Life at CEDT

Most of the people in our college must not be aware of what CEDT stands for. CEDT stands for 'Center of Electronics Development and Technology' ,basically a lab at NSIT which is aimed at developing expertise and research of the stature of the CEDT at IISc, Banglore. But ya,believe me its not that same kind of lab that we go to each day ,perform (not that often)some experiments then get back to our classes and continue with the business of copying the readings for the next lab. As such the lab is bit exclusive,its not that everybody is allowed to enter it and also not that somebody is denied to work there. I don't know whats the exact mantra to get into it. But its simply for those who want to work seriously in electronics-hardware.Those who don't work get their due chiding soon. I have had my part of it sometime back. But who knows if that was the turning point! Its a lab full of innovative ideas and more importantly the resources to make your imagination come alive. Its a sort of a versatile lab where you can find tools and machines ranging from files,drilling machines etc to the PCB cutting machines and Vinyl cutters. I don't think there is any electronic device in any of the electronics department's lab that you cannot find there. And with their teeming number the ICs, cutters, strippers,wires etc have never been a issue there.You just say you need it and you get it then and there! I think its the only 24x7 lab in our college with full all-round support of the teacher and staff. It stands on one pillar : The man behind all this, the man with a vision. I ll restrain from mentioning names here but then those who know me they know CEDT and then they definitely know him. A worth mentioning thing is I haven't seen a better lab-assistant than the one you encounter there. He is like the wheels of this lemousine!

I have spent days and nights working there.There have been week-long times when I have reached home at around 10-10.30pm other times I have worked there the whole night and attended college the next day straightway from there and then back to the lab in the evening again. Its not that its just me who has a routine like this but all of us-the proud members of CEDT-have the same story. Each of us involved in his/her 'project'. Some people around me are of opinion that its not worthwhile for an MBA aspirant like me rather I should me more busy reading editorials and solving the crosswords. Well,definitely that is the case and I am very much careful and conscious about it. I attribute all these 'fake' concerns of people more of an outcome of a typical NSITian's(I am too a NSITian though) mentality where people will never encourage you through your process and won't show a temperament to understand it from your point of view. So,this post is certainly not for them. To me its like a phenomena that won't happen again after my grads. Once I am through with my college I'm not sure whether I ll again get a chance to work on some technical stuff like this. I am enjoying my days like my best college days and more fascinated with the feeling that goes through when you say "Ah! Its working! We have made it !!". Probably that is the time when I feel happy and proud to be an 'Electronics Engineer' and like making full use of the opportunity, time and education. Some people say an MBA aspirant engg student wastes his 4 years but I am more than happy being ever involved in it. That 'feel' worth these 4 years.
But ya, as the CAT approaches things will take toll of this CEDT thing. Probably its like a dusk to it with MBA preparation starting soon. But I am satisfied and contended with it so far and thats what is important. CEDT certainly has a long way to go and I can clearly foresee that someday it ll be a popular 'corporate-thing' associated with NSIT rather just a lab.

Kinds of people

"There are just Three kind of people in this world...
..the one who are good in mathematics
and the ones who are poor in it !"

I read this on someone's T-shirt sometime back and just felt like putting it here!

..about to Lose Data!

You must have faced a situation when a virus hits your system and corrupts your system's C-Drive.Now,you want to format the whole system but before that you want to back up your data in other drives. Another situation that you face is when you want to transfer a lot of data from one system to another. Now in such situations the usual way outs are like taking out my hard disk and putting it in some other system via a port which otherwise is used for devices like CD-ROM or else I better put my disk in a USB-casing and plug it into some other system like some external storage device and some other such rescue operations are also popular.But most of them need your hard disk to be taken out of your system,right? And transferring data between two working systems via LAN takes lot of time and is of no use when your OS is corrupted!

Thats what bothers me. Why do we need to take out our hard disk every time. Won't it be more comfortable if we had a 'Dedicated' port say FireWire type port (or some more popular port like USB but I ll want some more data transfer speed) in-built with the cabinet of the system and we could directly plug a cable into it and put the other end of it in the other system and the whole disk acts as some 'Pen Drive' for the other system! And this port will work irrespective of the fact that whether your OS is working or not and all it needs is that your other system is working fine and reads the file system present in your disk! If we could use this medium even while we were working on our system. And how wonderful if the other system's disk becomes a sort of 'PenDrive' for our system!! Don't you think such a protocol will make things very simple at times.

For some security issues I think it can have a provision of setting the other system's access to the various drives(the kind that we usually have for file sharing protocols),but that restriction is active only till my system is running.Once my system is off all the parts should be accessible(this is utmost required specially when our system crashes!)And ya we need to have a power supply via that cable and need to work on synchronizing the GND and Vcc of the two systems and thats a critical issue I suppose.But for sure it ll make things very easy at times!

So,just hoping that we have such dedicated ports in our cabinets soon.

PS : The title reads '..about to Loose Data', its actually because I have been 'hit' by a virus yesterday!!And wanted to back-up data 'comfortably'.

Cell transmission via shortest route

A very typical thing happens so often around and we never bother to think about it.Suppose,a guy is calling another guy from his cellphone when both of them are present in the same building.What happens is the signal(data) goes to the nearest tower present (may be at hundreds of meters) and then to some cellphone exchange and is forwarded again to another cellphone exchange then again to some tower(sometimes involving more than one tower also) and finally the signal(data) is received on the other guy's device!! So we see that a piece of data had to travel across so many points on a network and all this to get delivered at a device present at next door.

I sometimes find this whole concept somewhat inefficient and funny (in no way intending to belittle the efforts of people that must have gone in developing such a system ) but actually,it is implemented in some or the other way in all the cellphone networks worldwide(Am not aware if something radically different is being implemented at some place). Rather can't we have a network in which a piece of data finds the shortest path available to reach the destination which may include en-routing via other cellphones in vicinity and of course includes towers also.So,that next time when you call your friend next door,the signal goes directly to his device rather traversing all across the network.Well at least this will reduce data congestion problem to some extent.

Well,this is just a nascent thought and as such it has lots of shortcomings such as we need to have next generation cellphones, an efficient GPS kinda system to find the shortest path and other security issues (while transmitting data across some else's device) will need to be addressed properly before it can be implemented.And more importantly power consumption issues (Its typically not wished to waste our battery for transmitting somebody else's data!!).

So,as such am not very sure that whether its going to make the present system more efficient or make further mess of it.But still i would like to see it being implemented in some form or other someday in some typical network or place.

Juss to start with..

..so now I have my blog! I had never thought of getting into such business,I thought its just for those geeks who gulp a dictionary every weekend and finish a novel before every meal each day.But somehow I have joined the business and it sounds really interesting ..but then what am I going to do over here! May be just wasting some web space by putting some stupid crappy ideas and nothing better. And so I rightly called it 'Garbagge'(with that extra 'g' because 'garbage' had already been alloted to someone else!!).

But actually it has got some purpose.Some dragons are quite skeptical that a person like me just can't think of any ideas (genuine ones) that can be posted here..so lets see Mr. Dragon..the Cold War begins..;) and in coming time you ll see its not 'Garbage' but 'Garbagge'!!

PS: Its actually 07/07/07 quite a unique date to start ...a 'War'!!:)