I’ve got Pocket Tanks and it’s an amazing game. It is one way of teaching motion of a body in two dimensions easily. I think I can put up an article on that sometime in the future, if I can recollect any of the equations. Maybe I should try my hand at cloning it, or atleast cloning plain ol’ QBASIC Gorillas in C++ or VB.
OK, I just did a bit of reorganizing on my web site, moving the archives to a subdirectory. I couldn’t understand however why the links were still linking to the files in the root directory. Then I realised that the template had <$BlogArchiveLink$> instead of <$BlogArchiveURL$>. I changed that and now it is working perfectly fine.
Well I managed to solve the problem. I copied the files from my system onto a rewritable CD and then copied them from the CD to the laptop. So now, the site is working properly. But the problem is that I cannot copy files from here to the desktop, yet. Anyway, I need to check out PHP programming so that I can include a comments section as well in my blog. Though I’ll have to go in for another provider if I need to use PHP, I can be free of the pop up ads that infect my site like the Blaster worm. Plus I can be a lot more flexible with files and link management. But as of yet, I am unable to get the money to pay any provider. I think it will have to wait till I join HCL and get my salary cheque.
Hmm! I just can’t understand what happened! Somehow, my stylesheet for the home page and archive pages has been deleted. As I’m currently working from the laptop, I don’t have access to the backup stylesheet, which is on my desktop. Now the page looks quite terrible. Understandably so! The problem is that my laptop and desktop are not networked to each other, yet. So, I have to find some other means of transferring files between the two systems. Hopefully, I should get the hub soon.
The main problem is that if I need to change my connection from my laptop to my desktop or vice-versa, I need to call up Hathway and tell them to clear the MAC address on the new system, otherwise I keep getting a request timed out error whenever I try to ping the gateway. That is reason enough to put in a hub and configure my desktop as a gateway system. I’ve also installed ZoneAlarm on the desktop, so as to prevent any attempts to hack into the network. But I have to shut down ZoneAlarm if I need to change the connection. I learnt so the hard way yesterday when I was trying to clear the laptop to connect to the internet. Anyway, I’ll get the network soon and hopefully should be able to fix the problem on my website.
Dagnabbit!!! We didn’t clear the preliminary round for going to the ICPC regionals at IITB. I was hoping we’d get selected. Then again, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Haven’t yet told RV, Deepak or Raju Solomon. Maybe I’ll call them tomorrow evening to do so.
I need a nice book on XHTML. I tried validating my page and got a helluva lot of errors. Guess I don’t know as much about HTML as I thought. In any case, I’m planning to put in a CGI commenting system. I’ve downloaded 3 of them and I’ll try all three. I’ll then implement whichever is the best.
I’m yet to connect my laptop and my other PC to the network. I called up Mercy Electronics & found that an 8 port hub costs Rs. 800. Cheap & best. Appa still says that he’ll ask Origin systems and then decide whether to buy the hub or go for a switch instead. Let’s see how long it takes.
Yup, a nice new W3C compliant solution to hiding banner ads. It still allows the ads to load, thus giving a nice clean look to the website without shutting it down. 
Well, the contest went off without much of a hitch. Arun & I managed to solve one problem correctly. But a bug in our implementation caused the program to go into an infinite loop. We finally managed to find the bug and fixed it by 6.30, leaving us just half an hour for the other 2 problems. We did something and uploaded two solutions. In any case, we’ll know the results by Friday evening.
Appa brought home the new laptop yesterday evening. Now I’ve been given the task of networking it, given a practically non-existent budget. Appa was initially interested in linking it up using a wireless link, but when he heard the price, he dropped the idea totally. Now I have a choice, use either the ethernet port & put the cable modem on the USB port, or leave the cable modem on the ethernet port and try to put the network using a serial RS-232C interface. Both options seem good, the option is left to the cost. The only problem with the serial interface is the maximum speed that can be supported, only about 115200 bps, as compared with 10 Mbps for the ethernet. Not that it makes much difference for internet access as my connection is only a 64 kbps channel. The only problem is transferring Appa’s files from this system to the laptop will take a while.
Now I’m seriously considering purchasing a domain and server space to totally eliminate those annoying ads. The only problem is waiting for Google to add my site to their database. Incidentally, I’ve been pushed from the listing, again! In fact, so has KK. No, scratch that! I guess it was just a temporary problem. In any case, they have to reindex my site. They still have the old design in their cache. Oh well, I guess you can’t have everything.
I’m really getting annoyed with Tripod’s ads that keep popping up. I don’t know where they get the crazy ads for iVillage and all the rest of the shit that’s coming out as ads. Now that they’ve also removed the popup option, the pages look horrible with the ads sitting in the middle of the page. Hmm, I think I know of a way to block it. In any case, I’m working from within Linux at the moment. Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to work with C++, but C is compiling properly. I just hope we do well tomorrow.
I’ve just finished redesigning the home page to look nicer. Also makes it more compliant with W3C recommendations. The only bad part is that Tripod’s ad script causes errors to occur in IE6. I don’t know whether this error occurs yet in other browsers though.
Four down, two to go. PMOB & Control systems were quite easy, although Sat Comm was rather unexpected. Still to go, BMI & CE. BMI’s only on Thursday, so I can take things a bit easy, and also prepare a bit for the ICPC preliminary round to be held on Monday. RV is supposed to come here tomm with his hard disk so that we can install Linux & test our programming skills in the Red Hat environment and also the internet connection. Deepak’s planning to stay at home and study for BMI. Let’s see how the test is.