About the Site

Overview

I have tried to organise the various articles I have written over the years. The number has added up and I would like to express my appreciation to Frederick Noronha - he pushed me.

I am happy if you find anything of use on the site and even happier if you can reuse it in any way you like.

I got interested in Python after reading an article by Eric Raymond in Linux Journal. When I taught for a few years, I became interested in creating material which could become a workbook for any student interested in programming but not studying computer science. This led to a series of articles in Linux For You.

I have fond memories of Linux. Many years ago, the telephone exchange was not very kind to fax machines. We had to keep trying until each page could be successfully sent. The first thing I did when I got Linux in 1995 -  Slackware 1.2 (?) - was to go paperless. I would enter the text reports I had to send and configured the fax server to keep retrying over a modem till it succeeded. It often took 20 attempts for a page.

On the negative side, Linux exposed my sons to graphical games - Doom and Abuse. However, I loved watching them learn and play these games, which I still can't.

In 2002, I moved to teaching in Padre Conceicao College of Engineering in the departments of Computer Engineering and Information Technology. The gap between the potential and reality troubled me a lot. I was lucky to get an opportunity to write a number of articles about the issues which troubled me in Express Computers, Digital Goa, Gomantak Times and Herald.

About me:

I was born after the partition, whose impact on a Punjabi refugee family is explored by my father in Lahore To Delhi. The site contains a chapter about my sister who was born with something extra - an extra chromosome. She had an immense influence on our family, including me. It took very little to make her happy.

I returned to India with a mis-directed sense of patriotism. However, I am not unhappy that I returned. I am actually happy that I could switch from being a physicist to being a computer engineer and have had a comfortable life.

I moved to Goa from Delhi and that was the best thing I could have done. I loved bringing up my family in that lovely place. I am now in Chandigarh for family reasons - another nice place. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why other cities can't create a market like 17 Sector market where one can shop without fear of being run over by a car.