/me is now a “Sahana Core Team Member”

Oct 29th

Posted by Ajay Kumar in GSoC 2008

1 comment

Day before yesterday when I woke up and checked my email, which is the first thing I do usually as my laptop is always on :P , found a mail from Chamindra on behalf of the Sahana Project Management Committee inviting me to become the core committer :)

That is some awesome news to read and start your day with! I was totally excited for the privilege offered to me! :)

So now I am a core member, a new addon to my Sahana contributions: Contributor, Localization Team, Developer.

Sure the Spider man rightly said “With great power, comes great responsibilites”

See what I am talking about here.

Thank You to Sahana PMC and team members for the encouragement. I will look forward to make ongoing contributions to the project in all possible ways I can :)

I code for SAHANA. Do you?

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Google Summer of Code 2008 – Complete! fEeL dA l0V3!

Sep 22nd

Posted by Ajay Kumar in GSoC 2008

1 comment

Google Summer of Code™ 2008 [GSoC 2008] concluded on September 2, 2008 and I have successfully completed the program :-) This post goes to thank everyone[1] who have, in some way or the other helped me during the project time line. This year’s summer of code student’s success rate is 83%.

GSoC 2008 India MAP

GSoC 2008 India MAP

1] A BIG “Thank You” to :

  • Sahana – my GSoC organisation for selecting my project idea and giving me a chance to join in & contribute to the development.
  • Fran Boon – My Mentor for the GSoC project :-) [he rOcks!] for all the guidance and encouragement.
  • Friends I made @ ##gsoc-india & #gsoc for the fun we had, the codes we discussed, the phone calls, the meetups etc etc! It was all motivating and pHun being with you all.
  • My school mates, whom i got back to since I recovered from the “coma” of 4 years :P , who kept encouraging and helped getting back into the groove. Vivek, Akash, Pia.
  • Few special friends who stayed along, kept pushing! [you know who you are don't you ;-) ] OK. Kaps, Shellz, Rakesh!
  • my room mates Nishant, Amit, Deepak, Chanpreet for being there!
  • My parents for being there. And letting me cOde! :P in the oddly hours. My time table became opposite, sleep in the day and wake up in the night. Not exactly day & night, I used to code till 6 am, go for a jogging/running to further tire myself. Take a shower, have breakfast and off to sleep! To wake up at around 3-4 pm. Weird no ?
  • School friends @ Bangalore with whom I stayed for a month and other friends from Wipro I met there. I had fun! :-) Navin, Rahul, Ashish, Tariq.
  • to Google for paying me! and now certifying me :-) and promoting “Open Source”. And the t-shirt of course, the most important part! :-)
  • to Leslie Hawthorn, Program Manager, GSoC and the Open Source Programs Office team for handling the program of such a nature, with so little resources.
  • again to Leslie Hawthorn, for being a mentor taking care of all the students! [I tell you her real name is Trinity, just that she only has 2 hands, but does equal multi-tasking as Trinity. ;-) ]
  • other hidden forces and people who worked towards making all this possible. :-) Google Accounts dept, FedEx :P especially!
Me on the Map!

Me on the Map!

You may also want to check out the traditional map of Google Summer of Code 2008, which displays the connections between all of the mentors and students worldwide (KML – 1.4 MB, viewable with Google Earth or Google Maps.

No wonder this is a big post, if your interested in reading about my complete experience you can read on.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Stuart Little! – Just for the laugh

Aug 18th

Posted by Ajay Kumar in GSoC 2008

1 comment

Stuart[Mouse]: What do you think, I am a man.. errr or a Mouse ???

Snowbell[CAT]: [Looking at the mouse/stuart] *ahem* Is that a trick question ?

– rOFL!!!! :)   :)

[PS: Thats some post-Midnight laugh for me, /me goes to sleep! after documenting and coding all day & night!! :) ]
Its “Official Pencils Down date” for GSoC 2008 Coding. But I have a genuine question & concern. What if I didn’t use a Pencil at all ? Mostly I used a text editor to write my code. w00t! :-/ I get exempted from the clause right!! yAy! :P

Ok I see someone coming with a stick!… LH is that you ? :P

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Sahana at mukt.in 2008

Aug 4th

Posted by Ajay Kumar in FOSS

3 comments

Being introduced to Sahana was something that happened to me over an year back while working for my academic project, where I checked out Sahana and got to know about it.

With Google Summer of Code 2008 I got a chance to *actually* work and contribute ..

And while talking and working with guys at mukt.in, an idea popped up suddenly when krish said, “Hey AJuOnLiNE, why don’t you give a talk on Sahana“. I thought it was a great idea, but the event being in a different city and the dates of the event being quite some time ahead,  I wasn’t really sure if I would be able to make it.

But then I had the Google Bangalore office meet up and I managed to extend my stay for mukt.in :-) and not to mention the “You should go for it!!” I got from the Sahana main-dev list :-) and my Sahana mentor, Fran!

So here I was giving a talk on Sahana to the students of Computer Science Department at Osmania University, Hyderabad and speakers from the FOSS Community, IT Professionals, people highly experienced than me and in short it was fun pHun!

mukt.in is a FOSS promotion event which attracts audiences who are Newbies, Students, Professional, FOSS Advocates [not lawyers ;-) ] , and speakers from other FOSS Projects/communities… This year the venue was Computer Science Department, Osmania University, Hyderabad. It was a 3 Day event, 1-3 August, 2008.

My main agenda at the event was to showcase:

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