allowed to think anything beyond his work, NO. If allowed they would'nt get any. Where do you get the innovation? Are you telling me the iron pillar somewhere in India has stood the test of time? You are joking with half a billion population, of course, there will be one artisan who is passionate about his job and accidentally that is what he liked.

I have heard that the Aryans were responsible for the division of tasks among the people, which is in turn the pre-cursor to the caste system in India. What was the strategy which the dravidions followed? Did they follow an exact socialism? Wherein everbody just stepped in to overcome the shortcomings/need of the society on their own without anybody's influence?

What do I think? I thin the aryans already knew the shortcoming of this kind of society. They understood that there are certain tasks in the societal setup which majority of them disliked. In the dravidian setup, I think this discord was not present, at that moment, among the members.

The aryans observed this "bliss" of relationships and started thinking. They came to know that everybody "valued" their work and thought of every work having the same value. The aryans sowed the first seeds of the elitist behaviour by the way they worshipped and presented their gods. They just complicated it to make it elitist. They were able to impress upon the simple minded, since they worshipped a superior god, they themselves were superior. Here started the divide. Goodness is somehow and always associated with naiveness. This simplistic co-existence of the dravidians led to their exploitation. The stagnancy of learning and basking in the glory of successfully creating the divide, led us to being ruled by plethora of kings/governments. The aryans seperated themselves from the original and made them un-approachable, thereby increasing their supremacy. The original submitted to the vileys who then carefully carved the hierarchial system of society.

This power over 99% of the people led to creation of various units. Each unit size depended on the power the leader was having. Now, more power was needed. The leaders waged war against each other, thereby increased their domain of power. Who fought the wars on the battlefield? Your answer here. Because "history" does not answer this.

Now, I can fantasize, am i good at it....................

Sunday, May 19, 2013

My favorite phone Xperia Mini Pro is alive and kicking......

I already have a lot of posts on the favorite phone. I have written all about its features, rooting it, installing custom roms and everything. This post is particularly about the attitude of big corporations and their lethargic attitude towards the customer once a sale is made.

Business institutions are full about various subjects relating to customer satisfaction/customer requirements/repeat customers. Students from these institutions get high packets based on the things they learn from these institutions and are taught about all the ideals of keeping the customers happy.

But once these students end up with big organizations, with a very costly noose around their necks, called the "tie", they are re-programmed to work in the traditional way the whole business is being carried out. The very best example of how these organizations work has been the android eco-system. Being an open eco-system based on apache licence has put into open the negatives of traditional way of customer satisfaction.

Customers these days are over-whelmed with information about products and their features. This information is again adulterated by paid reviews of the product and see that it gets maximum penetration. This is one side of the coin which deals with selling a product to the customer. Now, the android eco-system starts with a sale, while other products end with a sale. Organizations are finding it difficult to assimilate the fact that a sale with open systems, dont end with a sale, in fact it starts with a sale. Customers are eagerly waiting for additional services/product upgrades. So, why are the customers so much demanding? The answer lies in the open nature of the android eco-system

Once a device is released, the kernel code which is under GPL is to be released in parallel. So, what do traditional companies do to continue doing their traditional business? They delay the release of the kernel sources. Now, once the kernel sources are released, there is only one task remaining, build a custom rom for that device with all the updated features available in the AOSP code released.

AOSP is a moving target, being updated everyday with bugfixes and new features from volunteers worldwide. But the device came with a static rom and that is exactly what the big organizations are ready to give you. Well, the customers dont want that, they want their device to be alive as long as it meets their requirement or they can make the device meet their requirement by using upgraded code from the AOSP project.

How do big organizations stop users/devs from doing the above? Create binary only drivers packaged as blobs and Linux supports blobs to be loaded as it is(This is exactly what makes RMS fume on the licensing choice of the linux kernel). Now, without these blobs, the custom built rom would not function out of the box, resulting in a rom, with limited functionality compared to the stock rom which came with the device.

Let me come back to the subject, xperia mini pro. Awesome design for a qwerty phone, little heavy thats it. Its an awesom device. Sony upgraded the software radically only once. They upgraded it to ICS from GB, cribbing all the way about the lack of hardware capability to run ICS throught the build process which took almost an year. After that they orphaned the phone. Another team, the freexperia team which is responsible for bringing cyanogenmod to xperia devices also lifted their hand from upgrading the phones to the next version, JB.  Half hearted attempts were made by them to build cm10 for the 2011 series. Once they saw that the device did live it up to the task, they became serious and we had 4.1 for our phones, then, they stopped and decided that 2013 is too late for 2011

Now, it is the turn of the individuals to expand the life of the device. nAa, did the unthinkable and unimaginable for 2011 devices he started with 3.* kernel and has succesfully built 3.4* kernel for them, But of course he was still standing on giants. You should feel the device in your hands running this fantastic kernel and 4.2.2, the lates branch of android. In fact the 2013 flagship sony devices are still on 4.1.2. The device feels snappy and ready for future android releases. Thanx to all the devs at Cyanogenmod and users/devs at the xda forums, my fav phone has got a new lease of life and is completely rejuvinated.

So, shall we jump to Customer satisfaction 3.0....................

Update:- 14.08.2013

We now have android 4.3 a.k.a Cyanogenmod 10.2 on the Xperia mini pro. Thanx to the efforts of mikeioannina and ofcourse nAa we now have LegacyXperia 4.3 . Go ahead and flash it.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Destitute


That, now, is a term which sends shivers down the best politician, economists and all "comfortable" people of the world. Let us not delve into the dictionary meaning of the term. Let us spare a moment and think about what we know about the word, destitute. Yes you have heard it a lot of times. You would have shown somebody and described him as so. Well, are they different form the poor or both the words synonymous?. Otherwise are each other having subset-superset relationship. A destitute is the last level in the hierarchy of "our" society, considering the social and economic factors.

Now, Where did the destitute come from? Why are they like this? It is like the residual of all the reactions taking place in the society. It is the last filtered by-product of our present social structure, which nobody wants or likes to own up. Is he meant to be ignored? Has he transformed himself that way? What is the reason?

For the time being, let us absolve the society from being the reason for destitute. Let us say, destitute are born. They have fallen from the sky. How do we go about uplifting them, like, at least to the status of the poor? How do we remove the label "destitute" and give them the label "poor"? How? Now, you will ask, since the society is absolved of the responsibility of creating them, why should the society involve itself in uplifting them? What is the obligation of the society towards them?

Since, we don't believe in chance, with the present scientific structure, let us see what is the real reason of the formation of this class. Destitute are the result of the anomalies in the societal/political system which has been designed by an elite few for all the others to follow. The critical anomaly is the majority of the people have been programmed to ignore this class over the years. It is as though, the present societal system is ideal and this class is a necessary glitch for the system to be in equilibrium.

The society is more interested in knowing the un-known. The things in front of them take second preference. We somehow have been programmed with an in-capability which is what the creator of the present society wanted. The main thing is the in-capability/gumption to look within ourselves. We know of the evils around us. We know the anomalies. But, we have chosen to ignore it because we are confident that this anomaly cannot disturb the existing system and the glitch has not got the capability to fight back or question.

So, where do we start? We start by identifying them. Identifying them is possible only by the participation of people in the last mile. Try to know what they can do. Try to know how the destitute can contribute and come back into the regular societal system. If they don't know anything, teach them. Incubate them for a certain amount of time and make them understand how the system works, It is a two way learning process, wherein the present system can understand the reasons for these glitches. They should be made to grasp the socio/political/economical system. We have done two things here. We have identified them. We have brought them up to the more known "poor" slab. Now, give them all the benefits which the "poor" slab are supposed to get. There you have now added to the national product. The world is a more happier place.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Wars are History


History as we have learned all along, builds on the various wars, innumerable wars which have been painstackingly documented. In fact, wars were fought to create/write history, to write one or get it written. It is again the 1% deciding the fate of the remaining 99%

It is only in recent times, that we have seen the common man, the front line soldier, rise up and question the logic of war. But, again, this percentage is very small and will be crushed by the vast majority which is schooled in various chauvinism's and cliche's.

I, Many times, I, had a thought, whilst watching films of the said great warriors, single handedly butchering people, that, this is in fact, bravery. Where do the meek stand in a war? Well, I am sorry, I don't have an answer for that. But I do know the answers I will get from chauvinists like "He could become the strategist", "He could be an archer", "He could cook" and the like. It is ultimately optimum utilization of all the 99%.

So, when will the 99% of the war contingents wake up and start thinking. They have to start now. Why Now?. Because we have to write history. The 99% should write history, not the 1%. It should be as varied as the 99% of the people. Now, is the time to write and represent all the 99% of the people who silently killed each other without asking a question. Now is the time to question the 1% of their decisions and actions. Now is the time to opt out of situations like war wherethe same species destroy each other. Every body of the 99% should write. If plants, animals, stones, planets, stars, could they should write now.

Major industries/governments in the world are thriving on the Nation/religion/color/race/language/area chauvinism. The 99% also have he responsibility of keeping that percentage to add on to the 1%. They should force the content in the 1% to join the 999% and create a uniform whole. How do they do it? They have to do it by talking, writing, each one of the 99%. Out of all this chaotic writing/thinking will emerge a pattern. A pattern which will bring out the human side of the world. A pattern which is homogeneous. A pattern which the 1% is always afraid of.

After all this, how would you identify the 1%. The answer is simple. The percentage whose action you have not questioned/is not questioned because of all the FUD is the 1%. Why should the 99% have FUD over this paltry 1%. The answer lies in the history, of politics and economics. The 1% is responsible for all the politics and it has the economy of all the 99% put together. Just enough is with the 99% to keep the 1% keep getting more of the economy.

Now, is the time for war. The 99% should now wage a war. Can they? Going by recent history an attempt towards this happened in the Russian revolution. The only fact I did not like about it is the method employed to overcome the 1%. Taking to arms and harming fellow species is not the method of the enlightened. They should talk and write. Coming back to the revolution, I would like to jump to the time where the workers ran the country with ethics drawn out of mutual agreement. It started well in the beginning, but failed to gather momentum because the political and economic experience was only with the 1%. Further in depth analysis is left to the reader. The present 99% should find out why this failed.

I am not telling that the Russian revolution and its model is the best. But I thought the mutual admiration, mutual help, self help and co-ordination is un-parallelled in history which always depended on some 1% like the kings to hold the country together.

All the meek, the strong, the intelligent, the everybody, the 99% have to make peace with the universe. Blend with the universe remove all the chauvinistic boundaries and become one with it. The universe as one in such a situation would shame the creator, if there is one.

We the people of the world, now will make history, voice and write our opinion. We will make history, which our further generations will be proud of. I, for one. would be proud, even if they think our efforts were primitive. Let this be the last war. The 99% winning over the 1%

Karl Marx said "Workers of the world unite". He wanted the 99% to have all that the 1% was having. I mean all. Cant we have a self sustaining universe sans the politics where everybody is free to do what he wishes, free from religion and geographical boundaries. The upgraded war call of Karl Marx can be taken as "Resources of the world unite"

P.S -> I am not suggesting that Marxism is the answer to the issue in question, in fact the last issue of the universe. I am not for any war which is traditional. This should be unique. It should be transformational. It should bring the 1% into the 99% and the collective one should become one with the universe.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Productivity and innovation for sustainable development


The three factors considered in this writeup seem to contradict each other at the outset. Let us start by thinking that they do contradict each other. We shall proceed and find out whether our Null hypothesis holds good.

Productivity, normally is associated with the rate of production. If we leave the mathematical definition alone and try to spread the petals, we see that it has various layers to it. It is more related to the efficient and effective use of limited resources at our disposal. "Limited" because there is no need of productivity measure for "Unlimited" resources.

Is productivity the conren of only the corporates and the business they run?. No. It is the concern of every living being. It is the tactic of squeezing the last drop from the resource.

Innovation, the desire to see things in a new light, with a new perspective, or invent a whole new way of ding things resulting in improved efficiency and effectiveness. Does innovation(the process of innovating) happen at the cost of productivity? Yes. It happens. That minor glitch has to be borne to result in a qyantum leap. There are industries who have embedded innovation in their "way of work". It is apart of the job, to think, out of the box. The result of innovation, thus is "always" an improvement in the way things are done which indirectly lead to better utilization of resources, which again is nothing but improvement in productivity.

Innovation deals with the creative part of the "improvement in productivity", wherein the present way of doing the job is given a re-thought. Well, well, well, that sounds like BPR.

BPR strategies are normally associated with Big Bang approaches to improvement aimed at matching the "best practises" in the indsutry. This process is not frequent. BPR normally precedes the process of modernizing an existing plant. Like, implementing ERP, changing the business model from traditional to E-commerce.

We have now studied the inter-operability of these two factors and their mutual dependence. Now, let us take up the catch phrase of the century, "Sustainable development"

"Sustainable development" was coined by the bruntland commission in their paper "Our common future" in 1987(No, No, This is not out of my memory, This info is from wikipedia)

Sustainable development is the development/improvement of product/service organizations with the limitations/brakes applied by the development/betterment of the surrounding environment.

While we were on the subject of defining sustainable development, we notice that there is a lot of cross-referencing between the three terms we have taken up already. They cannot exist independently, If they do, we will not be here for long. So, if it is so obvious why are we discussing their relatinship here? The thing is, we neglect/ignore the term  which dont get along with our business plan/strategy. These aspects are not to be forced into the business plan/strategy just to meet the statutory requirements. These three ideas are to be embedded in the business plan, They should be the base to the business plan along with the obvious, "profit"

Sustainable development is an encapsulating term which includes all the optimization techniques like TQM, Lean strategies, EMS, Other statutory laws of democratic nations. If we take up the study of these techniques we will see that they are themselves once again based on innovation, productivity and sustainable development. In a way, the dependency is recursive. The sustainable development function has a limit and it is the status qou of the environment(or its improvement). In summary sustainable development puts a limit switch to the activity of productivity which can be bettered further only by innovation. In the race to better products/services, we should consider the entire environment not just the target market.

It is time we started innovating new products/services or improving existing ones with an onus on Sustainable development and thereby longetivity of mother earth. She is referred to as God, the force(whatever you want to call her), But today, we know she has her limitations. In other ways, strategic development should be taken as the new GOD.

Sustainable development is a relatively new term. Industrial revolution ignored all the relations between the environment and the humans(Since when man is "out" of the environment, I would like to hear from anybody). Before the industrial revolution, mass production concept was not that big. Produce would be made aimed at the "real" customer. Industries catered only to the rich and the military. If we rewind our clock further, man grew whatever he "needed". The first industry stated when human stopped moving(stopped being nomads) and they formed into groups related to the kind of work they are specialized in. Now, people started producing more than they "needed" and in turn exchanged goods produced with similar results. But people honored their environment and took steps to keep their land cultivable.

As people started thinking about new issues like power, prestige, level, the first signs of strained relations among themselves and with the environment started. With the growth of democracy and removal of barriers between people, caste, countries and continents reduced, the market for products/services blew out of proportion by using latest productivity improvement techniques and innovations culminated with the Industrial revolution and capitalism(No money is enough money). To start with the industrial revolution had a generous supply of raw materials at cheaper costs owing to the discovery of fertile countries. The strategy was to produce and produce and produce and ............ owing to the gurantee of them being sold.

As the raw materials started shrinking in supply and competing capitalists entered, industrial revolutionists turned to Production managers to optimize the production time, giving vent to scientific management techniques. These techniques concentrated more on the ability of HR and their dexterity. Never a thought was spared for the environment.

If we come back to the present times, the present businesses are putting up a half hearted attempt at considering the environment in their overall strategy. Normally the attempts are cosmetic and on paper. We, now are staring at a market growing every moment. Every baby born is a potential customer. The productivity as a quantitative measure is passe. Raw materials are ever shrinking, competition is every increasing and environment is getting &^%$#d like anything.

We have realized, rather late, that the resources in this planet are limited unless the renewable resources are made to renew and No-renewable resources are taken very very seriously.

So, How do we produce/service right? Well, by thinking towards development which is sustainable for a long long loooooooooooooong time. DO IT. NOW.