I am an AIESECer!

Hooray!

After one month of probation, I'm finally confirmed as an AIESECer!!

AIESEC is the world's largest youth-run organisation, present in over 105 countries. It is present in Mauritius since June 2008 and has been officially launched in August 2008.

AIESEC is an international platform that provides a unique experience for youths in terms of leadership opportunities, international internships and developing the full potential of oneself so as to create a positive impact on society.

I own my work

Think of an artist, a music producer, and a designer. Their artworks are protected by what's called 'copyright'. For the computer industry, copyright is at the center of software. Companies like Microsoft know much about it.

Then comes open source-related software. The codes are available freely to anyone and anyone may modify them to adapt to a new situation or free to use them.

Based on my ethics classes, I've always thought that any new creation is automatically protected by copyright, even if that's not stated. That's because most countries have signed the Berne Convention.

But for open-source software things weren't clear up to now: does the author retain copyright even if everyone's allowed to use and modify the codes?

Not now. This story from the BBC reports that a US federal court has made a ruling where the author retains copyright, and that all works based on the author's code should respect the license.


Such protection for the merit of the original works is a good thing and will encourage more of us to publish our work as open source. The fear of losing recognition will now fade away and authors of derivative works will be forced to properly acknowledge the original works.

War of desktop managers

Linux users have for long been wondering what´s the best desktop manager to use. When I had a Debian, a few years ago, I didn´t worry much since both GNOME and Kde are installed by default. So, it was just easy to switch whenever I wanted a new ´look and feel´.

Then came Ubuntu distro. Since it´s a Live CD system, I had to choose either between Ubuntu (with GNOME) or Kubuntu (with KDE). And then very recently, Kubuntu Remix (with KDE 4).

I downloaded Kubuntu Remix and solved nearly all the ´issues´ that I considered ´annoying´. And I was happy. KDE 4, though still a beta, has great features like window animation and supports gadgets (or widgets!).

Last week, I was impressed by GNOME: so neat, so beautiful, so Mac-like. Therefore I did a small
# sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
on my machine.

Wow! So great. Apart from the great look that´s elegant, I now know what ´stable´ release means: my applications won´t crash for any reason at all. With KDE 4, they did. However, it´s understandable since the latter still in beta.

Therefore, when I boot I see the Kubuntu logo, then it´s GNOME desktop manager and GNOME look and feel.

I wanted to make a complete removal and download Ubuntu, but I would have to go through the daunting task of fixing the ´annoying issues´ once again.

Nevertheless, I love Amarok. I did uninstall all KDE applications, except KNetworkManager for WiFi and Amarok.

In the end, I´d say: let´s use whatever we want. There´s no best. Try all. And experience with them.

Looking back at the past year, or so

Holidays are also meant to look back at what one did during the last year. My first year at university has been a great one, with lot's of experiences that changed my life. One year at Spoon Consulting Ltd and another at Linkbynet Indian Ocean have also been great. I can't forget good times and friends at both places.

So, during the last year, here are the things that I can remember:

• Think, think and think, but think differently - university has changed the way I look at things
• Great friends are enriching - all moments are meant to be enjoyed and lived to the fullest
• Sharing is such a pleasure
• Group work is good
• Hectic life, no time to relax
• Playing Need for Speed from midnight to six in the morning
• Concerts and concerts - house and trance music turn me up

And I also got

• A notebook - Dell Latitude D630 :)
• A Hercules MK2 DJ console

That's it, in simple words...

Holidays... good times

Hurray! Holidays are back for me!!

What this means?

• More free time
• More time for work
• More time to do what I want
• Less headaches :)
• More time to spend with friends
• More time to lose on facebook and hi5
• More time to do to funny and silly things
• More TV
• More downloading of music
• (More) time for blogging :P
  

Facebook censored! What a shame!

It's been a real buzz among the Mauritian Facebook community: yesterday Facebook was put offline in Mauritius just because the Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam wanted to remove a humorist parody of a profile bearing his name! Le Mauricien reported the news yesterday's morning. Eddy's blog entry, Pascal's blog entry and Avinash's blog entry have serious thoughts about this stupid act.

I join the cause since this is an insult to free speech, especially since Mauritius is a democratic country.

And second, what about the other humorist parodies of Paul Beranger, our President Sir Aneerood Jugnauth and the very funny minister Gawressoo? Shall they also express their concerns and shut Facebook for a while in Mauritius, while 'their' profiles are being cleaned, as expressed by Pascal?

After going against the press, the Government is now going after the online community. Are we going to see another Great Firewall of China in Mauritius, as expressed by Eddy?

The picture shows what I get when I search for 'Navin Ramgoolam' today. Of course, there are other profiles and groups that have been created in the same spirit, which I have not shown. Is it only us in Mauritius who don't have access to Navin's profile? Or has Facebook genuinely removed them? I'd love to know if we're being fooled and if there's a special Facebook page for Navin for Mauritian users generated by local ISPs...

Wikimapia describing the whole world

Last week I wanted to see what's there around me and how the things around me look like. You may not agree with me over what I did, but I think that it's a nice way to get what I wanted.

In fact, I went discovering some magnificent satellite pictures of the earth! The following sites proved to be very attractive:

• Google Maps
• Yahoo! Maps
• Live Search Maps

But you'll agree that there aren't that so many things for a small island like Mauritius. Perhaps some user-generated content could bring some more excitement about the maps. So welcome to Web 2.0 maps: Wikimapia.

Wikimapia is based on Google Maps. But here, registered users may say "here is my home", "this is a garden", "that's a football pitch", etc. by defining areas, tagging them, and describing the places in their own words!

For the more enthusiastic, for whom 2D is not so exciting, 3D satellite images come handy. Google Earth is certainly well known. NASA World Wind is another service that's as enjoyable.

Happy discovering :)