My first Gaim plugin - எனது முதல் கைம் ப்லகின்

Hi,
This is my first GAIM plugin. I wrote it in 'C' with glib. I hope it is helpful for at least a few.

Installation
1) Install GAIM first. See here-> http://gaim.sourceforge.net/downloads.php

• If you use windows download the gaim-1.5.0.exe link. After downloading, install gaim.

• If you use linux get the source tarball here gaim-1.5.0.tar.bz2 .:). After downloading do

• ./configure
• make
• make install
  

2) Once you install GAIM, the next step is install the plugin. Download the plugin here -> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/download.php?group_id=235&atid=390395&file_id=165342&aid=1417844
First unzip the file.

• In Windows, you have to copy paste the engtota.dll file to C:\Program Files\Gaim\Plugins directory (assuming you have installed Gaim at C:\Program Files\Gaim directory).
• In Linux, you have to copy paste the "C" file to the plugins directory in source tree and compile. :).

3) The next step is enabling the plugin. Choose the plugin first.
4) All done... lets start தமிழ் typing....



This is what you type. When you press enter, this is what you get:

Thats it!

What could go wrong?
Gaim doesnt compile in linux, Gaim doesnt work in windows, can you help?

The short answer is that you can hunt at #gaim for help. Installation is something that I never had great luck with. For compiling gaim in windows cygwin, i got help thru #wingaim.


The gaim plugin that you have screenshotted isnt being recognized as a plugin even after i copy paste the plugin DLL in the plugins directory. Why?

Please restart gaim. That should make it appear in the list of plugins available for gaim.

I am not able to see the transliterated tamil text..I think there is some problem with the font. Can you help me?

This is very common problem. If you have linux, you usually have some UNICODE fonts, or you can install one. The same applies to windows. It comes free with a font called Latha.ttf (in windows XP). Have a look at the README.txt file in the zip file, it should help you out, or see here for help installing UNICODE fonts for windows.

I cant understand the tamil text. Can you tell me how the transliteration is done?
The transliteration is based on the tool here -> http://www.jaffnalibrary.com/tools/Unicode.htm. I have also attached a pdf file showing the transliteration. You can take a printout of it and use it for reference. After sometime, once you pick up some speed, i am sure it wud be easy to type. But initially you will have problems on how the transliteration is made. For example in the above snapshot, you must have seen the english text to be "vaNakkam". the capital N is because you want "moondru suzhi naa". If you want "rendu suzhi na", you can use small n. Before you start typing just have a go through of pdf file. That will be of immense help.

My problem isnt documented here. Can you help me out?
Sure, you can comment in this post, or at sf.net, where I have submitted the plugin. You can also mail me at {initial}.{name}@gmail.com where my {initial} is "s" and {name} is "varun". Of recent, I have been receiving hits on how to compile gaim plugin from Google. If you are stuck with some step and are unable to proceed, you can mail me. I will try to reply/debug the issue.


Acknowledgements:
1) Sridhar Ratna, who gave me inspiration to write the plugin.
2) Suratha.com, the transliteration tool i use often. I usually used to type in english, get the tamil text and copy paste in windows (texts like காலை வணக்கம் etc).
3) thomas at #wingaim, who helped me out to compile the plugin properly.
4) seanegan, whose codeinline.c plugin, i have made modifications.
5) last but not the least, people in my messenger list, talking to whom I tested the plugin, which includes Karthik(crescent), saravana, priya, nithya, senthil, vijay(jr). All of them were victims of some unreadable tamil text, which I too could not understand :).

Thanks to all of you who are using this plugin and giving me feedback.

NerdTests.com Fun Tests - Computer Geek / Nerd Quiz

NerdTests.com Fun Tests - Computer Geek / Nerd Quiz



Check this out and tell ur score :)

தமிழ் ஊடகங்கள் கூடுமிடம்

தமிழ் ஊடகங்கள் கூடுமிடம்

தமிழ் எழுத்துருவம் எழுத இதனை பயன் படுத்தலாம். இது எப்படி இருக்கு? சூப்பரா கீதா?
I typed "thamizh ezhuththuruvam ezhudha idhanai payan paduththalaam. idhu eppadi irukku? suupparaa kiithaa?"

to get the above tamil text. :). you can use this to type and create all tamil text quickly on the go. I use it to type something and paste it in messenger(yahoo,gtalk supports unicode, so tamil fonts will work).

Bye
Varun

Bug vs Feature

I saw this in sridhar's computer. "A picture speaks 1000 words". :)
My interpretation goes like this "Features are dressed up bugs"
Bye
Varun

GMail adds Delete button

When there was no Delete Button directly, i had it using the GreaseMonkey Script here . But now google has updated that in Gmail itself. Thank you Google.

SiteAdvisor blog: The Web's Download Disasters, Inaugural Edition

SiteAdvisor blog: The Web's Download Disasters, Inaugural Edition

This site is great. It has the list of internet's worst spywares. They have automated testing and have tested around a million spywares. The top five software sharing the honor are above. I came to know that those silly IM emoticons were spyware only after reading it. I see it often in most sites as ads. (i can remember greetings site showing them often).

mini-itx.com - projects - mini-itx cluster

mini-itx.com - projects - mini-itx cluster
This one is certainly cool. It is a 12 node cluster, however, its total power consumption is comparable to what our desktops are. All hardware are off the shelf... so its very cheap too...

The Meaning of Life

The Meaning of Life

This is a great one! i really enjoyed, hope you can interpret what it means.

Bye
Varun.

Firefox 1.5! The Bloatware

I am writing this post from Mozilla Firefox on Windows. It is the browser that i really love! I love it not only because it is an OSS, but also because it has a gamut of scripts that i can add to customize to my taste. I use greasemonkey scripts to add delete button to my gmail threads, remove Google AdSense Ads and add MP3 player to all links that are MP3. But after upgrading to Firefox 1.5, things have changed a lot, though i still love it. It has become like a one sided love affair. Its trying to become bloat ware no.1. Previously IE used to be the top contender for Mr. BloatWare.It is probably because of some memory leak or something like that and I hope it would be corrected soon. (Firefox developers, anybody there, echo!). The worst thing happens when i run Java over it!. It bloats to 70MB odd, once i have even seen it at 100+MB :( . Have a look at my task manager.

Windows WMF exploit

This is a nasty bug. Details of it was out at secunia.com on dec-28 itself. It was due to the age old WMF format. During those days of Win 3.11, people thought it was easier to add executable code inside WMF file so that in case the WMF didnt render the file properly, the code is executed that takes remedial measure. This ability to add executable code to WMF still persists, as a part of WMF standard, in the age, when VIRUSES comes free with Windows ;) . The worst part of the exploit is that when you download an image from a site, its extension doesnt matter(as in UNIX there was nothign called extensions). It is based on the file headers and the magic value in it. So even fi the file linked to is a .jpg file, it just needs to have WMF's magic value and the virus/adware payload. In other words, you simply have to goto to xyz.com and see the site. The <img> link in the page will load exploit.jpg, which has the WMF file in its contents, with the adware/virus payload in it. Once the page is rendered in IE, IE calls Windows Picture and Fax Viewer's dll file (shimgvw.dll) to render the WMF file.

When the DLL fails to understand the WMF file, it issues a callback command and executes the executable payload in the WMF file and voila, your system is infected. What does this mean? your internet browsing itself is not secure! you simply have to visit sites to get infected. While this is the case with IE users, Firefox and Opera people dont have a breather either. For firefox and opera, the only thing that favours them is that, since WMF is an external component, firefox will ask you if u want to open it with Windows ... and Fax Viewer, if u say yes, you will get infected. Perfect way to get infected and u can curse yourself for clicking YES.

What is the quick but dirty remedy? Unregister the shimgvw.dll file. It will cause u not to load any WMF file (or rather view them or their thumbnail). Its like since you have dirt in your nails, you should cut off your fingers, so that there is no more nails to have dirt. :)
The command is:
regsvr32 -u %windir%\system32\shimgvw.dll

If you want to re-enable the WMF viewing for legitimate purpose other than infecting your system ;), you might want to re-enable it by issuing the following command:
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\shimgvw.dll

Microsoft, as it has to support helluva lot of versions of IE, obviously needs time, and it is taking its own time while the exploit is wild. :-( . I also read that an individual has made a patch for it and it seems to work!. Thats certainly not good news for Microsoft. I installed that exploit from here:
http://www.hexblog.com/index.html
although i have not tested with a vulnerable site and i dont want to do!.

I have summarized in my own words what this exploit means for us here. I read them from the following URLs:
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/new-exploit-blows-by-fully-patched.html
http://www.websensesecuritylabs.com/alerts/alert.php?AlertID=385
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/12/exploit_release.html


Linux and Mac users are not vulnearable. Please post your comments too in this blog...