PRATIK ANAND's weblog.

iPRATIK - the Twitter web app

2010-07-07T20:45:00.006+05:30

After coming home in the college vacations, I faced with a shocking truth. My parents were going to US to meet my sis and me, being the worst timing champion, was having his internship in the same period. As a result, I DID NOT go.
So, they went and I was left in a lonely home, with crappy food and alternate day office routine (currently dong internship in Huawei).
Plenty of free time I can say, so decided to work on a twitter app. And the result is iPRATIK. It can send as well as show tweets from your twitter account as well as lets you see the twitter info of other people too.The best thing is you can access it from anywhere,regardless of what OS you are using or whether you are accessing from a pc or a mobile.It just works.
It is coded entirely in php using curl .It is powered by OAuth library by Abraham Williams. And while coding it, I was powered by recurring sessions of maggi and pizza.

I am still pondering over the licensing issues. The api being in MIT/X license and I intend to release it under GNU/GPL v3. It actually sparked a flame war over licensing topic in lug-bombay mailing list :D
Now, why such a name?
Well, iPRATIK was just chosen as test phase name because Steve Jobs was going haywire at that time over the new iPHONEv4(he still is, btw). Later, I decided to go with it.

now, cutting all this crap here is the link to try it yourself :)
http://pratikanand.co.cc/ipratik/login.php

and here is the source code:
http://github.com/pratikone/ipratik-twitter

Future plans ??
Yaa, sleeping and eating at first. Later, I may further develop it and port to mobile platform.Till then , it's all peace and pizza.

Mozilla Campus Representative

2010-03-15T05:57:00.006+05:30

It all started when I was helping a friend in her class demonstration on network intrusion (i.e. hacking). In discussing things , somehow we came to topic of firefox addons and voila, she didn't know what they were even though she had been using firefox for more than a year. Later that day, I asked few other non-geeky fellows if they know about firefox addons, they were clueless like anything. I realised that though people have started using better browsers like firefox,chrome , they are unaware of the difference or why they should switch from IE. They are unaware of the plethora of things one can tweak to make his browsing experience from OK to AWESOME...or can increase the ease in browsing things or organising stuff like bookmarks..

So, I decided to join the Mozilla Campus Rep program to spread the news about firefox and mozilla in my campus and make people aware of the fact that how much their surfing experince can be enhanced.

It's a new path to light, away from the shadows of ignorance which I have decided to tread, lets see how well it goes.

keeping fingers crossed, ;)

Pratik Anand
Mozilla Campus Rep
MIT Manipal

MagMIT

2010-01-14T16:08:00.004+05:30

Last semester, I got an offer from Nitin, Editor of the College Editorial Board to design a website of it. They wanted the website to be the social interactive portal of the college. The previous website, despite being colourful was bulky and lacked much efficiency. Hence, I teamed up with Karik and we started making the site. After 3 times of design changes and code re-writings ,we finally got the node.
The current website is very light and has streamlined design. Whatsoever be the condition of college wifi, the site opens up on a mouse click. To our relief , the site is being well-appreciated everywhere. Though, this is not the end.We still have to make it power-packed.

Long way to go....
here is the link www.magmit.com

Play Them All : My media player project

2009-12-09T02:12:00.005+05:30

PlayThemAll is the media project player project created by me to build a light-weight media player which can play almost all popular audio formats. Its UI should be simplistic enough to get the operations done easily. It is coded in GNU/C++ using Qt libraries and uses Gstreamer for playback capabilities. It is my first Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Project. Supported platform is debian based Linux systems (tested on Ubuntu 8.04, 9.04).

Future additions:

1. Platform-independence (so same code will run on Windows as well)
2. Playlist support of popular media players like WMP, Winamp and VLC
3. Video playback support
4. Drag-n-Drop capability

More suggestions and ideas are welcome.

Project hosted on sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/playthemall/

It is under GNU/GPL i.e. you are free to use and re-distribute its source code.

Taking the nerd test

2009-10-11T01:25:00.002+05:30

Yesterday I stumbled on a website which takes test to prove your geekiness. Well, had some free time and much more of curiosity ,so took the test. Here is the result.

Looks kinda simple, eh? There were whooping 100 questions and some of very good quality.
Take one yourself..http://nerdtests.com

First bash-python script for ION access

2009-10-09T00:50:00.008+05:30

It was all running well.When suddenly soon after midnight , it stops. Yes, all mitians know what I am talking about.Its the same strange restriction of ION to cutoff wifi access after 12:30, leaving us all in frustration. But there a privileged few whose IDs work at night. But they guard them as a great secret and rarely such id comes out in public. But when it does, it indeed attracts a whole bunch of users to use it. Ultimately ION detects the heavy data usage and blocks it down. Then again wait for new id to surface.

This was the situation with me too. It all started one night when my "painfully" acquired night id got blocked right at the moment when I needed it most. Anger and frustration started emerging. Suddenly, with a flash of light an idea struck to me : Why not make a script to find all the working night IDs. It will take ION ages to close them all down. So, this is how the work started.

A plan was made..the time was less..sessionals were about to start...something had to be done quick and perfect. So , me and harry teamed up together to do it. We started learning BASH scripting and started applying our existing knowledge of python. With much of sleepless nights and morning brainstorming sessions, within a week it got prepared. On the first night of its trial run, harry felt asleep :). So it was all upto me, I closed all apps, re-connected the connected , fired the terminal ,typed the script path and ENTER. Voila! it started working, almost flawlessly. I couldn't believe my eyes, it was our one serious effort of solving daily life problem using programming. It felt greattttttttt. And know what? the no. of ids it gave in trial run: 150+

Here is the screenshot of how the script looks. Though it is not of the original script (for security reasons.)

A month full of Busy schedule

2009-09-23T23:49:00.004+05:30

This month came and passed within an eye wink..Before I could settle down well, exams were up again..
Well....blame may be given on my very busy schedule during these days...Techtatva09, our college annual techfest was to be held and I was organiser of one of the events as well as in Creative Designer team of it...So big time tension. Moreover, I was working with few of seniors to build the prototype of the new MIT website which was presented infront of the Director, board members and the company official who has made the previous one (And it was a great success :)). Later started working with ISTE, now am a member of its working committee :). Quite soon, somebody from edboard saw my artworks in TT09 and just a day later I got a call from EdBoard asking if I am interested in joining it.. Well I did, an interview was held for taking up the edbaord designers.So, I applied for the post of Digital Designer. We were given a 2 poems and asked to design something on its theme ,also to explain it .We did and my design was declared the best :) , I was the first one to get selected. So, finally I am in the Editorial Board of the college..

This is how this month passed and it changed a lot of things for me (made me a busy man ;))

PS: Have included a pic of the design for the edboard

Currently me and Kartik Mandaville are now making its new EdBoard website : MagMIT ...will be posting the link as soon as it gets over
Let's see what remaining months have in stock.

easter egg of Google

2009-09-11T00:35:00.003+05:30

Just type ascii art in Google Search box and see its logo change to ascii format..This easter egg became visible in last months of 2008 when google changed its logo to ascii art form. Though google has been (in)famous for making april fools day easter eggs, this one is being continued.

small qt app to play wav file

2009-08-30T02:00:00.005+05:30

Finally , after being very busy for preparation techtatva09 (MIT's tech fest), I got some time today.So thought of continuing my experimentations further. After hours of brainstorming, came up with my first qt app, a small app to play and stop wave files. Using the help of QSound libraries for achieving it. Coincidently, this my first gnu/c++ GUI program.

Here is the screenshot.

Tic Tac Toe v2.0 GUI

2009-08-24T16:36:00.004+05:30

Finally, after a week full of tests i am free now. The code which I had posted below was indeed an incomplete one. Haritosh took time on building the GUI interface and indeed , he built it great.
Then came the debugging process which ate up almost entire Sunday of ours but finally its done.
Its almost complete but a few glithces are still there. So , here is the first game which I wrote from the scratch and finally its done. It feels good really good. :)

http://pastebin.com/fb2b5e22

Misery ends...game is done..Tic tac toe is up and running

2009-08-11T18:37:00.007+05:30

Finally , after long sessions of coding, debugging , again coding again debugging and lots and lots of frustration, the code ends today at 200 hours in morning.
It went through a lot of troubles, revamps, version changes and above all blunders. Code debugged by me was overwritten by haritosh (as he took the earlier version and saved it over mine). The problems of coding a Turbo C++ code in linux with a cranky DOS emulator like DosBox just added to the trouble. But it finally paid off. The code is done, the AI is working perfectly.
Now, the next thing in my mind is to port it to GUI to make a proper graphical game even for lamers.

So, work begins from now.

here's the source code. Its of roughly 212 lines compared to other scripts we found on net which had more than 700 lines but AI was very poor or wasn't there at all.

All I can say that a good start by me towards serious level of software programming.

http://pastebin.ca/1525066

PS:here it is shown of 450 lines because of useless space introduced by the site.

Tic Tac Toe misery

2009-08-06T11:09:00.003+05:30

Well a few days back I started working on a code for a simple tic tac toe game in C++ entirely. The game is supposed to feature very good computer AI.

I am doing logical part and a dear friend of mine, Haritosh, is doing GUI and presentation of the game. Spent two days discussing the idea and the algorithms, finally got down to coding. After another two sleepless nights, I completed the code. When compiled gave me 25 errors, I was shocked.
Well, another day was spent in correcting those errors. When project seemed nearly finished , i decided to play a dummy game. When run , it started giving unimaginable logical errors (some of them like both u and computer have won the game). Enough of this brotherhood, I decided to give more of my precious time to this. So 2 days have already passed and I have removed most of the logical errors but the biggest one remained. The game carried on even after someone wins. I was frustated to death then Haritosh(the had already finished the GUI) came to my rescue and pointed out the error.
I was using character array but in the func for checking the winner and terminating the game, i had used integer array in parametres. So, it was converting char array to int array and was acting bizarrely. Finally after this much debugging, i am ready to complete it by a day or two. And had a good night's sleep yesterday.

swine flu forms

2009-07-14T02:50:00.007+05:30

In wake of the newly spread epidemic of Swine Flu, international airports started registration forms swine flu. I came across it when my sister, coming from the US, had to wait 2 hrs. at immigrations becasue of this form. It asks you whether you have swine flu or not?. I wonder if anyone will reply 'YES' to that.....

Since, i am working on designing web related apps in php, I decided to create an online form of this registration form.

here's the code of the backend php file:

mysql_connect('localhost','root','*****') or die("Unable to connect");
while(!(mysql_select_db('swineflu')))
mysql_query("CREATE DATABASE swineflu");
$query="CREATE TABLE medreport (name varchar(20), nation varchar(20), med_note varchar(40), relative varchar(20), comment varchar(40),swine int)";
mysql_query($query);

//inserting values

$name=$_POST['app_name'];
$nation=$_POST['app_nation'];
$medhis=$_POST['med_his'];
$rel=$_POST['app_rel'];
$comm=$_POST['app_comm'];
if ($_POST['question'])
{ $swine='1';}
else $swine='0';

$query="INSERT INTO medreport values('$name','$nation','$medhis','$rel','$comm','$swine')";
mysql_query($query);
if(mysql_affected_rows())
{ echo "Your information has been recorded";}
else echo "An error has occured";

if ($swine)
echo "You have been swined";
?>

It gives a dangerous message : You have been swined , if found infected.

All the data goes to a mysql database from where it can be retrieved on authenticating user name and password. I am currently working on it.

Girlfriend 5.0

2009-07-12T00:42:00.001+05:30

Desperately seeking technical support!

I'm currently running the latest version of Girlfriend 5.0 and having some problems. I've been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 for years as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases have always conflicted with it. I hear that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if you minimize Girlfriend with the sound off, but since I can't find the switch to turn it off, I just run them separately and it works OK.

Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with Golfware, often trying to abort my Golf program with some sort of timing incompatibility. I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance with Girlfriend 2.0.

After months of conflicts, I consulted a friend who has experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring upgrade to run properly. He was right. As soon as I purged my cache, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed a Girlfriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs were supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. After a hard drive clean up and thorough virus scan I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time using a SCSI probe and virus protection. It worked OK for a while until I discovered Girlfriend 1.0 wasn't completely uninstalled!

I tried to run Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has an unadvertised feature that automatically senses the presence of Girlfriend 1.0 and communicates with it in some way, resulting in the immediate removal of both versions!

The version I have now works pretty well, but, like all versions, there are still some problems. The Girlfriend package is written in some obscure language that I can't understand, much less reprogram. And I've never liked how Girlfriend is totally 'object-oriented.'

A year ago, a friend upgraded his version to GirlfriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate-and-Stay resident version. He discovered GirlfriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiance9e 1.0. So he did. But soon after that, you have to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a 'huge resource hog.' It has taken up all his space, so he can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons that he upgraded to Wife is because it came bundled with FreeSex 1.0. Well, it turns out that the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSex (particularly the new Plug and Play items he wanted to try). On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. And, although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw 1.0, which has an automatic popup feature he can't turn off.

I told him to install Mistress 1.0, but he said that he heard that if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife, that Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway, due to insufficient resources. If anybody out there is able to offer technical advice...

source:computerjokes.net

Fedora 11 (Leonidas) released

2009-06-09T23:49:00.006+05:30

After much waiting, the highly anticipated fedora 11 has been released worldwide. I am yet to try it out but u can see its release notes given on the website(also available in HINDI).

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f11/en-US/index.html#sect-Release_Notes-Welcome_to_Fedora_11

The key features include:

* Faster bootup

*support for ext4 filesystem

*Inclusion of NVidia and ATI drivers.

* Minimal graphical requirement is 256Mb RAM.

* Default desktop environment GNOME, but KDE 4.2 also bundled.

* Though Ubuntu 9.10 will be coming with GRUB v2 but fedora still going with older one...probably stability factor.

* It can take up upto 9 GB space, so better give it good share of HDD space.

So, ready to try fedora 11? get it here GET FEDORA 11

Windows 7 is going to have a tough time ahead.

2009-06-08T23:00:00.003+05:30

While pursuing my PHP tutorial , i came across this very unusual example in the book PHP-MySQL bible. It actually creates a form questionnaire for calculating if you are a GEEK or not and indeed, the questions are bone-crackling good...

See for urself

note:- i am just putting the questions not the code
HOW GEEKY YOU ARE?

0. Have you ever had a dream in which you were debugging?

1. Do you know the name of the company founded by Danny
Hillis?

2. Can you edit a file in both emacs and vi without recourse to
any documentation?

3. Is the computer you’re using at this moment hooked up to a
KVM switch?

4. Are you wearing a logowear T-shirt?

5. Have you ever written a chess program?

6. Have you ever set up an SMTP server?

7. Have you ever discussed the merits of a commercial LISP
implementation?

8. Have you ever used the phrase “I can do that in two lines of code” in public?

and the best one

9. Have you ever refused an otherwise welcome sexual advance
because you were debugging?

25 best Webcomics of GEEKS!

2009-06-03T23:19:00.006+05:30

Welcome to the world of intelligent humour.
Slashweb has got an excellent collection of geek jokes handpicked from xkcd, dilbert, phdcomics, codecomics and cowbirds. This will surely remove misconception that generally programmers are very boring , all u need is a little brain to understand their humour.

Visit : http://slashweb.org/programming/25-best-programmer-webcomic-strips.html

Peace of mind!!!

2009-05-20T23:08:00.001+05:30

Exams are going on. Mind is wandering here and there. One can hear people screaming and crying in hostel, shouting in disgust. In the midst of all , I came across a piece of poem written by my dear friend Ekaansh which actually is about piece of mind.
I have enjoyed it and hope you will too.

PEACE OF MIND! ! !

I sit on my chair in state of rest,
But still can feel a pain in my chest.
I can’t just find out what is best,
Or how will I survive this fatal test.

Just don’t know what to do or how to find,
The pleasure of my life and the peace of mind.
What to do, to my life and how to grind,
The path for the truth and for the peace of mind.

I am forgetting myself for the sack of rhyme,
And whenever I try to change, I go out of time.
I can’t just find out what is prime,
Or could I just get through without a crime.

Just don’t know how to get away from the other kind,
And to live my life in some peace of mind.
How to go smooth and slow in the path designed,
To find me some rest and give peace in my mind.

I never get the things that I deserve,
After all my vein tries and my humble serve.
I can’t just find out for what I preserve,
Or could I just capitalize from what I conserve.

Just don’t know how to get away and make some new bind,
Where I could get some cheer, some peace of mind.
How could I forget the past and make a new wind,
Around my head, my soul and blend with peace of my mind.

*** Ekansh Jitendra Gupta ***

Portable Apps: the digital extreme of new era

2009-04-28T11:42:00.002+05:30

These days our life is becoming more and more digital. We are now living in a gadget-oriented world where day-to-day stuffs are impossible without gadgets. In earlier times, people used to have one computer or one more at the office.Now, even pen drives and cell phones have started acting like portable computers.

Sometimes, it becomes difficult to manage things around. Say, you are carrying your pdf document to your office. Now ,on reaching there you realised that your office computer is not having acrobat reader and you are not even authorized to install anythings(even if you have then also it will be a cumbersome task to install each and every app like media players)

So , here comes a new wave of achievement, with PORTABLEApps you can carry your softwares portably without any need of installation of any kind. Just install PortableApps in your pen drive or iPOD and get oyur softwares on the go.

Go check it out yourself.
Portable Apps

Turn any website into a GAME!!!

2009-04-15T16:19:00.007+05:30

Japanese game coders are always known for their novel ideas. While browsing through flash games, i came across a truly genius game which can turn any website into a game. THE LAST GUY lets you mess with any high-profile website whether even it is of US Military. It is not like a background of that website on which you play game but actually the game modifies itself with respect to the website. For example, i tried to play it on my blog , so it turned the outer boundary as a wall and inner boundaries as semi-permeable wall, Plus, i can't go across pictures, i can only move in the passages given b/w them. Truly an ingenious concept.

Try it out yourself

http://lastguy.jp/

Try it on popular websites like GOOGLE.

Easter egg in python 2.6

2009-04-03T16:32:00.004+05:30

Recently i found a new easter egg in Python. It is a nice one, u get a long poem about python describing its features. And i used to think they have stopped putting easter eggs. Microsoft even has a rule that the programmer who puts any easter egg in their program goes straight out of the job. They consider it a reason for security loophole. I think Microsoft should look into its code rather than blaming easter eggs for loopholes.

Anyways, here the cheat.

Go to python console and type import this and u will get:

The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

It's now on my ORKUT profile.

Running WINDOWS in LINUX

2009-02-26T18:00:00.007+05:30

The power of open source never fails to amaze me. Every time they come up with something unthinkable. This type is one of the best.
I am running Windows XP "inside" my Ubuntu 8.10 and it is running smooth. All I did was to use Sun Microsystem's VirtualBox. It emulated my pc as a new system for XP which i easily installed in one of virtual drives without any partitions or other hassles. You only have to define the amount of space and memory it can use, and then in just a click of a button, one OS is running inside other OS.Now, i can do all the windows stuff without having to quit linux. Deletion of OS is also just one click away. Hats off to Sun for creating this fantastic piece of software.

Keep looking for more of techno-miracles and achievements.

Diet Coke + Mentos= Kaboom!!!

2009-02-03T21:56:00.005+05:30

Yes, this is true. Try having some mentos with diet coke and soon things around you will be exploding out. When two or three mentos pills are inserted in a Diet coke bottle, bubbles start forming and whoosh!!, the liquid ejects out high. Your own liqui-rocket .Starting from an curious college time experiment , it soon turned out be a major Viral Video. Try searching youtube for it.
So what you are waiting for?? Make your own water(??) jet.

Note: this trick only works for mint flavored mentos and not fruit-falvored ones.

Detailed explanation can be seen at wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_Coke_and_Mentos_eruption

Also, try same thing with Sprite and Pepsi....

Hi Tux! Looking you thru a WindoW

2009-01-31T18:04:00.000+05:30

Many of us are getting influenced by the new wave of Linux operating systems. Their stability, versatility and endless extent of modifiability is winning hearts. Above all, its FREE.

We can easily access windows partition in linux, but what about the cases when we want use files in linux and am currently running windows?? This is possible.

Small utilities , if installed in your windows, will allow you to access files in linux partition and, in some cases, allow it to change.

Linux Reader, as the name suggets, is a nifty app by diskinternals which allows user to access linux partition. http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/

More powerful tool is ext2fsd is http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/.

Using ext2fsd, it starts showing linux partition in your my computer window itself.

Pretty simple way to do the things , right??

sorry!! did i blow your head off??

2009-01-31T15:28:00.000+05:30

Yes, this question my friend was asking when he showed me this website. http://xkcd.com/ is the collection of web's finest comic strip based on technology to life, current affairs to rotten stuff, anything and everything. The way of passing the message is great. It takes a little time to realise what that small comic strip has just actually said ,and next moment you will rolling on the floor , laughing your heart out.

Could XKCD mean anything?? Is it an acronym or phonetic pronunciation but later found that out it means nothing. The author typed something and it became the name. You can check out the entire story here http://xkcd.com/about/

Go and enjoy your piece of brain.

We had Air-thin laptop since 2006...

2009-01-31T10:21:00.000+05:30

Apple isn't the first one to introduce paper thin laptops like MACBook AIR. Back in 2006, Fujitsu(a relatively unknown company) introduced Q-series thin laptops weighing only 2.2 pounds. It had also the features which AIR is boasting of. According to CNET.com, "The ultraportable notebook is less than one inch thick and uses Intel's new Core Solo processor. It's designed as an executive companion for world-weary travelers tired of lugging larger notebooks through airport security, said Paul Moore, director of mobile product marketing at Fujitsu."

But, due to their very bad marketing strategy, the CEO of the company had to take back the Q10 series. Although it was an awesome piece of technology, it wasn't able to survive in the market.
On the right side are MACBook AIR and Fujitsu Q10 laptop. Notice the thinness of both.

Moral: Sometimes good things also don't succeed because their timing is bad. So, if anything is unsuccessful, it doesn't mean it deserved that.

Now !! To head which way??

2009-01-29T22:35:00.000+05:30

I have been spending sleepless nights thinking in which way my blog should be heading....

Ultimately, after loads of chocolates, colas and chips(killer Cs), my mind finally responded and answered. this blog will be techno-cum-programming-cum-science oriented-cum-personal blog(all these things are wire meshed around me so can't separate them out!).

**Readers of this blog are supposed to bookmark it because everytime it will be briniging mind-bogglingly good stuff **

Back from Hibernation Mode

2009-01-29T22:22:00.000+05:30

Pratik Anand is back.......... and he is back with a bang.

Several engagements prevented me from continue blogging for last one year, but i finally decided to give all away. After all, the return was imminent.

Well, many things have changed in last one year. After passing XII with 87%, joined MIT Manipal for computer science engineering.Now, living in a hostel in Manipal. Have become a part of OPEN SOURCE movement, joined LUG Manipal, beginning to develop FOSS.
For last some days, i am volunteering in LUGM workshop and it really gives a good feeling to be a part of such a fantastic clan.

Chapter 1

2007-09-16T20:52:00.000+05:30

The War of the Worlds (1953)

This
film was the winner of the Best Achievement in Special Effects Academy
Award, by producer George Pal, for its vivid depiction of the invasion
of the Earth by Martians. This was the first visual effects-laden "popcorn"
film, featuring vibrant color special effects, and the destruction of
various cities and landmarks, including the famous Los Angeles Courthouse
Building.

[This film would inspire such films as Independence
Day (1996) and Steven Spielberg's remake War of the Worlds (2005).]

The
Ten Commandments (1956)

The film won the Best
Achievement in Special Effects Academy Award. It was Cecil B. DeMille's
remake of his own 1923 silent film, with one of the most miraculous visual
effects scenes in film history (and the most expensive special effects to
date) -- the parting of the Red Sea. The scene, prefaced by Moses' (Charlton
Heston) statement: "The Lord of Hosts will do battle for us. Behold his
mighty hand," involved the use of miniatures, pyrotechnics, traveling matte
paintings, rear-projection, and a 32-foot high dam or water tank churning out the waterfall.
Other special effects scenes included the various plagues, the Burning Bush,
etc.; in the massive Exodus sequence, compositing was used to multiply the number of extras in the crowd.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The Star Gate and Star
Child sequence and other special effects helped this revolutionary and pioneering film win the Academy
Award for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects. Stanley Kubrick's
film featured the most realistic footage of space ever created - and it's
still not dated by the passage of time. Miniature models of spacecraft, computer-guided
pre-motion control cameras, rear-projection (for the film's many video displays and computer monitors), full-sized props or models (such as the 30-ton rotating "ferris wheel" set of the spaceship), and other early
techniques (such as a primitive type of "Go-Motion") were used.

In the film's opening "Dawn of Man" sequence of prehistoric apes learning to use tools on the African savannah, retroreflective matting (front projection) was used to display second-unit background scenic shots projected from the front onto a reflective surface combined with soundstage photography of actors in the foreground - a technique now replaced by computer-processed blue-screen techniques.

Near the film's end in the Star Gate sequence, astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) traveled through
the stargate corridor in a dazzling sequence (using a slit-scan photographic technique) -
a sound and light hallucinatory journey or whirling lights and colors in which he was hurled through and
into another dimension - where he was reborn as a Star Child; other effects were achieved by applying different colored filters to aerial landscape footage and a close-up of an eye, and filming interacting chemicals.

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

This film contained possibly the first use of 3D rendering (the rotating
structure of the underground laboratory). It was
another early feature film to use advanced computerized visual effects
for its time, with work by Douglas Trumbull
(2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)), James Shourt, and Albert Whitlock
(The Birds (1963)).

THE BEGINNING......

2007-09-16T20:33:00.001+05:30

VISUAL EFFECTS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN EYE-CANDY FOR MOST OF US WHO LIKE HOLLYWOOD MOVIES. HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT WHAT LED TO THIS POINT. FOR THAT, I (PRATIK) PRESENT TO THE TIMELINE OF VISUAL EFFECTS IN HOLLYWOOD MOVIES. SO SIT BACK N RELAX AND DON'T FORGET TO ADD COMMENTS.