We have heard of freedom to animals, human being , countries etc. But have any one of you heard of Software Freedom Day. This year September 19^th is celebrated across the world as Software Freedom Day or SFD.

This day is meant to spread awareness of independent software and also prompt people to use independent software. This task has been done under the initiative of American based Software Freedom International . Every year the third Saturday in September is celebrated as

SFD.

The SFI was formed under the leadership of renowned software programmer Richard Stallman. They believed that for social development, awareness of computers should be spread to all people.

Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie etc of Bell Laboratory the research  division of American telephone and Telegraph company (AT & T)  developed Unix operating system. In 1973 Unix re launched  with ‘C’ programming became very popular in business organizations , Universities etc.

But in 1980s Unix stopped giving source code to its customers. Also copyright rule was followed very strictly. This created uneasiness among software programmers and they decided to fight against the commercialization of software. In 1983 September 27^th GNU project started. The meaning of GNU is “GNU is Not Unix”

In 1984 Stallman started the programming of GNU Operating system. In 1985 March GNU Manifesto was published. In 1985 October 4^th Free Software Foundation was formed.

In 1992 GNU completed almost the work of its operating system. But could not able to complete its central body or kernel. In 1991 Linus Torwalds of Helsinki University has programmed a kernel called Linux. In 1991 itself he published its source code in internet. He was a post graduate in computer science. He developed this kernel at the age of 21 years.

Many programmers did so many additions and deletions and made Linux a high class kernel.

In 1992 Linux kernel accepted GNU General Public License. This helped GNU to complete its operating system, ie. Linux.

There is a story behind the Free software foundation. When Stallman was working in MIT, that time most softwares are available with their source codes. Everybody in his office were using printer that is network connected. This printer frequently shows problems like the paper getting jammed etc. Stallman made some changes in the driver of the printer. As per this one will get a message in his system if the print job given by him is completed. Also a message will be sent to all systems if paper gets jammed. This was very helpful for all. That time a new printer was installed in their office. Stallman liked to make similar changes in its driver also. But its source code was not available. Stallman approached the people who prepared the source code. But they didn’t give. He was very angry and decided to fight for independent softwares.

The first decision to be taken in ISA design is the type of internal storage in the CPU. The three major choice are: a stack and accumulator architectures. Let us study how a stack organization works.

A stack is a storage device that stores information in a last-in-first-out(LIFO) fashion. Only two type of operations are possible in a stack, namely push and pop operations. Push places data onto the top of the stack, while pop removes the topmost program and in some cases the operating can be used explicitly for execution of a program and in some cases the operating system implements its implicitly, such as in subroutine calls and interrupts, as discussed earlier. Some computers reserve a separate memory for stack operations. However, most computers utilize main memory for representing stacks. For accessing data stored in stack, we need a stack pointer(Sp) register. The SP register is initially loaded with the address of the top of the stack. Each instruction pops its source operands off the stack and pushes its result on the stack. In memory, the stack is actually upside down.

Today morning,I was going through the daily news paper, when I noticed that a news that I heard about a year ago, has finally made great progress.What is it? - an operating system created by INDIANS!. Yes, it was developed bt C-DAC(Centre for Development of Advanced  Computing).The C-DAC is an organisation devoted to developing computing technologies, for India, it has featured research and development of softwares across various areas, from engineering ,manufacturing to government and hostpital applications.

The C-DAc was established in 1988,it has been carrying out R&D in the field of Information technology for more than past two decades, today the total number of centers they have throughout India is around 11.They have been indulging themselves in developing and researching in many of the leading technologies like Natural language processing-where a software either interprets your speech language to text or text to speech, also in the field of artificial intelligence, grid computing,cyber security,high performance computers,etc.,THere are certain research areas that are mind boggling, like Bioinfomatics,evolutionary computing, cloud computing,parallel computing, computational fluid dynamics, etc.,

Some of the prominent results of C-DAC is the creation of a national level computing grid that can connect 17 cities across India, they call it Garuda(finally some softwares and applications with Indian names!!).They have reconfigured the GNU open office to suit Indian users, with support to Indian languages.There is something that is called x-server in linux operating systems,that renders whatever you see in the display, C-DAC has modified it so that the x-server can render indian languages in a linux platform! - They call it IndiX.They have also created translation applications that can sucessfully translate querries from Hindi to Engilsh and viceversa.The works of C-DAc(the list of them) goes on and on.

http://www.cdac.in/html/research_development.aspx

They not only offer computational solutions and researching, they also provide cources through which aspiruing students can benefit a lot.These are no ordinary cources, some of the cources offered are:

Diploma in Advanced Computing (DAC)

Diploma in Embedded Systems Design Course (DESD)

Diploma in Geoinformatics Course (DIG)

Diploma in Information Technology (DIT)

(there are more)

The Boss operating system features many sets of tools created by C-DAc, also with other packages offered by linux.They are offering free shipping of CDs containing the operating system or free delivery of the Cds to your home!.

http://bosslinux.in/

Now that we know a little about C_DAC, we will now see something about the operating system that they have developed.Since Linux is open source, the C-DAC has come up with plans to develop an Os, that would suit the Indian users.It has released the current version-BOSS V3 last year .But recently they have released the news that the varient of BOSS operating system, that is redesigned to suit educational purposes and serve as a motivational product to encourage educational bodies to use open source software.They have planned to release the OS on the childern's day!.

So what are the features of EduBOSS?

It will contain the many free packages that the original BOSS operating system had offered, plus it will contain tools fo the educational purposes.Better, it will be completely customizable to user needs-the user can actually tailor the OS to their needs(if they have the proper knowledge to do so, obviously).

This is something to be proud of, being an Indian!!

Radios have been a part of our daily lives since it's introduction to the world.People used it as the only entertainment and infotainment device, until other media like Television and internet came along.Tape recorders and radios became a thing of the past for few years since people were more occupied with the new technologies.

There was a question of whether people wanted to go for a radio where they can hear or for a T.V. where they can hear and see!.The obvious choice being television, the shine of radios faded.It is always the tendency of us humans to wander into our own curiosity.Whatever is new and being talked about most, we try to have a glimpse of it.This again led to the downfall of televisions also, due to other media(internet, games mobile phones,etc.,).Long gone are the days when people used to sit together for dinner and watch their favorite show.(though many of them still watch tv while eating but not for the fun of it).

Ok, let's come to the topic-Radio.The interest of radio picked up when companies started to relay songs -FM through them.It not only became a great tool for advertising and marketing, but also is a great entertainment tool.The technology from vaccum tubes to ICs have had their effect on radio.Now the Internet is also having it's effect on radio-a positive one.

There are a lot of internet-radios available.A rather famous audio player-winamp has built in radio streaming capability.Many other audio players support streaming of songs but most of the times, paid content.What is so unique about internet radio,than the conventional radio we have at homes?

There is one thing, your radio at home cannot do-get you songs that are being played at different stations across the world!.That's right, through internet radio, you can get access to many international radio channels,news,etc.,The other neat thing about internet radios is that you can choose the stations based on region(asia,europe,etc.,) or you can choose stations based on their genre -a great feature that is absent in conventional radios.What's more, you can start your own internet radio!.

Most of the internet radios stream content in MP3 format, some use Ogg Vorbis,et some use wma format.Internet radio started with the introduction of a streamed talk show in 1993, where every week a computer expert would be interviewed.Soon, the radio companies realised the potential of internet radio and started implementing their own internet stations.Now there are thousands of internet radio stations and it is becoming more and more popular, since people are using internet more.Who doesn't want to hear music when you do some work? or when you just want to relax.And since many people in the world have internet at home, they find internet radio a very useful tool.You need not worry about playlists,changing songs, etc., all you have to do is select the station, they'll relay great songs for you.What's more, some internet radios not only offer songs and entertainment, some offer education too in the form of pod-casts.Moreover, many Internet radios give you the option to record what you are hearing.Isn't it great? then what are you waiting for? download an internet radio and try it!

I found a good internet radio, that plays many international station(also contains some Indian stations too) it's lite, doesn't take up too much memory.click here

There are also other internet radios available ,so try googling them.