India’s rebel twenty-20 league launched today..!

A glitzy ceremony Friday marked the start of India’s breakaway Twenty20 cricket league in the northern town of Panchkula with an eye catching performance by Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor.The Indian Cricket League (ICL) has been dubbed a rebel league as it was not sanctioned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which has retaliated by planning its own Indian Premier League (IPL) to be launched in April.

The six-team ICL, promoted by a television company, offers prize money of US$3.85 million.

The inaugural match of the league Friday featured Delhi Jets, captained by former Sri Lankan skipper Marvan Atapattu, and Chanidgarh Lions, which is being led by ex-New Zealand allrounder Chris Cairns.Ex-West Indies captain Brian Lara and former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq are the biggest stars featuring in the tournament for which several young Indian players have signed up, despite the risk of in future being barred from matches sanctioned by the BCCI.Lara is leading Mumbai Champs, while Inzamam is the captain of Hyderabad Heroes.Other teams have been named Kolata Tigers and Chennai Superstars.

A new rule has been introduced in the ICL which disallows any overthrows if the fielder’s throw hits the stumps.Four top teams from the round-robin league spread over two weeks will advance to the knockout semifinals.

The ICL’s executive board is headed by India’s 1983 World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev.Dev’s decision to join the breakaway league prompted the cricket board to remove him from the honourary position of chairman of the National Cricket Academy. Sandip Patil, Madan Lal and Balwinder Sandhu, all members of the 1983 World Cup champion team, have followed Dev and signed up with the ICL. They have taken up coaching assignments for ICL teams that feature some top foreign stars and Indian youngsters.

India’s cricket board tried to block the ICL’s progress by making it difficult for the unofficial league’s promoters to hire cricket grounds. The rebel league is being compared with Kerry Packer’s World Cricket Series that split world cricket in the 1970s. Packer’s World Cricket Series signed up top international players from several countries in an era when players were not well remunerated and had no endorsements. While Packer got the cream of world cricket, the Indian league seems to be attracting only the retired stars.

ps: is indian cricket a new playground for indian politicians?

Search Engine Optimization – the key to online success..

The revolution in the field of information technology has brought about a huge change in our day-to-day life. Today instead of going out for shopping, you will find people staring from the busy professionals to the hassled homemaker to the impossible teenager checking out things they want to buy online. Things have become so easy that today all one needs to do is click a few buttons and all that they want will be delivered to them without any worries. One just needs to have an access to a computer that is internet enabled and everything can be taken care of without any issues. Though the internet revolution is the major factor for making this possible, search engine optimization is the major component in making this possible for everyone. Search engine optimization has in fact come up with many innovative methods which have made things easy for online business owners.

Search engine optimization is nothing complicated, but some methods through which an online site can become popular on the web. See there are so many sites on the web today and that is why you need to make sure that customers come across your site with ease. Searching for anything on the web takes a lot of time and that is why we have different search engine to assist us in this tiresome work. So if your site is visible at the top of the search results in all the major search engine customers will easily find your site and but goods form there. Now search engines have certain criteria based on which they assign rankings to online sites. Through search engine optimization you can make your site rank at the top of these search engines.

The first thing that can be done to optimize your site for search engines is to make changes in the design so that search engine spiders find it easy to crawl the entire site. In addition, the site will need to have keyword rich content to attract the search engine spiders and for this, you need to ensure that you have writers who can do this tricky work for you. Just make sure that your site contains all the information that prospective clients may look out for. Remember if they do not get what they are looking for, they will immediately go to the next site without wasting their time. So you must make sure that they get instantly what they are looking for.

ps: hmmm.. a ps is not that what you want to say.. but what you want to “add-on” like a plugin.. may be used, may not be!

a flashback…

hmm.. was reading some blogs arbitrarily on blogspot.. i have realized that what i scribble here in this blog is all arbit.. nonsense sometimes.. and i guess i don do justice with what is called “blogging”. Hmmm, lets c.. what i can come up with…? the only thing which i could think of right now is about my last semester in college..! As it just got over.. few days back.. memories still reside, deep inside my mind.. trying to fade out with time but then there are things which keep on bringing them back to life.. ah..

hmmm.. it started of pretty well, with lots of night outs in the starting.. was trying to install f7 in most of the comps in sunlab.. and configure everything using ldap.. dint do much on the ldap side though.. it was fun.. starting days in delta… there were long periods when i was away from hostel.. well the whole semester was like that i guess.. used to go to room at around 2-3 every day.. and then half heartedly get up in the morning and go for some stupid class.. sometimes there were times when i dint even realise which all classes i had attended till the lunch break…

msging became an important activity of my daily life… they used to cheer me up so much..!! things were so good.. got some really close friends this sem.. a few bonds got more strong and some new ones were formed..initial few days were just too good..! then came delta inductions.. two continuous night outs and the whole thing got ready.. was really sleepy on the day of the induction.. but then ran away to city, still remember that day.. it was a nice day! to buy books!

in between there was a time when i was really confused abt my future.. as in what will i do after this btech.. and all.. there was this stupid “time” test for mba aspirants.. i attended that.. jlt… well i realised that its not my cup of tea.. so almost made up my mind for gre.. and even started preparing for that.. bought a gre prep book.. and started going through the word list every morning.

then came the convo weekend.. and my mood swings..! had a nice time and also there were things which made me think, think about things which were, i guess important.. and weird…and unusual..! hmmm.. spent a lot of time on it..and hence screwed up my first ct.. but no regrets..! for the reason i screwed it is more important than anythin else! hmmm there was a dull period just after the cts.. don remember much though.. but something happened at that time..

ah.. pragyan work started after that.. and also festember preparations.. also started thinking of participating in shaastra.. but then that plan was scrapped soon.. went around here and there for festember publicity work.. it was nice and interesting too.. met some interesting people.. festember came towards late September.. it was different.. well organised.. and the best thing abt this edition of festember was the amount of participation and the quality of stuff..! though it was pretty dull phase for me.. the only good time was when i went for a pottery workshop…hmmm there were some issues which got resolved by the time festember got over.. with the dream of everything getting back to normal the whole new trying-to-be-cheerful phase of mine started..

shaastra came some two weeks later.. dint go but then happy for harshendu, who won it! anyway that weekend was also a nice one.. had to run around a lot.. passport camp.. running off to city for getting a new set of passport photos with a 2-3 hrs deadline.. banging into the dean’s office to get some forms attested.. standing in a queue day long.. but then it was all so good! and pragyan work also got some pace.. we finally started pragyan work in full flow… designing, coding the cms.. structuring the whole new team.. everything was done.. properly..

classes were also getting pretty much interesting.. used to get late almost everyday.. half asleep, i used to reach class.. dint even noe at time which lecture i m going for.. the only good things were the mornings.. it was becoming a daily routine without which each day seemed to be so dull and incomplete..!! running away to snacky at 10.10 everyday.. msging during classes, even in ht’s! and skipping lunch everyday.. and then going to snaky again in the evening.. again back to work in the evening.. dinner @ dhaba or azeez..!! again work for sometime and then off to sleep… msging side by side.. if things were normal! well that was my daily shedule.. monotonous..except for days when..

ah.. sometime in between towards late september i was introduced, actually re-introduced to the word of blogging.. soon it became a habit and later on addiction.. and now..just cant live without scribbling something here..

well the last one month in college was a roller coaster ride for me.. ups and downs.. and more downs.. and some more downs! cpc’s.. not a big deal for me as i never got bothered by them even after getting royally raped by them… pragyan work was becoming very hectic.. brochures, more brochures and some more brochures! thankfully got some real decent support from my team.. thanks to those people! and then the continuous 6 night outs phase! i guess durga pooja and garba were at the same time! mood was getting weirder.. and weirder.. was very irritated at times! went for garba once.. a much needed break from college.. had planned of going to chennai but then got canceled due to some reasons.. should have gone at that time… pragyan website design came up in the mean time.. and we all started working on it in full flow.! some more issues came up.. tried hard not to spend time alone..! then came the practicals.. hmm.. screwed one.. and the other was good.. cpc’s came up for other depts.. everyone got their piece of the royal rape!

there were a few nice times here and there.. in between.. at times when i wanted to be happy!! arbit bakar in hostel.. or while roaming around in the campus or the trips to city! diwali was around the corner.. my first diwali away from my family.. had almost made up my mind of not feeling bad about this.. and even told the same to friends.. used to ask them to cheer up.. but then on the day… wanted to do something unusual.. something which would have made me happy.. but then.. was at all time low!! dint feel like doing anything…

the phase between diwali and sems was good.. everyday was just too good.. time spent at the new canteen or in octa.. remember each and every second!! started study too.. sincerely.. spent more time in hostel.. with friends.. started spending more time in the library.. ah.. that word always reminds me of an incident which happened towards the end of 4th semester.. i still remember that day.. perfectly.. with each and every minute detail.. anyway chuck don want to spoil my mood.. those times were just too good.. and as said.. good times are always followed by bad ones!! the sems started.. not that i hate sems.. but then each exam was followed by something weird.. and it happened after each sem exam.. and my blogging also increased.. arbit category received the max no of posts during this time i guess! coincidences also started becoming an integral part of my life.. cant forgive myself for somethings.. even when i noe there was no fault of mine..anywhere.. but then.. it all happened bcoz of me…

day by day.. was getting desperate to run away from that place.. which had given me reasons to laugh at the same time make me cry..! sem exams came to an end soon.. and it was time for all of us to part ways.. for sometime atleast..! it all started again.. memories of the past starting flashing back again in my mind.. wanted to avoid some things.. wanted to be quiet.. but i guess that only made everything go wrong.. my quietness only made things go weird.. i dint want to do it.. but then something inside me forced me to behave that way.. don have explanations and justification for my actions.. for why i did it.. i just did it!! dint want to leave things on that note.. but i guess i left it.. nothing can be done… it has gone.. time has gone.. but then i guess i had my own reasons for all that and i guess i don need to give explanations to anyone..!

anyway i m back home now.. it feels good to be so far away.. but at times.. just miss a lot!

hmmm.. that was my whole semester.. a flashback.. there are things and times which i do remember, worth mentioning also.. but then i guess they should just be left as it is..!

ps: i remember things, and i think about them… guess thats my biggest fault!

so much to say but..

noone is there to listen.. hmm its so ironic that i always land up in a place where i hardly know anyone.. again.. my sem hols have started and in the same usual during-sem-hols-low-profile phase has started.. want to talk to someone.. but almost everyone is busy with a project or something, so cant even call them up also.. or busy with work! anyway i have seen its very rare that i speak up to someone.. bcoz i noe when i say something, something terrible happens everytime. ah.. again.. anyway chuck.. not this time atleast..

chalo gtg.. have to get ready for a lonely afternoon now!

ah..

waiting since morning today.. checking my gchat window every two mins.. hmm..chuck..

anyway planning to participate in techfest and kshitij.. lets c.. kya hota hai?

ps: i lost the bet… again!

OSSIM

Ossim stands for Open Source Security Information Management. Its goal is to provide a comprehensive compilation of tools which, when working together, grant a network/security administrator with detailed view over each and every aspect of his networks/hosts/physical access devices/server/etc…
Besides getting the best out of well known open source tools, ossim provides a strong correlation engine, detailed low, mid and high level visualization interfaces as well as reporting and incident managing tools, working on a set of defined assets such as hosts, networks, groups and services.

Advantages

• VERIFICATION may be OSSIM’s most valuable contribution at this time. Using its correlation engine, OSSIM screens out a large percentage of false positives.
• The second advantage is that of INTEGRATION, we have a series of security tools that enable us to perform a range of tasks from auditing, pattern matching and anomaly detection to forensic analysis in one single platform.
• The third is RISK ASSESSMENT, OSSIM offers high level state indicators that allow us to guide inspection and measure the security situation of our network.

Ossim features the following software components:

• Arpwatch, used for mac anomaly detection.
• P0f, used for passive OS detection and os change analisys.
• Pads, used for service anomaly detection.
• Nessus, used for vulnerability assessment and for cross correlation (IDS vs Security Scanner).
• Snort, the IDS, also used for cross correlation with nessus.
• Spade, the statistical packet anomaly detection engine. Used to gain knowledge about attacks without signature.
• Tcptrack, used for session data information which can grant useful information for attack correlation.
• Ntop, which builds an impressive network information database from which we can get aberrant behaviour anomaly detection.
• Nagios. Being fed from the host asset database it monitors host and service availability information.
• Osiris, a great HIDS.
• OCS-NG, Cross-Platform inventory solution.
• OSSEC, integrity, rootkit, registry detection and more.

Usually a typical ossim deployment consists of:

• A database host.
• A server which hosts the correlation, qualification and risk assesment engine.
• N agent hosts which do information collection tasks from a number of devices. For a list of plugins please refer to: http://www.ossim.com/home.php?id=plugins
• A control daemon which does some maintenance work and ties some parts together. It’s called frameworkd.
• The frontend is web based, unifying all the gathered information and providing the ability to control each of the components.

7hrs 16 mins..

hmmm… don worry its not the time which i waited for something to happen!
my ftp folder copy process says this.. trying to copy some 40 mb of stuff from my pragyan account.. and since my net speed is godlike.. it says this!

ah.. home..

finally reached home..
had setup this idiotic bsnl connection.. something called netone.. its a temporary one till i get my broadband activated.. wanted desperately to come online.. was feeling so weird for the last 2-3 days.. but anyway of no use.. the reason i wanted to come online.. hmm i guess its not happening..
btw my connection speed is 48.8 kbps! phew thats something to DECENT!

ps: kripya payedan par khade ho kar yaatra na karen, paer phisal jayega!! (its in hindi)

india vs pakistan!

ha, reached delhi today morning… got a bit late.. had made plans of watching india pakistan test match at feroz shah kotla ground earlier..
went home.. dumped my stuff.. changed.. had breakfast.. and then me and my cousin bro left for kotla.. reached there at 11 i guess.. there was a looooooong queue of visitors desperately trying to enter the premises of the pavilion. The was a lot of security around.. armed guards were patrolling around the stadium.. even we had to go through some 6 security check before we could reach our stand.. ours was the east wing lower stand.. we got some pretty good seats.. third from the front.. we could easily see all the happenings..
it was pretty fun.. there were some funny slogans being sung.. had a nice time.. a much needed break.. btw few of the slogans were..

“north south east west, indian tigers are the best”.

when zaheer was standing in front of our stand, the crowd was shouting
“arre zaheer muh dikhai ka kya lega”

well there was this weird guy who was sitting in front of our row..he was muslim.. i never thought abt it.. but this guy and an incident which happened later on made me think.. will post all this in a different post some day.. there was something which made me kinda hate this guy.. every time wasim jaffer or zaheer used to come near our stands, he used to shout at them “abe tu ja, uss sale harbhajan/ganguly ko hata..jakar dikha de ki hamari kom kya kar sakti hai”.. or he used to shout at times “karthik ko hatao, kaif ko layo”.

there are some questions which are bothering me a lot..

is this hindu-muslim thing still there?
has it reached our sports also?
will now our cricket team be governed by it?
will we ever forget religion?
is being a hindu/muslim really important to us?

hmmm.. lets c when will i get answers to all my questions..

ps: i tried, tried hard but could not.. i failed..

my journey..

hmm…blogging offline.. on my laptop..

anyway got late for the train a bit.. had thought of buying some novels before the journey but got a bit late at uncle’s place.. reached station at around 9.35 pm.. my train was at 10.. tamil nadu express.. ran to collect my luggage from the cloak room.. had kept some stuff there as its hectic to carry it all around… and again it was quite heavy too..

grabbed a sandwich from hot breads.. reached my compartment some 5 mins before departure.. thought will check my seat no in the chart first.. went through the list twice but could not find my name in that.. checked my ticket again.. it said the same coach.. checked the departure date.. everything was correct.. went to the tt to ask him about my ticket status..came to noe that i had been upgraded to 2ac! hmm, its the seventh time in the last 2 yrs this has happened to me.. my luck works every time (but only here, nowhere else)!

journey started on a pretty dull note, dint get anything to pass my time.. could not find anyone from my college either..normally there are some 10-15 of us in the same train. hmm…thought would by a reader’s digest but the vendor dint have one! bought a copy of the sunday indian, a pretty good bet.. turned out to be interesting.. some decent articles by arindam chaudhary. quite a good description of what happened at nandigram and the indo-us deal. well the cpi(m) seems to be surrounded from all sides after both these issues came into limelight..

ha.. was awake till late that night.. thinking about something, which had been bothering since i left college, actually trichy station! was listening to songs.. could not read anything as the reading light of my berth was not working! kept looking at mob every 5 mins (to check the time, and not waiting for anything else!!). could not sleep as well..dint remember when i slept.. the last time i looked at my mob it was 2.30 am..i guess slept some 15-20 mins after that..

saturday was much more boring. my ipod battery had almost drained out.. woke up when the vendor came to give me my breakfast which i had ordered the last night.. dint feel like getting up, so slept again. finally, got up around 10 a.m., train had stopped at some station at that time. went out to look for a newspaper.. could not find it though. came back had breakfast and started reading the magazine which i had bought..

there was an article on “om shanti om” being the most entertaining masala movie ever! waise i have to agree.. its too much of masala! hmm, can be watched once if you leave your mind at home before going to theatre.. it revolves around the karz funda.. reincarnation.. dont think too much while watching it.. its “kuch bhi hota hai” types!

anyway weather outside was perfect.. a bit of sunshine.. nice breeze.. green surroundings.. i have always wondered how life would have been if i had lived somewhere in the country side, i have always loved watching the green fields, the small kids who wave at you from outside..whenever i am travelling in train!

hmm… nagpur came around 2.30 am.. had thought will have lunch there.. but then so used to skipping lunch that skipped today also.. actually dint feel like doing anything! hmm.. slept for sometime in the afternoon.. then went around to check whether there is anyone in the train whom i ll noe.. na..couldnt..

it was a bit chilly in the evening. was standing at the compartment entrance door for like an hour or something.. gazing out.. thinking.. hmmm, chuck it..

suddenly realised that i had forgot to wish dado on his bday.. so stupid of me.. had been thinking all stupid things since morning(actually night), how could i forget this.. tried callin him.. some network problem, finally out of frustration msged him.. will call him once i reach home!

i don remember when i spoke something last time.. had been quiet for some 17 hours i guess.. thats quite abnormal of me.. but then i guess will be like this atleast for sometime now..

hmm.. don have anything to write.. actually have loads to.. but then it doesn find place here.. will probably find place in my diary though.. looking forward to reach delhi asap.. will spend some time will my cousins, guess that will give some rest to my idiotic mind!

ps: the worst time is when you wait for something to happen.. imagining things, thinking and u just keep on thinking!