Getting into GSoC :) :) :)

Lemme say first, I got into GSoC last year ie., 2010. I really enjoyed it and this year I will really be glad to help my juniors getting into GSoC 2011.

Step 1 : Learning a technology well, like PHP, Python, Qt, etc. You should really have the required knowledge in the technology to atleast develop a simple application. This will be possibly very easy for those who are very good at programming and those who do some own mini projects. 

Step 2 : Make your hands dirty on a project which uses your well known technology.

For ex : I'm good at PHP, so I started learning about Drupal, Joomla and Moodle.

Step 3 : Choose an organization from the previous list of organizations (if the list is yet to be announced).

Start working with the project and get used to it. Start little coding too. Fixing bugs will also be good.

And please dont get disappointed if the particular organization isnt there in the list. This is because I was much comfortable with Joomla and Moodle, but those didn't participate in GSoC '10. But still you can choose accordingly later.

Step 4 : Start interacting with the community, ie., via the mailing lists and IRC.


Step 5 : Catch a mentor!! Yeah! Catching a mentor before applying is really a plus! This is how I caught my mentor http://lists.typo3.org/pipermail/typo3-dev/2010-March/039428.html See the next threads to see my first interaction with the TYPO3 organization.


Step 6 : Impress your mentor, once you've found one!! Then rock the GSoC!!!!!!


Something which you should keep in mind before applying is that, you much consult your mentor and mention his name in your application (only if you have asked him/her about that and if they are ready to mentor). In this case, chances of getting accepted is more.

Bangalore and me..!!!!

This is probably a very LATE post... But still wanted to post it...
There are some of the situations i faced outside & inside the nimhans conventional centre(foss.in) which i didnt mention in my previous post about the conference...

On 30th, me and my junior XXX(i dont want to mention her name) reached bangalore by 1.30. went straight to her house, got some refreshment and then thought of attending the Volunteer Meet in which i was supposed to meet Shilpa Sequiera who was one of the Organizers of the Foss.in event.

The meet was at 6.30, so i was planning to start early. I called my junior to come with me, but she just told she cant, this was really a bad situation, coz i neither know the way nor the language.


Then she just came with me and told me to go by an auto, dont know how a typical Brahmin family is doing like this, coz we dont treat anyone like this coming to our houses, that too a girl, its really bad saying "go by yourself" in a very new place.

Started alone, by taking an auto. I thought the venue would be a little near, but from Murugeshpalaya it took nearly 1 hour to reach. and Rs.120 as fare. That was so long. Thought of leaving early from there. Met Shilpa and then came out at 7.15 pm, trying to cross the road and at last crossed it at 7.40, waiting for an auto, i was waiting and waiting and at last one auto came at 8pm who agreed to come only if i give him Rs.50 extra.   I had no other go other than giving him the money.In between, i was really in a mentality to cry out!!

Went to her house at 9pm, between didnt even get a call from her where i was, too tensed i was! Went home, called my dad and asked him to come fast and take me to the PG. he came at nearly 11.30pm and then i went to the PG, because of these mess, caught high fever and cold :-(

Caught a friend in PG, Sonali :) She was pretty cute and friendly too. Enjoyed her company. She came with me to the Nimhans Conventional Center and left me there by 8am. I was sitting at the registration desk. Enjoyed the place much. It was sometime later when i met Ramnish who was a friend of Arun Sag. Had nice time with him for the 4 days wherein my juniors always left me alone :P But had fever and cold all the time :( :( :(

Finally left on 6th December with all my juniors :)  :)

DRUPAL ERROR : Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in /var/www/drupal/includes/file.inc on line 911

I got the following error when i tried to install Drupal in my Localhost

Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in /var/www/drupal/includes/file.inc on line 911

I got this nearly in 20 lines continuosly :P

A google search got me the following answer. This finally solved my problem.


Finally i added the following lines in my php.ini file

error_reporting  =  E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED
display_errors = Off
log_errors = On 

This finally solved my problem.

GSOC!!!

I applied for GSOC this year for the organization called TYPO3. I was interested very much for Drupal and Joomla, and atlast i didnt get any good response from Drupal developers..
So i selected the TYPO3 Organization as it was too a nice CMS. Soon i composed a mail to the TYPO3 mailing list.. And wat a great surprise, Steffen Kamper told that he would like to mentor as soon as i asked..!!! So started interacting with him.. What an awesome guy..!! He helped me lot in understanding the TYPO3 Media element.. Then on 3rd april i submitted my Proposal. After a long wait, and finally the results were announced here. I was not much eager to know, coz  i thought i can even apply next year if i dont get it.. And today morning, to my great surprise, i got selected!!! There are 5 projects this year for TYPO3 and mine is here.  Srini anna was the first person to call me..!! So a very happy day today!!!! and also very happy to see my name flashing all over my college websites http://jayafossclub.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=162&Itemid=31 , http://jayagc.org , http://jec.ac.in #happy #happy

CodeigniterDirectory and My project

My final year project is all about creating a new library for Codeigniter.
And now its all done..!
And was very happy that my project is listed in the Codeigniter directory.
Now even more happy that my project has got many votes and it has been rated as the top in the listing..


http://codeigniterdirectory.com/home/Work-in-progress-%28ex-2E-SVN-dev-2E%29/Top_Rated


Credits to Sivaji anna... I thank him for giving idea for this project and giving a great support guiding me towards it... :-)

For those who want to migrate from blogger to wordpress.

Some of my friends who wanted to migrate from blogger to wordpress. They didnt know how to get back the previous posts. Here is a link for that..
http://www.labnol.org/internet/switch-from-blogger-to-wordpress/9707/

My foss.in Experiences

I had been to the foss.in 2009, Bangalore.
I got a lot of experience there which i would like to share here..


I registered as a volunteer.
There was a volunteer meet on 30th november. I attended the meet, shilpa sequiera gave the instructions how to volunteer.
First i thought it was a tough job..!


Then the next day i was at the registration area. It was nice talkin with tejas, dafne, etc..
Then came my friend, Ramnish from Nellai, it was really nice talking with him, he was a Fedora user. I was hanging around in the venue with him for 4 days, he too taught me a lot regarding the command line and much more..!
I had a list of people whom i should meet within the 5 days regarding the project which i'm doing..


I met Ajuonline, i saw his GSOC t-shirt(!) went near him and asked about how to participate in GSOC. And the most interesting thing was, i used to hang around in irc channels where i used to see ajuonline, but couldnt recognize that it was him when i was talking to him.
He explained me how all i could enter into gsoc, he also told me to fix some bugs in the areas i'm interested. At the end i asked him for his mail id, only then i knew it was ajuonline(his id card showed Speaker: "Ajay Kumar")..! I was really surprised because i usually thought i couldnt meet him..!




The next person who impressed me was the cool guy 'Jon Philips', he gave a talk on identi.ca. I was a hall marshall of there. (Hall marshalling: volunteers are required to help ensure the smooth running of talks in each of the halls. They will be required to introduce speakers, take care of the hall equipment, and generally ensure that everything happens according to schedule).


Meanwhile i talked to Kishore Bhargava that i need to meet some web people regarding my project. He gave me a great idea- "Write on your id - 'Interests- web development'"! He told he could point out somebody.


Then the next person i met was Tarique Sani of SANIsoft. He gave me some ideas regarding my project. 
Two more web people i met were Avinash & Gopal, who both gave me some great ideas  for my project... Avinash was really cool..!


Third day, My laptop didnt boot, i left it in the hibernate mode, aft which i couldnt reboot it. It showed "Booting Error:Invalid environment variable", I couldnt fix it! Again ran for help- Kishore and Allen fixed it..! So nice of them:)

I was terrified when i thought "i dont know anything".


That day i planned to attend the KDE Project of the day.
The session started, i really enjoyed Pradeepto's talk, then the bug fixes, etc.
At the end of the session got a t-shirt too..!
Sujith fixed a bug in the 'bouncing ball' application. Akarsh Simha and Vinesh fixed a bug in Kstars.
The bug fixes were really awesome..! Inspired even me to fix a bug..!


I was amazed to see real foss people like this...!! The KDE Team inspired me a lot..


The last day, before leaving the venue, I met Sujith H of the KDE team.
I had a nice time talking to him..
After talking to him, i understood how friendly the KDE community is..!
I also talked to him about my inferiority complex that i felt that 'i dont know anything, all are from IIT, and prestigious colleges..'. Then sujith adviced me not to think like that..!
Here is one of my pic at KDE session http://www.flickr.com/photos/sujith-h/4156418936/in/set-72157622796211453/, i'm on the first row with my friend Ramnish.


I also had a very nice time with the other volunteers like aslam, ramesh, etc..


With this, the next day i returned to Chennai, having a thought in my mind 'i should too do something before next year, and be one among the speakers..'


Waiting for the next foss.in..!