What I think

GEM (GEstures with Mouse) – a mouse gesture based input mechanism from CDAC, Mumbai

sagunbaijal — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:34:49 +0000

CDAC, Mumbai has released beta-0.1 version of GEM (GEstures with Mouse). It is an open source input mechanism which uses gestures as input to the system. Gestures can be drawn using a mouse or some equivalent device like touch pad, joystick, pen tablet etc. Gestures can drawn either as single-part (continuous) or multi-part (discontinuous) as shown in screen shots below:

Drawing a single-part gesture in input window

Drawing a multi-part gesture in input window

This Input mechanism is intended for people suffering with different kinds of motor disabilities, who may face problems in using mouse and keyboard in conventional way. Hence, it provides them with an alternate and effective mechanism for using the system to perform various tasks such as navigation, executing commands & keyboard shortcuts, and launching applications etc. on Linux desktop.

More details about GEM can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/accessibility.

GEM related URLs:

1. Accessibility Project Main page at CDAC, Mumbai website can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/accessibility.

2. GEM can be download at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/accessibility/gem-beta-0.1.tar.gz.

3. User documentation for GEM can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/accessibility/How-To-Use-GEM.pdf.

Feedbacks, bug reports or feature enhancement requests about the application can be sent to ossd[at]cdac[dot]in.

National Workshop on Adaptive Instruction at CDAC, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai during December 15-16, 2011

sagunbaijal — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:06:30 +0000

This workshop will explore the current trends in the field of personalization in the context of e-learning, particularly in instruction delivery. As we all are aware, e-learning has been around for quite a long time now. It is widely accepted by both the industry and the academics as a convenient medium for providing learning environment to the employees/students. E-learning can be made more effective by personalizing the instruction and adapting it to suit the individual learner. The workshop addresses issues and challenges in adaptive instruction and highlights the emerging trends in adaptive instruction. The participants will also get to experience the work of C-DAC Mumbai in creating and using adaptive instruction in education with Anurup . The workshop will also provide an opportunity to interact with participants from different organizations and industry practitioners interested in the emerging area.

This workshop is being organized by CDAC, Mumbai at their Kharghar, Navi Mumbai campus. More details about the workshop can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/news_and_events/national_workshop_on_adaptive_instruction

Taking Touch beyond the Touch Screen

sagunbaijal — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 08:36:21 +0000

A prototype tablet can sense gestures, and objects placed next to it. How? Read at http://www.technologyreview.in/computing/38662/

National Workshop on FOSS Desktop Accessibility on August 26, 2011 at CDAC, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai

sagunbaijal — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:00:16 +0000

In today’s world, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is growing day by day. We use these technologies very extensively in fulfilling our routine tasks like bill payments, banking transactions, reservations and many more to the extent that ICT is not a luxury, but necessity today. A large section of the society comprising people with disabilities finds it difficult to use ICT in the same way as normal people do. This includes the visually impaired (fully or partially blind), hearing impaired, people with cognitive disabilities (memory loss, etc.) and cerebral problems etc..

Such people have to be provided with different kinds of assistive technologies either software-based or hardware-based to make ICT accessible to them. A large number of software-based assistive technologies are normally in the form of applications running on desktops which make common desktop applications (office applications, browser etc.) accessible for the disabled person. Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) tools/techniques play an important role in creating assistive technologies that are free-of-cost, available to all, easily maintainable etc. for a large portion of population in a country like India.

The workshop intends to provide a platform for promotion and adoption of FOSS in the area of accessibility as well as creating opportunities for all stakeholders to discuss and identify the areas of accessibility that are still untouched. The workshop will host keynote and invited lectures by distinguished personalities of the field.

National Workshop on FOSS Adoption in Education on August 27, 2011 at CDAC, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai

sagunbaijal — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:42:14 +0000

Many softwares have been developed for adopting technology in education for resource availability, sharing, and access to them even after school/college hours. There have also been developments aimed to ease other educational activities like course enrollment, conduct of examination from setting question papers to correcting answers and displaying results. Such softwares are available in the market in both forms proprietary and open source.

Unlike the proprietary softwares, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives are free of cost, source code is available with the software, and the institution has freedom to modify the source code to customize the software as per requirement. For modification and maintenance the institution has full freedom to develop the required skills in-house with the help of faculties and system admin staff or they can choose to hire external help.

However, one of the problems is there are many FOSS tools available and a novice institution/teacher/software development organization has to take lot of efforts to short-list/choose a software for adoption. They will have to spend days looking for different softwares, their reviews, comparisons, etc. If such problems are reduced for the ease of FOSS adoption then the institutions/teachers can reap the above benefits of FOSS much more seamlessly.

The workshop intents to promote technology and FOSS adoption in educational institutions. Various FOSS tools in education will be demonstrated in the workshop. The participants will also get to experience the work of C-DAC Mumbai in promoting technology/FOSS in education. The workshop will provide an opportunity to interact with participants from different organizations and industry practitioners. The workshop will involve keynote and invited lectures by distinguished researchers and/or professionals.

This workshop is being organized by CDAC, Mumbai at their Kharghar, Navi Mumbai campus. More Details about the workshop can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/news_and_events/national_workshop_on_foss_adoption_in_education

how to solve audio problem in dell optilex 380 desktop on ubuntu 10.04 – Part 2

sagunbaijal — Tue, 17 May 2011 18:17:31 +0000

This post is related to the previous post “how to solve the audio problem in dell optiplex 380 desktop on ubuntu 10.04″ and describes another optional method of solving the problem in case the solution described in previous post does not work. On my system, the previous method didn’t work. But, the method being described below worked. This solution is simple. Upgrade from your old ALSA driver (not working already) to the latest stable ALSA driver (It works). On my system, the installed version of ALSA driver was 1.0.23 which was not working and I updraded it to version 1.0.24 which is the current version. The steps to be performed are described below:

1. Determining current version of ALSA:

…$cat /proc/asound/version

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23. (As appeared on my system, although installed version may differ on different system.)

2. Stopping alsa-utils: This is necessary to avoid porblems duirng the upgrade.

…$sudo /sbin/alsa-utils stop

3. Installing pre-requisite tools: Following pre-requisites may be requied before upgrading to new version of ALSA in order to compile it. These are:-

a. build-essential: This package contains an informational list of packages which are considered essential for building Debian packages.

b. ncurses-dev: This package contains the header files, static libraries and symbolic links that developers using ncurses will need.

c. gettext: This package is a set of tools that provides a framework to help other GNU packages produce multi-lingual messages.

d. xmlto: xmlto is a front-end to an XSL toolchain.

e. libasound2-dev: This package contains files required for developing software that makes use of libasound2, the ALSA library.

f. linux-headers-`uname -r`: This package relates to Linux headers belonging to particular kernel. ‘uname -r’ returns the current release level of Linux kernel.

g. libncursesw5-dev: This package contains the header files, static libraries and symbolic links that developers using ncursesw will need.

It may be that these packages are already installed, hence it is good to check whether a package is already installed or not. Command for it is (in ubuntu or debian-like systems):

…$dpkg -s or optionally

…$ –version (as per GNU standards)

However, the above said packages can be installed in the following way:

…$sudo apt-get -y install build-essential ncurses-dev gettext xmlto libasound2-dev

…$sudo apt-get -y install linux-headers-`uname -r` libncursesw5-dev

4. Downloading tars of alsa-driver, alsa-libs and alsa-utils: Next step is to download alsa-driver, alsa-lib and alsa-utils tars from alsa project website. Although, these tars can be downloaded to any desired location, it is good if they are downloaed in user’s own home directory. The commands for this step are as follows:

…$cd

…$rm -rf alsa* .pulse* (remove if any previous alsa related material is there.)

…$wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.24.tar.bz2

…$wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/lib/alsa-lib-1.0.24.1.tar.bz2

…$wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/utils/alsa-utils-1.0.24.2.tar.bz2

5. Compiling and iinstalling alsa-driver, alsa-lib and alsa-utils: Next step is to create necessary folders, compiling and installing the downloaded packages. This can be done as following:

a. Creating necessary folders:

...$sudo rm -rf /usr/src/alsa ...$sudo mkdir -p /usr/src/alsa ...$cd /usr/src/alsa ...$sudo cp /alsa* .

b. Unpack tar files:

...$sudo tar xjf alsa-driver* ...$sudo tar xjf alsa-lib* ...$sudo tar xjf alsa-utils*

c. Compile and install alss-driver:

...$cd alsa-driver* ...$sudo ./configure ...$sudo make ...$sudo make install

d. Compile and install alss-lib:

...$cd ../alsa-lib* ...$sudo ./configure ...$sudo make ...$sudo make install

e. Compiling and installing alsa-utils:

...$cd ../alsa-utils* ...$sudo ./configure ...$sudo make ...$sudo make install
(It is to be noted that compiling the package may take some time.)

Once, installation is over, computer might need to be restarted so that the new settings may take effect. Now, new version of alsa can be determined by using the command specified in the beginning. It is good to be sure that everything is configured properly by using the following command:

...$sudo alsaconf (This command tries to detect the sound card on the system and creates a configuration file for ALSA.)

Once, the configuration is complete, system restart may be required again.

Note: This post is based on the process described at http://monespaceperso.org/blog-en/2010/05/02/upgrade-alsa-1-0-23-on-ubuntu-lucid-lynx-10-04/

Aristotle’s Storytelling Framework for Interactive Products

sagunbaijal — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:36:07 +0000

Throughout the centuries people have told stories to share knowledge between generations, but also to simply entertain. Storytelling is an important skill each interaction designer should have. It helps us create more engaging products and services. But how should we start doing this? How Aristotle’s storytelling framework can be used for designing interactive products, read at http://johnnyholland.org/2011/01/20/aristotle%E2%80%99s-storytelling-framework-for-interactive-products/

Dialing with Your Thoughts

sagunbaijal — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 05:06:48 +0000

A new brain-control interface lets users make calls by thinking of the number—research that could prove useful for the severely disabled and beyond. Read at: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/37357/?nlid=4339&a=f

Should We Abolish User Access to rm?

sagunbaijal — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 07:44:42 +0000

System administrators and managers often ask about solutions to keep people from accidentally removing their data. These are very smart and dedicated people asking for a solution so that data isn’t lost either by accident or on purpose. A wild idea to solve the problem is getting rid of user access to the rm command. Is this truly a crazy idea? Read at http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7950?hq_e=el&hq_m=1163836&hq_l=4&hq_v=4aebc3a786

First LibreOffice Stable Release Nears: What Now?

sagunbaijal — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:17:14 +0000

LibreOffice’s first release is near, but what comes next? It’s time for LibreOffice to distinguish itself as more than a clone of Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org. How? Read at http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7943?hq_e=el&hq_m=1158951&hq_l=3&hq_v=4aebc3a786