Thanks to this post for introducing me to TED. It has a quality collection of videos. It’s amazing and addictive. I’ve already watched over 15 and the count is still on…
Witnessing the IT-BHU alumni meet for the first time since I graduated, was like getting back in time. And I am not only referring to the time while I was studying over there, it was much much beyond that! Listening to a couple of senior alumnus sharing their memories of college times was nostalgic.
I was amazed at the timespan which got covered with the representation. We had alumnus right from 1930’s to 2000’s! Now that’s 8 decades of graduates collected under a single roof. Isn’t that amazing? Great feeling to be associated with an institution with such a glorious and extended past.
Another welcome change was to get acquainted with some of the exceptional achievements by distinguished alumnus in various industries. Though I had never met them, nor did I know much about most of them before yesterday, just being associated with the same institution as them was such a proud feeling. Moreover, their affinity to the institution was far greater than what I see in myself.
I guess it is fairly important to realize the impact an institution can make. While there’s no doubt that a great institution like IT-BHU can provide with the best of education and opportunities while one is enrolled there, the biggest mistake which most of us seem to make (and I was making too) is to ignore the impact an institution could have beyond graduating out of it. More important than anything else which shapes our careers at such institutions is the presence of competent and intellectual batchmates either through competition or support. Nevertheless, what matters is the strong networking opportunity one gets out of the institution. As a matter of fact, whatever is taught at any institution can easily be inculcated sitting at home through books and various modes of education available these days. But what can not be achieved sitting at home is the networking aspect.
There are specific organizations running across the globe whose sole purpose is to provide networking opportunities. And that too at premium charges! While they do have their importance, I believe much can also be achieved by alumni meets which not only give similar opportunities, but also strengthens the bonds which seem to be slowly fading away after we graduate.
With the 6th IT-BHUÂ AGM round the corner, I suddenly feel excited about it. Reminds me of the good-old-college-days, still as fresh as anything else. Looking forward ‘>>’ to get back ‘<<‘ in time
I don’t really remember when was the last time I reached home from work while the Sun was still shining. And fortunately, it was today, the 30th of April 2008 that I was home without switching on the headlights of my motorbike.
Also, I just realized that if I don’t put up a posting today, it would be the first month without a post, since I started blogging. Definitely not something I even dreamed of. So this is one of those obligatory posts.
Let me carry on from where I left:
Again, for the last 2-3 weeks, I’ve spent a lot of hours at work. More often or not, the work flowed down to my home too. The end result is still not visible to me. Something was terribly wrong. I was spending time, but not getting enough out of it. I know it happens sometimes, but this time, it was a long stretch. Though there was a lot of work pending, I decided to pull myself out of this by deciding to take the last weekend completely off the work. I deliberately decided to not even think about it. And this did wonders to the way I was perceiving things at my end. The last three days have been more productive than the last two weeks I suppose! Also, now I can easily realize what went wrong. Instead of focusing on the current task at hand, I was overwhelmed by the sea of things I had to accomplish. It was partly because of the fact that the situation didn’t allow me to overlook certain things which I should have. The bottom line is that one can only do a limited amount of work in a given time, so it will always make sense to focus on the current task at hand. However, it is also important to have a planning and visibility towards what’s coming next.
Lastly, I think I’ve been in and out of such situations quite a few times. Whatever I try out, such situations are inevitable once in a while. So next time I am caught in such a situation, I’ll take that ‘Obligatory Break!’ which would hopefully help me to get back on track both physically and mentally 🙂
“Caution! This is a lengthy post and not intended for casual reading. You can only appreciate this if you’ve faced the issue.”
At last, I am able to hibernate and resume my system successfully, which has been bothering for quite some time now. Just before writing this post, I hibernated and resumed my system for a whopping 15 times in a row!
Before I explain what worked for me here’s what I have:
The Problem:
For me, suspend always worked but on hibernating the system the screen goes black, with a blinking text cursor in the upper left corner and then the screen turns off but the power LED is still lit and the fan remains active till I press the power button to forcibly shut the system.
The Cause:
While there could be numerous reasons for hibernate/suspend not working, mine was attributed to the graphics card driver settings and the way the power management software dealt with the state while hibernating/resuming. After going through numerous forums, wikis and blogs hunting for the solution, I can safely say that 90% of the hibernate/suspend issues are attributed to the same.
The Solution:
Since I didn’t find the solution to the hibernate problem at a single place, it came out of a lot of trial and error. According to me, it makes sense to understand a couple of things before trying out the solution.
This suspend is a power saving mode while hibernate is a power sleep mode.
Now enough of theory, let’s get onto some practicals:
If you haven’t changed the default settings, Ubuntu Gutsy would most likely be using ACPI. Here’s how I proceeded:
Option “NvAGP” “1”
4. Prevent the OS from loading the default agpgart and the AGP driver for the chipset by adding the following in the blacklisted modules(type sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist on a terminal)
blacklist intel_agp
blacklist agpgart
5. Modify ACPI settings
On a terminal type: sudo gedit /etc/default/acpi-support and ensure the following:
ACPI_SLEEP=true
ACPI_HIBERNATE=true
SAVE_VBE_STATE=false
POST_VIDEO=false
SAVE_VIDEO_PCI_STATE=true
6. Finally if you’re using compiz (desktop-effects) in conjunction with NVIDIA binary drivers, make sure your “Sync to VBLANK” option in “Advanced Desktop Effects Settings > General > Display settings” is *disabled*. You can set this option to false by running:
gconftool --set /apps/compiz/general/screen0/options/sync_to_vblank 0 --type bool
This is just a compilation of information gathered through various forums/websites. Hopefully hibernate should work well by playing around with the settings as explained above. If it doesn’t, I can just say Good Luck! Keep trying! And please post anything which helped to get your Vostro hibernate 🙂