Installing Wireless Driver on Toshiba L15 S104

If you are wondering how to get wireless to work on Ubuntu over a Toshiba L15 S104 laptop, heres what I did. HTH:

Summary: Theres no linux driver for the InProComm wireless card on the Toshiba L15 S104. So, we have to use the ndiswrapper package that wraps around a windows driver and provides the functionality
install ndiswrapper

Steps:
1. Get the driver
           On Windows: Get the driver from http://drivers.windows9download.net/162/toshiba-l15-s104-inprocomm-wireless-lan-driver-for-windows-xp-807269.html
           Run the exe, which will unzip the drivers directory. Look for the WinXP directory, and copy it over to the ubuntu box

2. Install ndiswrapper
           apt-get install ndisgtk
           apt-get install ndiswrapper-dkms

3. Install the drivers using ndiswrapper
           sudo ndiswrapper -i /path/to/drivers/Winxp/neti2220.inf
           # check that it worked
           sudo ndiswrapper -l
               neti2220 : driver installed
               device (17FE:2220:1468:0310) present
               device (17FE:2220) present

           sudo depmod -a
           sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
           sudo ndiswrapper -m
           sudo vi /etc/modules   # add "ndiswrapper" to the module list (w/o quotes)

You should now be able to see the wireless options on the network options.

Thanks to the ubuntu forum at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1516427. What I have done is added a few steps that I tripped on and not given in that forum

Road Trip - Chennai to Kumbakonam

We drove down to Kumbakonam and back last week. Wanted to share the latest updates on the routes...

Quickest Route
Chennai - Thindivanam - Vikkiravandi - Ulundurpet - Trichy - Tanjore - Kumbakonam
Estimated Travel Time: 5-6 hours
This will be the best and predictable route as of today - Straight 4 lane highway till Trichy and a short drive to Tanjore and hence to Kumbakonam on the state highways

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Religious Favorite Route
Chennai - Thindivanam - Pondicherry - Cuddalore - Chidhambaram - Sirkali - Mayiladuthurai - Kumbakonam
Estimated Travel Time: 5.5 hours
This is slightly shorter, but you will drive more state highways (two lane and no median) which could be frustrating. Also, the bridge near Kuthalam is down (Kuthalam is a town in the Sirkali-Mayiladuthurai-Kumbakonam stretch and the detour is a painful narrow road that increases the stretch by 11Km. But if you are looking at travelling to the navagraha sthalas - you already have two of them on this detour stretch - Vaitheeswaran Koil and Suryanar Koil - Not to mention the chance of visiting Chidambaram.


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Don't consider this route
Chennai - Thindivanam - Vikkiravandi - Panruti - Neyveli - Sethiathope - Kumbakonam
Estimated Travel Time: 5 hours
This should be the ideal and shortest route. But currently dont even consider this route. The bridge at Anakarai is down and only cars are currently routed on the riverbed. But do not trust this route - very treacherous, and will be blocked once the water is opened out for irrigation in a few days time. Also the road from Anakarai to Neyveli is full of pot-holes and is tough to drive.


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Enthiran - A review by Pradeep Murugesan (peeps35@gmail.com)



This is the first time I am not satisfied after seeing Thalai's movie as a Hero. I had the same feel with "Kuselan" but i convinced myself that its a movie for friendship including pasupathy given more weightage than Rajini. But what about ROBOT??? Am i matured enough to ignore Rajini movies as most of them say or Am I still not matured expecting some styles and Punches from SuperStar???? I just asked myself. will answer this question at the last :-)



I was not very much excited about watching Rajini's movie. I am usually too much excited even before the movie is released. This time just half an before the show began i got that excitement. Hurried to the theatre . While getting up the stairs heard the Enthiran song , Thinking the movie is started yelled at my friend saying the movie started and the opening song is going on. Fortunately its just the commercial.Finally I am at the peak of excitement to Watch Thala (not ROBOT) on the screen after Shivaji.


Movie started , Screen showed the clip of SUPER STAR. No whistling(Damn audience). I whistled as far as i know and forced the friend near me to whistle. Waited for Rajini's Intro . Nothing much just a song. but There was Nothing great. Just a frame where Thala was desinging a Mechanical person. huh.. What the Heck Shankar has done??

Movie went on . No punches from Thala, No peculiar mannerism for this movie. Very bad really really disappointed.


Ok Lets come to the Positives. Here is my ordering


First: Aish. Maan.. What should i say her. Women or girl. She was awesome. Gorgeous. She got miss Universe long back but still she looks awesome. The way she acted , danced , beauty really pulled my attention. To be frank I admired her more than Rajini in this movie. The whole movie was centered around her and that made her to come all through the movie which was a treat to my eyes (Lucky Abishek ;-) ).

Second: Villan Rajini. Here comes what i expected from Thala. Punch, Gethu, Mannerism. But just for 10 min. Rajini's Villan role was really awesome. The way he walked, talked, huh (I expected this all through the movie). The tone with Which THALA says "ROBO Sapiens" does it all.

Third: huh I am sorry to say this. There is no third one.

I really dont understand what Shankar has tried here. Is this his DREAM project? Really really bad. Gentleman, Mudhalvan - Infront of these ROBOT is not a worthy cake. He just played with Technologies.

Rajini fans dont expect a ROBOT to have an electromagnetic power. We will believe even if Shankar had said Rajini posses it as a Human. We believe Rajini as a Normal Human with Super Hero Powers(we are HARDCORE fans of Rajini and I am proud of it as well).

Overall according to me Shankar used Rajini to get the investment of Sun Pictures to accomplish his dreams(which is not worth 160 crores) killing our (Rajini fans) dreams.


Finally to conclude with the answer to the question i asked to myself - Yes I am still not Matured and What Next? Expecting THALAIVAR to deliver one more movie just like PADAIYAPPA or BAASHA.

Battery Operated Hand-Fan with LED Lettering!

Yesterday, my grand-boss (Is that what you call your boss's boss ? :P) gifted our team with a battery operated hand fan each. Well the special thing was there were LED circuitry in one of the blades, that caused it to display pre-programmed letters when the fan was started.

I wanted to see if we can change the letters on the display (mine said Global Operations - I wanted it to say Maddy!). The one we got was hard to program, but after talking to my grand-boss about it, and googling a little, I found that there were equivalent programmable ones... heres an example of what am talking about(courtesy http://www.sjledfan.com/images/bg1.jpg):


eHow article on how to reprogram the models that can be:
http://www.ehow.com/how_6961664_program-led-message-display-fan.html


For those interested in economics:
This product is avaiable for $3.99 (after a $6 discount!) at:
http://www.handhelditems.com/programmable-message-hand-black-p-9833.html

Similar (same?) items from chinese vendors cost around a dollar:
http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/hand-fan-led.html
(of course you have to order bulk!)

Our Charter

The broad (short-term?) charter for this group would be:
1. Provide a news base (aggregate) for enthusiasts where they can discuss their point-of-views
2. Attract like minded, bright minds to be editors
3. Provide finishing school resources for enthusiastic students by:
- Fostering a culture of mentorship between working professionals and students
- Maintain a list of valid resources for soft-skills, industry-oriented-items, and general technology

In an ideal world, we would end up establishing a community of enthusiasts who simply enjoy understanding how things work around them.

PS: Is a blog an ideal medium for all our purposes? I dont know. Am hoping to learn as we go.