GDM for the rightists?
Not quite, but you could find it useful if you, like me, are not-so-orthodox Hindu who prays to [:http://www.hindunet.org/god/Gods/ganesh/|Ganesha] everyday before starting work.

Thanks to [:http://trixinc.deviantart.com/|Trixinc] for [:http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/10555864/?qo=33&q=by%3Atrixinc&qh=sort%3Atime+-in%3Ascraps|the wonderful wallpaper of Ganapa] that is the heart and soul of this pretty GNOME GDM.

Here's a screenshot of it:

[:http://sampada.net/GDM-GaNapa.tar.gz|Click here to download the package].

What's GDM?: Visit [:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Display_Manager]

and I even wondered for a moment why a mail from FBI had landed in my Inbox. Turns out that it ought to have landed in the spam folder. ;)

Well, Pradeep has come up with a 'spreadfirefox' like idea to publicize Sampada :)

Take a look.

Golly. And I thought it was just me spreading the word to get more people know about it. ;)

Today, after a long long time, I checked back my Deviant Art account (it had been almost 6 - 9 months since my last visit). Unsurprisingly, there were close to a 100 messages and couple of notes waiting to be read. There is a reason why I didn't visit it back for such long time – DeviantArt is addictive. Highly addictive!

It was during the days when I was depending on friends to host my website, that I registered for an account with Deviant Art (After all, to upload art work which otherwise are too heavy on your hosting space, one has to pay nothing on DA!) From then onwards, it had been a lovely new revelation of art, addiction and awe. DA probably has some of the best artists of the world as its members. On most occasions you end up spending hours and hours watching works of talented folks who're all over that place!

My tryst with DA was like of any other common member on it. I tried my hands on some fancy stuff, filled my gallery with some old graphics I had done, cartoons and many more stuff and got the usual long threads of comments (LJers know better about this ;) ). But its not just the addiction of adding stuff or getting comments on DA. It is a community network of artists and art aspirants (and sometimes just art lovers who just like to enjoy watching it) that establishes itself more than the daily art and ramblings. It is probably one of the best communities of the whole world :)

What makes DeviantArt even more addictive is the fact that everyone wants his/her work to get noticed, get appreciated by others, which is very much of Human Nature ;) . For a website owner with at least the traffic as much as of mine, there's not much worry about getting noticed since good part of traffic flows to the pages and there's a good chance of people viewing what one writes or posts. But not the case with newbies who're just starting out! DA provides a podium for such people to get noticed. :) In no time, young folks can have a page on DA and numerous friends watching, as well! With flickr and similar services on the scene these days, the issue of hosting images has long become a distant problem, but DA is much much more than just providing that. The addiction that this community can create is unmatched. The probability of finding the best artists on the web is also the highest at this place. Its an unmatched, addictive ocean of art that still reigns as the best art community on the Internet.

Here's what I found today when checking site stats on webalizer:

Internet Exploder?! ;)

[This post has Kannada in Unicode. Read how to enable it on your system.]

ಗೂಗಲ್  Earthನಲ್ಲಿ ತೆಗೆದ ನಮ್ಮ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಒಂದಷ್ಟು ಸ್ಕ್ರೀನ್ ಶಾಟ್ ಗಳು:
(ದೊಡ್ಡ ಆವೃತ್ತಿಗಾಗಿ ಚಿತ್ರಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ಕ್ಲಿಕ್ ಮಾಡಿ... click on the thumbnails for the larger ones)

Lost searching for something in Unicode, I stumbled across this one, today. The Software is called Dasher and not surprisingly, it is available on the ubuntu/debian repository to download and install with apt. (packages available for M$ OSes and MacOSX as well, on its project page). Around a 10 MB + install.

It is an interesting software. The project page states that:

Dasher is an information-efficient text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures. Dasher is a competitive text-entry system wherever a full-size keyboard cannot be used - for example,

* on a palmtop computer;
* on a wearable computer;
* when operating a computer one-handed, by joystick, touchscreen, trackball, or mouse;
* when operating a computer with zero hands (i.e., by head-mouse or by eyetracker).

though and obviously so, its not much of a pleasure trying to use it on PC (it can be a very useful tool on handheld, protable devices to type Unicode).
The best thing of all, is that it supports Unicode Kannada, Unicode Hindi and much more languages in Unicode!

Dasher - Kannada

I turned it on, and tried typing my name in Kannada. I could click on 'ಹ', then came the probable letters floating adjacent to it. I clicked on 'ರ', then came the glyphs that can be added to those. It was pretty much like looking into a maze and picking the letters you want to be typed. I would love to see this one controlled by fingers, and a touch screen rather than mouse or joystick, like those we see on sci-fi movies - which is quite possible in near future, though I fear the whole process won't get less boring even with that ;)

It *is* boring if you're asked to pluck the letters one by one that you need to form your statement. Its a complexified way of putting in letters (unless there's no other way). Moreover, its painful for eyes (but maybe not once you get used to it). The project page claims that one can type 39 words per minute if he/she gets well versed with this tool. Whatever is, I was happy and thrilled to see a tool that can let you key in Unicode even when you don't have a keymap or input method!

This one could be a nice tool for kids to play with... or for folks using handhelds 'on field work' - just take out your handhelds and start plucking letters and 'dash' through the maze! :)