Setting up CVS on Netbeans 5.0 in Windows XP

It actually took me quite some time to set up CVS on Netbeans probably because the documentation is not very straightforward (on the net as well as within Netbeans itself). Hence the decision of writing a small tutorial.

Setting up CVS

On Windows XP, a manual setup is required because unlike Unix, the standard CVS executable in Netbeans does not support server mode. So you need to first

--> Download a software called CVSNT and Proceed with the typical install.

Once that is done,

--> Start CVSNT Control Panel and then select the Repository Configuration Panel.
--> Click on Add and Specify a path to your repository ( ie a place where all your files will be stored). Make sure that the path you specify does not contain any spaces.
--> Specify a name (eg. "MyName" for the repository) or you could use the default that is generated which is also the name of ur folder.

After that is done, get back to the main tab in the CVS Control Panel and start both the services you see viz the locker and the server ie If they are not already started

Now,

--> Right click on "MyComputer" and select Properties.
--> Select the Advanced Tab and then click on "Environment Variables"
--> Add a new system variable called CVSROOT and give it a value of the path you specified for the repository
--> Add another variable called CVS_EXE and give it the path to your cvs.exe file in your CVSNT installation directory.


Now once that is done Check out the CVSROOT module ie.
--> Open up cmd and type "cvs co CVSROOT"
--> Type "cd CVSROOT"
--> Type "notepad cvswrappers"
--> Paste the following into the file

*.cab -k 'b'
*.class -k 'b'
*.doc -k 'b'
*.dll -k 'b'
*.exe -k 'b'
*.exp -k 'b'
*.gif -k 'b'
*.gz -k 'b'
*.jar -k 'b'
*.jpg -k 'b'
*.jpeg -k 'b'
*.lib -k 'b'
*.msi -k 'b'
*.mso -k 'b'
*.pfw -k 'b'
*.png -k 'b'
*.ppt -k 'b'
*.sit -k 'b'
*.tar -k 'b'
*.tlb -k 'b'
*.vsd -k 'b'
*.xls -k 'b'
*.wmz -k 'b'
*.zip -k 'b'

--> Save and close notepad and Type "cvs commit"

Adding your project into CVS

Fire up Netbeans and go into the Projects Tab on the left. Right click on your project and select CVS-> Import into Repository

Type in " :local:/MyName " without the drive name. eg Do NOT type " :local:/D:/MyName "

Follow the instructions that come...


Here are some of the links that i used to set this tutorial up
http://www.devguy.com/fp/cfgmgmt/cvs/cvs_admin_nt.htm
http://wiki.netbeans.info/wiki/view/FaqHowToAccessLocalCVS
http://www.cvsnt.org/wiki/InstallationTips#head-4d802aee8b175f5581ca832a7ae1d91c3b2c8225

There is a lot of material out there but its not as consolidated as one would want. Anyways happy CVSing

MESCOE or NOT to MESCOE

3 years it has been. And what a life at MESCOE!!! There's never pressure on you to do coding assignments on your own. Never pressure on you to study for your mid-sems, cos the mid-sem results don't reflect on your marksheet. Never pressure on you to do journal work on time, cos if you are late, so is your co-operative class, which means our submissions get delayed by a week :) YAY!!! (although I can't speak for the girls... they are SO DAMN particular DAMN how can they be SO particular!!) Never pressure on you to mix with the crowd, EVERYONE is really friendly at MESCOE. Never pressure on you to worry about, "Oh no! Fee paying time again. Now its gonna be another 60 grand!! ". Fees have always been moderate, 35G, way less than any other college. Never pressure on you to ride 30 Kms to college, consequently screwing your back and ur life.

So, ya, after experiencing all that. Who wouldn't want to join MESCOE!!

True, engineering is all about chilling out, not learning anything, passing by clearing by the skin of ur teeth, bunking, forgetting everything after exams are over, doing nothing as the semester passes by, but eventually, everyone gets placed. Thats where MESCOE falters. PLACEMENTS. The reason it all exists. To get a job at the end of it all, to realize that someone thinks that you are talented (and you know thats all crap! ), to realize that now ur gonna start earning and support ur dad, to buy
stuff that was once way outta your league n stuff like that.

All the way upto TE, noone ever emphasized that quantitative aptitude was such an important thing. Companies come in and take an aptitude test first. So no matter how good you are at technical stuff, if ur not good at finding how many men it takes to complete so much work when 3 men can do it in so much time, then ur history. Neither did we have any mock tests, which by the way were held every week in other colleges, neither did we have someone who had good contacts to get us the best companies, neither did we have enough infrastructure to boast about, neither did we have enough class strength so that companies would visit by just looking at the sheer number of engineers the college churns out every year. Just when i thought it was all worthwhile, I see some colleges being visited by 75 companies, 150 companies, 250 companies and i wonder... was joining MESCOE really worth it? With only a handful of companies visiting and most of us having to battle it out on our own, i realized, this was a big mistake. Well atleast till i get placed myself!

BUT BUT, ideally, isn't computer engineering about learning technical stuff, coding the toughest problems, understanding how compilers work, learning about Java, .NET etc... So i thought, this system of taking aptitude tests is BullShit. The company tests should ONLY be based on how much you have learnt. Well.... thats what happened once. There did come one company which stressed on EXACTLY that (Indigo Architects). The test was based on one knowing how to write the best
algorithms, knowing the latest stuff in technology. But oops! When did the teachers in out college teach us how to code? For goodness sake, they didn't even teach us "C" properly, let alone .NET, compilers, Data Structures, Algorithms and other stuff. So how in the hell were we supposed to crack that test? Eventually none of us cleared that test...

Diametrically, 80% of my seniors have got placed through some way or the other with packages ranging from 2 to 4, which isn't ALL that bad! Coming to think of it all, mebbe, just mebbe that hope that i will one day get placed in some or the other company still lives on. On the 2nd next month, comes another company, MASTEK. Lets see what happens there. To MESCOE or NOT to MESCOE is STILL the question....

Eccentric Power Savings

Under the strong influence of the media and its current propaganda about global warming, i resolved to do something about the situation. Finally when i got some free time (THANKFULLY!!!!), i started digging the internet for ideas on power saving and i came across this web-page that said,

BLACK GOOGLE WOULD SAVE 750 MegaWatt-Hours A YEAR!!!

Huh??????
No really, the article described the fact that a cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor uses about 74 watts to display an all white web page, but only uses 59 watts to display an all black page!!! So, after applying a few calcuations, such as how much time an average user views a google page or how many queries does it get in a day, it concluded that if Google were to change to a black screen, then the world would be saving atleast $75000 a year :)


So, wait a minute... Thats not gonna happen is it? NOPE. Atleast, i wouldn't let it happen. :) . I cant imagine my monitor giving me an impression that im doing a graveyard shift at 12 in the afternoon!! HEHE!! Then what?? Well, there is an alternative. It considers the use of a specialized palette, ie the use of a certain set of colors on ur webpage that would use only 4 watts more than an all black monitor. Thats still 11 watts less than conventional screens . Think of the savings!!!

Here's the palette in case ur interested :)

Fingering with Luck

Well, today was my System's Programming Practical Exam. You know, all that crap about assemblers, macro processors, cpu jop scheduling plus an added bonus of Java!! Too much of spinach on my plate if you ask me. Or mebbe even "karela" for that matter :). Till the very last night, our entire class was mailing one another programs!! Including a "newly" corrected program that had to be learnt and reproduced with whatever means possible (including the use of our brand new flash drives that have just happened to become cheap and popular within these last few months). No seriously, 2 years previous, people did not know what a USB port is!!!


So as usual, i went late. Got a scolding, lost my pen, found my pen and reached late, just to find out that all the good computers with the GOOD keyboards were taken. Now i was left with ancient rock solid clickety-clacks with dust smirched all over them. Wah!! What luck. No actually, What Timing!!! Who asked me come late in the first place! No actually, I was late because I bumped into Batman on the way and he started telling me how he broke up with Rowan Atkinson. :)


So i looked, and looked, and found a good keyboard. Only to realize that the computer did not have VC++ installed on it. So i looked and looked and found the right computer for me. ALAS! The saga ended. Actually, no. There was one more thing. Perhaps, the most frustrating thing of all. After writing a great deal of code, i switch over to TC to compile and run my code. And what do you know, the program would just HANG there. No error, no mouse movement. Just the plain indifference of the compiler to respond to my memorandum. Drat! I hate it when software fails. So after repeated tests, some of which prompted me to change my machine, i realized that i was screwed, chicaned and beaten. All attempts failed, I decided to write the code again to see if it would work. And then after typing out the ENTIRE code "ditto" once again into a new file, voila!! Eureka!!! It ran!! And what was the error?? It seemed that VC++ saved the file in some other ".c" format that the TC ".c" compiler could not read. Now who on earth would have thought of that!!! Drat!! I hate it when software fails!!!