The blog is discontinued

Since, I have graduated, this blog has been discontinued.

In case someone is interested to maintain/continue it, please leave a comment at http://ashishb.net/about with your email ID.

DC++ and Torrent

Dc++ is a file sharing software which is used to access contents shared
over the LAN (like previous year's placement papers, ebooks and softwares)
A DC Hub is a central server which maintains a central (indexed) list of
"distributed" contents on the LAN for easy search. Therefore, one needs to
connect to [at least one] hub to perform the search. Following are two
main hubs [which are currently active], (the list of active hubs is
usually available on NG) and by the navya hublist.xml mentioned in earlier
mail.
1. 172.24.32.74:1209
2. 172.24.48.136:411

Another similar and popular mechanism for sharing is Torrents. Register at
torrentcore.junta.iitk.ac.in to search and download torrents which can be
used with uTorrent/BitTorrent. [Personally, I have not used Torrents a lot
so I won't be able to put more light on the same]

Some Useful Links

Here I am going to list some useful URLs which you will might/might not be
aware of
1. http://www.iitk.ac.in/cc/ipaddress_hostel.htm - To find the IP allocated to your room [req to contact pc to LAN]

2. http://www.iitk.ac.in/tel/www/ - Telephone Directory [contains Office as well as Residence phone numbers of all Faculties as well]

3. http://bit.ly/userdb2 - A {campus} community search engine which was created long back [due to lack of flexibility in OA search]

4. navya.junta.iitk.ac.in - A site consisting of useful services for the campus (I am just mentioning quite a few here)
a)DC HubList http://navya.junta.iitk.ac.in/wiki/moin.cgi/HubList
b)A Linux Beginner's Guide
http://navya.junta.iitk.ac.in/wiki/moin.cgi/TechnicalStuff?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=linux_beginners_booklet.pdf
c)Accessing cc servers (this one illustrates MATLAB)
http://navya.junta.iitk.ac.in/wiki/moin.cgi/AppFAQ#Matlabconnect

Note:
1. navya is sometimes inaccessible from inside CSE building

Accesing Internet

This
time I am going to talk about the proxies available. [In layman's term
proxy is our gateway to access Internet from the local Intranet]

1. vsnlproxy.iitk.ac.in (port 3128)
2. ernetproxy.iitk.ac.in (port 3128)
3. bsnlproxy.iitk.ac.in (port 3128)
4. nknproxy.iitk.ac.in (port 3128)
5. No proxy - I prefer to call it transparent proxy[technically, that's what it is] set the preferred nameserver[in LAN settings] to 172.31.1.130 and then u can access internet without using an explicit proxy name [as soon as you open any internet website for the first time, it will ask for
your cc username and password]

Note:
1. When using any of the first 4 proxies, one has to set "no proxy" for all the websites inside IITK [to access them].
A simple No Proxy setting which can be use to set no proxy for all websites [inside campus] is "localhost, 127.0.0.1,.iitk.ac.in,172.0.0.0/8" [for firefox]

2. Switch proxy is a good addon (for Firefox) for fast switching switch between proxies (when one goes down just switch to another) http://bit.ly/switchproxy
3. For all those Linux geeks out there
How to configure internet access from command line
A. To use one of first 4 proxies for internet for "sudo apt-get upgrade", configure /etc/wgetrc [no I won't give the full steps, just the hint, you use Linux, learn to read "man pages"]
B. [REcommended]To use (transparent proxy) internet, use http://bit.ly/firewall-auth , its a Python script written by Siddharth Agarwal (Y7 cse)
My suggestion: start a screen [command name screen], start "python _script name_", detach the screen [ctrl-A d], the script keeps running in the screen providing full internet access on the terminal.

4. I am receiving quite a lot of [similar] queries regarding my previous mails. Instead of mailing me directly, please post queries as comments on the blog.

Genuine Microsoft Softwares for Free

Genuine Copies of Microsoft Softwares including Vista, Windows 7, SQL Server etc. are available for free to campus community since IIT Kanpur is a partner university in Microsoft Academic Alliance.

The link is http://msdn70.e-academy.com/iitk_compsci . Login ID is youremailid@iitk.ac.in.
In case you do not remember your password(a mail containing your password was sent about an year ago), there is an option of forgot password on the link.

Note:
1. Credit for this post goes to a Y7 cse guy [who wish to remain anonymous]
2. Those who know me personally, please don't think that I have proselytized to Windows, I am still a die-hard Linux guy.

CC Storage and Setting Up Webpage

1. How to access your (cc linux) storage from your PC[at room]?
Use Winscp [ http://winscp.net/eng/index.php ] and access
"vyom.cc.iitk.ac.in" (Use cc username and password for access)

For a linux terminal (to execute cmds) use putty ( http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.exe ) and access one of the machines mentioned at http://www.iitk.ac.in/cc/linuxlab.htm

2. How to setup your webpage?
IITK provides 50MB webspace to setup your website at
home.iitk.ac.in/~
About 3 years back, as hall 2 cc secy, I prepared lectures on the same
[somewhat long and requires time and persistence to go through]
http://bit.ly/htm_lec1 - ppt on how to upload file to your webspace
http://bit.ly/htm_lec2 - ppt on how to create html pages

News Group

NEWS GROUP [ narad.cc.iitk.ac.in ]
A news group is online discussion board meant for discussing topics of
interest to the [campus] community like internships(iitk.internships),
department activities(iitk.cse, iitk.ee, iitk.me ...), gymkhana
activities(iitk.gymkhana, iitk.hostels) etc. Just like the mail
service(webmail.iitk.ac.in), IITK has its on
newsgroup(narad.cc.iitk.ac.in)

To access news group use either outlook express or thunderbird
OUTLOOK EXPRESS-
Open outlook express ---> and go to >accounts >>goto news
tab >>add >> news (enter the relevant columns)
( NTTP Server is: narad.cc.iitk.ac.in)
Now your account is created.
Then to subscribe to different group: Click >news group
and select the news group from the list.

MOZILLA THUNDERBIRD-
-Open Thunderbird tools >> account settings >> add account
-Select
-For News Group Server: narad.cc.iitk.ac.in
-Click ok
(use your webmail username and password here)
Source: http://www.iitk.ac.in/cc/network_faq.htm#ans2