Out of Service!!!

Hi friends, I wouldn’t be blogging on for sometime. The problem is with my computer. The problem which I thought was just due to hard disk is turning out to be a huge problem. Will try to get it working fast!!! thanks for all ur comments… keep checking for updates! Will be back soon!!!

Culturavaganza – Part II

It is not unusual for me to blog on the events that occur in my college. Here I go again, now on INSTINCTS 2K7 – SSN Inter College Culturals.
In the first place, Instincts 2K7 was not as good as Instincts 2K6. I personally feel so. There are various reasons. But Instincts 2K7 was not bad. Here is how it went.

Instincts was conducted on March 8,9,10 at SSN College premises. There were a lot of events that took place, but I am going to elaborate only on the events that I personally witnessed.

Day 1:
In the Inauguration, R.Madhavan (cinestar) presided over the function and opened the door to Instincts. We were shown amazing presentations on Instincts – my college seniors rock at this.
Check out these videos.

Then we headed to the main stage where we waited for Light Music Group prelims but knowing that its gonna take a lot of time, we watched Adzap. Its the usual Adzap. Got fed of watching Adzap. Some people come with very creative ones. But watching fifteen teams performing Adzap is not an easy thing to do. So we headed to the main stage again and watched Light Music Group (prelims). It was good but how long can one enjoy music when you really want to take rest?

Day 2:
We decided that we would stay in the Informals event which was excellently hosted by CRK. But then, Pechupotti event lured us into the seminar hall, where around 10 students fought for the honor. A student who was actually very quiet sitting beside me won the first prize. Veteran film director S.P.Muthuraman was the chief guest for that event. He gave a good speech which thankfully and hopefully ended after one and half hour.
We then witnessed Sports Quiz. Ofcourse, I am not good in this Quiz thing, but it was a good time pass after all. Light Music Group finals was waiting for us in the main stage. So we went there and had a rocking eve with excellent performance by all the college teams and also a wonderful performance by the host team. Singer Karthik and Music director Joshua Sridhar were the chief guests and also the judges and they entertained us along with announcing the prize winners.

Day 3:
Light Music Solo was going on in the main stage. But we didn’t bother to stay there for a long time. We went to Informals, but very soon, we diverged our attention to Shipwreck prelims which was going on in the nearby hall. We didn’t watch more than two contestants but from the two contestants we watched, I believe (if I am not wrong) that the guy who spoke as Pamela Anderson would have won the first prize. Very soon, we found ourselves at Informals again, this time to witness Mr & Mrs.Instincts. We heard that Variety Entertainment was going on in the main stage. But Mr & Mrs.Instincts seemed to be more entertaining. After this event was over, the entire crowd headed towards the main stage to witness the Dual dance events – Solo and Group. After the enjoyable solo performances, we witnessed three solid hours of non-stop group dance and fun. The onstage dancers set the fuel to the offstage dancers and by the end of the event, almost the entire audience was dancing to the tunes. Two dance masters (unfortunately, I dunno the names) who choreographed for hit movies like Pokkiri and telugu movies were the chief guests and also the judges. Like the previous year, Instincts 2K7 ended with the final year having a gala time at the main stage.

P.S: If you are wondering who the “we” are, it varied from time to time

Also check out the sponsorship video.

FINS – An overview

On March 2,3,4, the IT dept of my college (SSN College of Engineering) hosted FINS (FORUM ON INFORMATION AND NETWORK SECURITY), the first event of its kind. It is a workshop on networking and security. Let me brief you on what happened on that day.

Day 1 (March 2, 2007)
We had test on that day. Until I reached the college, I believed I would be writing the test. But then I had to bunk the test. Yes, we (Arun Kumar, Arun Balachandran and myself) could have attended the test. But here we got a reason to bunk the test for which we didn’t study and so we did. After registering and paying money (we had to pay Rs.300/-), we had to wait for a while for the program to start.

But then, four of our class girls planned to attend the seminar as well. As girls normally do, they got OD for the day, and luckily we managed to get OD as well. So we had to miss the first part of the seminar which is also a boring part – The Inaugural function.

There was a pretty decent crowd. It had around 200-250 participants (in and out of college). The participants from the college were 95% of IT dept and 5% of CSE dept. The other participants were either from other colleges or from some industries.

Networking:
The Day 1 concentrated on Networking. Mr.Thiruvaazhi, a staff of IT dept briefed us on networking. He was good at teaching and since he is a staff who takes on networking, he was superb when it came to teaching about networking. We learnt about IP address, the different layers of TCP/IP. We were shown presentations on the different topologies of network and the problem in each type of networking. We also learn the difference between a MAC address and an IP address. It was all really interesting.

We had to miss some part of the seminar (or didn’t miss) due to some work in our dept and as we were actually bunking the entire day, I decided on bunking the lab too. The latter half was on the geographical scope of networking (the architecture, the media, Interconnectivity hardware). As we left home, I already decided about blogging about the event (as I did).

Day 2: (March 3,2007)
Network Security and Ethical hacking
The Day 2 was about Ethical Hacking and network security, the one that everyone wished to learn. It was to be taught by Mr.Koti Reddy, a very good trainer on Hacking. But before that, we were taught some interesting stuffs like ARP, Routing table and how to check whether another computer is alive in the network.

Then Mr.Koti Reddy came. He was a guy who seemed to concentrate only on business and nothing else. He was firm in his teaching and he had his own style of teaching. He had three laptops connected in a network and he taught using a lightpen. In one laptop, he loaded a software called DigitalClass, which he used it like a blackboard, to teach classes. This software has major advantages over a blackboard as we can switch to a new page without having to clear the previous content. I already started dreaming about every lecture being taught in this way.

In another laptop, he loaded VMware, a software used to load many OS in a single environment. I was shocked at the speed of his computer as he simultaneously loaded three or more OS in it. He didn’t need to start with the basics as Mr.Thiruvaazhi did the honors for him. He started with the difference between an internal hacker and an external hacker and he went on to draw diagrams on how an e-mail or an information or an application is sent to another computer via network and how it is being sent via the different layers.

Did you know…
The e-mail that you actually send is torn into pieces and sent individually.

He continued on how the hacker can access data and by which way he can access it. This guy was good but sometimes it seemed too dry (since we had to miss some part) and because of which again we had to miss some parts.

The final part of the day ended with what Ankit Fadia taught us. Ankit taught us only how to do it, but Mr.Reddy went a step further in demonstrating us. With that, the day 2 ended. Actually, it didn’t end there. The session got over at 6. Out of the four buses scheduled to take us back home, only two buses were there (which didn’t even go to any of the nearer stops to our home). Not to forget, I returned home only at 9 pm.

Day 3: (March 4,2007)
Cryptology and Information Security:
I got up late that day, 6:30 pm, I know its not too late, but it was late enough to miss the college bus. Knowing that I would be missing atleast the first session, my mind started going lazy and I went to the bus stand to catch the 519 bus (which would go direct to the entrance of my college) at 8:30 and found it at 8:45. It was either the bus driver or the bus schedule was lazier than me, the bus started at 9. Man, I was missing Cryptology!!! Since it was a deluxe bus, and I was the first one to enter the bus, I took the pleasure in enjoying yet another ride to our college.
I reached at 10 and I knew I had missed the first session as I could spot students who were lingering outside the audi for refreshment. Thank God I didn’t miss anything. The first session was just a preview and the question of “why we need information security?” was answered. I got into the part where Mr.Thiruvaazhi started teaching how cryptology came into existence. The story went to Julius Caesar where he implemented something known as Caesar squares.

We were told about the hashing functions and how it is done and the problems faced in the techniques. After a tiring second day, this seemed to be refreshing and time sped off fast. Time sped off faster when Mr.Pandurangan, a professor of IIT, took over the final session. He was enthusiastic, energetic and got the whole audience into his attention. He poised out the problems faced in Information Security and he also provided the alternatives to solve the problems which inturn would lead to another problem. Time didn’t allow him to discuss more about it.

The Day 3 and thus the three day workshop came to an end with the valedictory function. It was the same valedictory function one could see. I was shocked when they awarded the certificates to everyone who participated. Poor principal, he had to greet everyone with a smile, shake hands with them and award them with certificates. “Shall we ask him whether it pains?” was one of my friends’ question.

It was a good three-day experience and I would like them to conduct more workshops. Not to forget on March 7,2006, Mr.Ankit gave a short seminar on Internet Security. Almost a year later, FINS conducted this workshop and both were near our college culturals!!! A co-incidence???