Category: Personal

In all my school years it never really struck me that I can actually get books from the bookstalls along the footpaths of Golpark. As this revelation dawned on me, I have been a regular customer there. The books there are a steal if you can strike a good deal.

You may choose to buy or borrow. I of course choose the latter. For FPS by Chetan Bhagat and another novel by Sidney Sheldon, (It’s not that I am a great Sheldon fan. I have never read Sheldon before and wanted to try) I was charged Rs. 110. On returning them I got back Rs. 85! The books are either secondhand purchases or illegal prints. While reading the Sheldon book, I found several pages missing in two places which was really disturbing. I had to download a PDF to read the missing parts.

When I borrowed Angels & Demons and Outbreak, I had to pay by Rs. 150 which I din’t expect. The books I returned have already made Rs. 85 and I needed to cough up 65 rupees more which I didn’t have. Taken aback, I asked the man to exclude one book stating my problem. He then asked me how much I had and satisfied himself with the lone fifty-rupees-note I had, leaving me walking my way back home.

Last week, I got Digital Fortress and The Other Side of Me. I am still reading them.

Cross-posted on Bong Buzz

Do you listen to a lot of music? Then you must be telling your friends more often than not what you are listening to. There are cool ways you can let the world know what music you are playing — online.

With the help of plugins you can display the current track you are playing in the status message of your messenger. The pic below shows my status in Windows Live Messenger.

Yahoo Messenger Plugins:

• Windows Media Player ystatus
• Winamp YMS Status Changer

Windows Live Messenger:

• Windows Media Player: In-built
• Winamp: MSN Messenger 7 Current Playing Song Works with Windows Live Messenger Beta as well

Trillian:

• Winamp MyTrillianStatus

So much for chat clients. You may also want to display your latest audio addiction on your blog. Thanks to social music sites like Last.fm you can do that with ease. Download and install the Audioscrobbler plugin for your media player software. Select a nice design for your music chart, get the required html code and put in on your site. You can also use it as your forum or e-mail signature. You are all set now — hit ‘play’.

And yeah, don’t forget to set your time zone in Last.fm site preferences for accurate audio-scroblling. Bring out the latent audio scrobbler in you. 😆

I have just given my site a complete design overhaul. There may be some glitches here and there yet to be fixed. Do tell me if you you notice anything. Also, tell me how it looks in your browser esp. if you have 800×600 screen area. And don’t forget to add your comments on the new design — whether you like it or not. Tell me how long it is taking to load.

I may add some more things in the sidebars today. And yeah I know I’ll have to fix the corners. 😛

P.S: I am yet to design a new favicon. Till then, the old one will be there.

My database went kaput. I could not fix it and restored a backup taken a few days back. In doing so, I lost some comments and some votes. 🙁

Lesson learnt: Take backup of database as often as possible. Every alternate day at least, if not daily.

Avro makes instant messaging in Bengali child’s play. MSN Messenger (I have tested Windows Messenger Live) and Trillian works great with Bangla text. You can simultaneously key in text in both English and Bengali – changing the input language seamlessly at the press of F12 hotkey.

It has not been possibe to write Banlga in Yahoo Messenger directly. But can be achieved indirectly through use of Avro’s ‘Through clipboard’ mode — just remember not to use the right ‘shift’ key while typing in clipboard mode.

Thanks to Avro, the numero uno Bengali input software, working with MS Word in Bangla is just child’s play. No more issues e.g. no spell-check errors, seamless transition from English mode to Bangla mode at the press of a key (F12) or a single click.

If you are using Notepad, the notepad file has to be saved in Unicode format. That’s all.

In fact, in all Windows applications which have support for Unicode you can type in Bangla.

Yes you can name files in Bangla on your Windows. Avro, the highly popular software already clocking 100,000 downloads, makes it easier for you. This has been made possible by the following-

1. Windows 2000 and later versions provide support for Unicode.
2. It is possible to write English and Bangla using a single font, thanks to Unicode based Open Type Font (OTF).

Firstly you have to change the font of file/folder name. Follow these instructions:

Windows 2000

1. Go to Control Panel and open Display Properties.
2. Go to Appearance Tab. Select Icon under Item list.
3. Select any Unicode Bangla font under Font list. You may increase the font size for ease of viewing.

(Note: Of course, select a font that allows typing in both English and Bangla.)

Windows XP

1. Go to Control Panel and open Display Properties.
2. Go to Appearance Tab.Click on Advanced.
3. A new window will open. Here select Icon under Item list.
4. Select any Unicode Bangla font under Font list. You may increase the font size for ease of viewing.

(Note: Of course, select a font that allows typing in both English and Bangla. If you are using Windows XP Service Pack 2 you will get a great font called Vrinda, you can use that.)

Now you can rename any file in Bangla using Avro.

NOTE:

Your computer needs to be configured for Bangla. To know how to configure your Windows for Bangla refer to this article.

Caution: Don’t go overboard and rename every file you have on your computer. Don’t rename system files. Some programs which don’t have support for Unicode in file paths will not be able to execute files named in Bangla. For example, Winamp cannot play music files named in Bangla.

Any mail solution supporting Unicode will let you mail in Bengali. You can of course use Avro to make things easier!

I could not write in Bangla in Yahoo. Probably they don’t support Unicode. I am telling how to write in Bangla in Gmail.
1. Open your Gmail mailbox. Click Settings. Under the option Outgoing message encoding select Use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding for outgoing messages.
2. Now type mails in Bangla. The user you are writing to should be using either Gmail or any other webmail that supports unicode (not Yahoo) or using a email client that supports unicode e.g. Microsoft Outlook.
Needless to say, you can mail in Bangla if you are using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.

Is it possible to read or write Bengali on these operating systems?

Since these Windows editions don’t have support for Unicode, you won’t be able to use Avro with them. However, there are some primitive ASCII based softwares that will let you do so, but that you can use only for printing purposes in your own computer. Not for sharing anything on the web i.e. chatting, mailing or designing webpages.

However, you will still be able to view Bangla websites if you have Microsoft Layer for Unicode installed. If you have MS Office or latest version of IE already installed then Microsoft Layer for Unicode is already installed on your computer and you will be able to view Bangla websites.

Typing in Bangla has never been easier! The latest version of Avro Keyboard — the robust and versatile Unicode-compliant Bangla writing software — supports phonetic typing. For example, if I type ami banglay gan gai in English I get the corresponding Bangla text! Avro Keyboard 3, free to download and use, has really surpassed all of our expectations and dreams.

Why should I use Avro?
I have seen many of my friends eager to type in Bangla – the language of our hearts – but they think that it is something not feasible and difficult to achieve. But it is not so if you have Avro installed on your computer. Using Avro is child’s play, nothing difficult or anything technical. So what are you waiting for? Go, grab it!

How to use Avro?
1. DOWNLOAD Avro Keyword from Omicron Lab or from the Downloads section of my site.
2. INSTALL it on your computer
3. Now to see the Bangla script properly you have to INSTALL SUPPORT FOR COMPLEX SCRIPT for which you will need the installation CD of your Windows operating system. If you don’t do it, you will still be able to see Bangla text but the vowels will be all jumbled up. In fact, you have to install this for proper viewing of all Indian languages as well, including Hindi.
Windows XP users: Go to Control Panel, Regional and Language Options. In the Language tab, select Install files for complex script and right-to-left languages (including Thai). Click Ok. You may have to restart your computer. (see screenshot)
Windows 2000 users: Go to Control Panel, Regional Options. In the General tab, see the Language settings for the system. Select Indic from the list. Click Ok. You may have to restart your computer. (see screenshot)
4. There is no 4^th step. 😀 Fire up Avro and START TYPING. Should you have any query, feel free to ask in the Omicronlab Forum.

Why do I see on sites like Google, BBC Bangla, Wikipedia that the vowels are all jumbled up?
Yes, this is true. ‘Gobindo’ will read as ‘Gobondi’ if your Windows does not have support for complex script. To solve this you will have to follow step 3 as mentioned above i.e. install support for complex script.
Why not any other software?
I have personally tried many Bangla writing software and found Avro to be the best. While there are other software like Bijoy they don’t support Unicode, instead they use ASCII encoding (surely not a choice for web-developers). Now one may wonder what is so special about Unicode. Unicode ensures that the Bangla text will be visible universally on all computers without the user having to download anything. As for example, Google, BBC Bengali.com, Wikipedia, Microsoft use Unicode in their sites that can be viewed without any hassle. On the other hand, Anandabazar, Aajkaal, etc. don’t use Unicode encoding. If you go to the Anandabazar site you are prompted to go through an installation at first. None of these two sites open in Firefox. (For the uninitiated, Firefox, and also Opera, are two great browsers that are said to be the choices of the geeks). May be these two newspaper sites have not opted for Unicode keeping in mind that some users still use Windows 98 that does not support Unicode (in this context I should say that Microsoft has phased out support for Windows 98 and it is now an obsolete OS), but in the long run they will have to switch to Unicode. Whatever it is, all I want to say is that if you send PMs or mails in Bangla typing with Avro then you can rest assured that your friend will be able to read it. 🙂

What are the system requirements?
Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista or later. Earlier Windows versions do not have support for Unicode and hence are not compatible.

I want to properly view Bangla sites, Bangla mails and PMs sent to me by friends. But I don’t need to write in Bangla. Do I still need to install Avro or any other Bangla software?
NO. Certainly not. Any Bangla text on the web (Unicode encoding) can be universally viewed.

What’s new in version 3?
Many improvements have been made in this version which can be found out at this page. I am mentioning the most remarkable ones:

1. Phonetic english to Bengali typing as I have mentioned in the very beginning of this post
2. Full user documentation in Bangla. Cool!
3. Mouse-based typing. Great!
4. Support for Assamese language too.