How to stop RealPlayer crashing with SCIM

This is how to make realplayer stop crashing when scim is running
- edit /usr/bin/realplay
- add this line after bash declaration
GTK_IM_MODULE=xim ; export GTK_IM_MODULE

Ahmad Faraz

'Faraz' ab ko_ii saudaa ko_ii junuu.N bhii nahii.n
magar qaraar se din kaT rahe hon yuu.N bhii nahii.n

फ़राज़ अब कोई सौदा कोई जुनूँ भी नही
मगर करार से दिन कट रहे हों यूं भी नही

merii zubaa.N kii luknat se bad_gumaa.N na ho
jo tuu kahe to tujhe umr bhar miluu।N bhii nahii.n

मेरी जुबां कि लुक्नत से बद गुमाँ न हो
जो तू कहे तो तुझे उम्र भर मिलूं भी नही

Herbal remedy shown to have anti-cancer effect

Indian scientists have claimed for years that Triphala (Bengali: ত্রিফলা) has value as a detoxifying and anti-cancer agent. Now researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute say they have shown that it can prevent or slow the growth of pancreatic cancer tumours implanted in mice.

Read the article here.

'Shocking' racism in UK jobs market

CVs from six fictitious candidates - who were given traditionally white, black African or Muslim names - were sent to 50 firms by Radio Five Live.

White "candidates" were far more likely to be given an interview than similarly qualified black or Asian "names".

TUC boss Brendan Barber called for new laws in the face of "shocking" results.

Read the story here ....

Release Alan Johnston

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston disappeared on his way home from his Gaza City office on 12 March. He is feared kidnapped in the lawless territory, where he is thought to have been the only international correspondent still working. Intensive efforts have been made to secure his release. More than 35,000 people have signed a petition calling on anyone who has any influence on the situation to increase their efforts to secure Alan's immediate release.

Kissable Shilpa

BBC ran a story on their Entertainment section about Big Brother winner, former racism victim Shilpa Shetty. This time Richard Gere kissed her in public and everyone in India gasped in horror. I am not sure what pretty Shilpa felt as Gere made the dash for her plump South Indian lips sitting firmly below her famous nose. If this picture is anything to go by, she seems to be clutching firmly to the microphone - in the manner of a club. Which does not bode very well for Gere. Meanwhile her putlas (effigies) were getting burnt in India.

What caught my attention was this little sentence in the story : "Public displays of affection and sex are still largely taboo in India." I am not sure what is meant here - which country allows public display of sex ? I would very much like to visit that country :)

লিনাক্স্ যারা ব্যাবহার করে - তাদের জন্যে সহজ বাংলা

লিনাক্সে বাংলা ভাষায় লেখা এখন খুব সহজ। বিশেষ করে যারা Ubuntu অথবা Fedora Core 6 ব্যাবহার করে থাকেন। আমি নিজে এই দুটি distribution ব্যাবহার করেছি।

Fedora Core ৬ - এ কি ভাবে করবেন

• প্রথমে Applications ->Add/Remove Software (required root password)
• This will open the 'Package Manager'
• বাঁ দিকে Languages এর উপর click করুন
• তার পর Bengali Support choose করুন
• তার পর Apply করুন

এই Screenshot টা দেখুন

Once this process is over, you will have to logout and login again. You will now find this little SCIM icon (circled in red) in your Notification Area (see screen shot).
Go ahead and click it - you will now see a list of input methods available for Bengali.
আমি Bengali-Itrans input method ব্যাবহার করি কারন আমর মতে এটা সব চেয়ে সহজ - এবং অনেকটা Romanised Bengali লেখার মত . For instance 'aamaara naama aananda' will show up as আমার নাম আনন্দ . And that's cool. If you need a little look up table for the Bengali-Itrans input - it is here. There are some tricky bits for quaint Bengali alphabets like জ্ঞ গাং গাঁ ৎ etc - but it is very intuitive.

You can skip between English and Bengali inputs (obviously) :)

Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) - এ কি ভাবে করবেন

Will be updated soon

আশা করি সবাই বাংলায় লেখার চেষ্টা করবেন এবং আমাকে আপনাদের মতামত জানাবেন ।

View with a grain of sand

Perception without mindfulness sticks us with and to the surface appearance of things. We become imprisoned in the fabricated world of concepts.

View with a grain of sand
- Wislawa Szymborska


We call it a grain of sand,
but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.
It does just fine without a name,
whether general, particular,
permanent, passing, incorrect, or apt.

Our glance, our touch mean nothing to it.
It doesn't feel itself seen and touched.
And that it fell on the windowsill
is only our experience, not its.
For it, it is no different from falling on anything else
with no assurance that it has finished falling
or that it is falling still.

The window has a wonderful view of a lake,
but the view doesn't view itself.
It exists in this world
colorless, shapeless,
soundless, odorless, and painless.

The lake's floor exits floorlessly,
and its shore exists shorelessly.
Its water feels itself neither wet nor dry
and its waves to themselves are neither singular or plural.
They splash deaf to their own noise
on pebbles neither large nor small.

And all this beneath a sky by nature skyless
in which the sun sets without setting at all
and hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud.
The wind ruffles it, its only reason being
that it blows.

A second passes.
A second second.
A third.
But they're three seconds only for us.

Time has passed like a courier with urgent news.
But that's just our simile.
The character is invented, his haste is make-believe,
his news inhuman.