Celtic Music

Before I start, just want to mention that, I have used the word "music" for both music and songs. Apparently, there is a huge difference between songs and music, where no explanation needed.  
Music is a cure to reduce our stress and a good friend for loneliness. There is no argument, that the taste of music depends upon the person and the situation. Well, my taste of music varying widely from classical to modern music, I like most of the classical songs, apart from 00s songs and I have a collection of 'ABBA', 'BeeGees', songs in my hard disk. Since I have born and live in southern Asia, except local music, mostly we hear US music and some Hindi (Indian) music. As a personal favor, I don't like many modern US songs which contain raps and foul language, which are not help full to release my mind.

Clannad group; Photo Credit: www.clannad.ie

Celtic music, European folk music, New Age music, etc. is not popular in my country, probably in Asia. However, I was lucky to find them on Youtube a few years back, and now I'm a Celtic fan. Clannad is one of the greatest classical Celtic and New Age group and I like the song "Newgrange"  which explains about a mysterious place in Ireland. Clannad performed in early 80s, and their contribution for the Celtic music is remarkable.
In 00s, a group called Celtic Woman established to continue old Celtic folk music and some Clannad music with on stage live shows. Honestly speaking, I have listened to Clannad and Enya (former Clannad member) songs before, but I really got to know about Celtic music after  I listen to Celtic Woman. I really like their live shows (unfortunately I haven't seen them for real) not because gorgeous women perform on the stage, but their voices and the way they conduct the show. They use traditional instruments with modern technologies, which brings awesomeness to their show. In 2006, they did a studio album + a live show, titled "Celtic Woman: A New Journey" which is my favorite.

Celtic Woman : A New Journey 2006

Today, unlike a few years back, Celtic Woman has become very popular, but the group has reduced to four members by disappointing their fans. I still like to see  Chloë Agnew, Órla Fallon, Lisa Kelly, Méav Ní Mhaolchatha and Hayley Westenra perform as Celtic Woman vocalists.

Prediction vs Reality

Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series of novels are my favorite novels. I read them all including 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001 a long time ago when I was a kid. I had no idea about the storyline, somehow I enjoyed the space adventure of my own imagination. 2001: A Space Odyssey had written in 1968, even before Apollo 11 journey. The movie 2001: A Space Odyssay is considered as one of the best movies of all time. I watched it two years ago and still I'm wondering how did they build that movie in the 60s.

After all, this series of novels brings some real facts that we are experiencing. I have no idea about "Monolith" (a black cuboid), but the other explained things like space traveling (Discovery and Alexei Leonov), fifth generation computer (HAL) and evolution of a non-human species (creators of Monolith).

In the present day, we can clearly note some of the evidence which proves about these fictional facts. Modern computer scientists keep doing research and making new algorithms to improve the artificial intelligence until they build a computer with feelings. The space traveling is  roll-backed, if you compare with 60s and 70s. However, we can see some long term projects to make a journey to the Mars. Evolution of our own species is now moving to machines. As described in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Firstborn discovered later how to transfer their consciousness onto computers, and thus they became thinking machines. In the end, they surpassed even this achievement, and were able to transfer entirely from physical to non-corporeal forms - the "Lords of the Galaxy" — omniscient, immortal, and capable of travelling at great speeds. What will happen next ? Will someone completely transfer in to a machine?

Geeky Linux

I was in the middle of a long debate about typical Windows and Linux topic. This wasn't a real debate, just a discussion among friends. The main argument was, why Linux isn't popular even it distributed as a free product ?
My conclusion is, in earlier days, Linux was mainly a terminal based operating system. The old versions had a basic desktop environment with a powerful terminal. So every Linux user had to use the terminal, which is a pain for normal computer users. Older version of windows had a better GUI interface rather than Linux. Therefore, many users chose their OS as windows and a trend has begun.
Due to the popularity of Windows, many software vendors decided to build their products to Windows platform and later they build a Linux version as well.
The main problem in Linux is, you cannot find Linux as a single OS. It is a kernel and the platform always depends on the distribution. Example, if you download "vlc" for Redhat (.rpm), you cannot use it in "Debian" (.deb).
As a solution, Linux community uses archives which are compatible for all platforms. The drawback behind archive installation is, if the uses are non technical person, they might find it difficult to install dependencies (libraries) or compile the source.
Troubleshooting the system and applications is something we have to do with our own. I use both Linux and Windows, apparently, I can say, troubleshooting Windows is much easier than Linux.
In Windows, most of the installations can be done by double clicking and filling the installation wizard.
I think, Linux is improving and moving from geeks to normal users, especially Ubuntu distribution. Hopefully, they will make an OS which can do 90% of things without using the terminal.
PS: I haven't mentioned Mac OS, because I have less knowledge about it.

Local Repositories

My debian iso dvd is unreadable for some reason. Fortunately, I copied that dvd to my brother's machine, which contains 500GB of hard drive. My PC has a smaller disk, and I'm afraid to waste it for replicating. My problem was, how to add that copied dvd to my repositories ?
After a google search, I found a solution. Let me briefly share it with you.
If you really want to maintain a local repository which is in your network, you can use NFS server.
package: nfs-kernel-server

• create a directory, "mkdir -p /repo/deb"

• edit "etc/exports" file and add the following line,

"/repo 192.168.1.0/24(ro,root_squash,sync,no_subtree_check)"

• restart "nfs-kernel-server"

Optionally, you can use "chkconfig -e" to add nsf-server as a start-up service
and perform "showmount -e localhost" command to get the export list. After all, you can extract the iso image to "deb" directory. (or replicate)
In your client machine, you can add "nfs://<server ip>/repo/deb <alias>" line to "sources.list".
This is useful, if you run a local network with many Linux hosts.