Often parents are tempted to criticize their children. You would expect me to say “don’t.” But I will not, I am merely going to say, “Before you criticize them, read one of the classics of American journalism, ‘Father Forgets.’ ” It originally appeared as an editorial in the People’s Home Journnl. We are reprinting it here with the author’s permission, as condensed in the Reader’s Digest:

“Father Forgets” is one of those little pieces which-dashed of in a moment of sincere feeling – strikes an echoing chord in so many readers as to become a perenial reprint favorite. Since its first appearance, “Father Forgets” has been reproduced, writes the author, W, Livingston Larned, “in hundreds of magazines and house organs, and in newspapers the country over. It has been reprinted almost as extensively in many foreign languages. I have given personal permission to thousands who wished to read it from school, church, and lecture platforms. It has been ‘on the air’ on countless occasions and programs. Oddly enough, college periodicals have used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes a little piece seems mysteriously to ‘click.’ This one certainly did.

FATHER FORGETS – W. Livingston Larned
Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive - and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bed-side in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy – a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

“maaN”

qudrat ne jab hamaarii hastii ka biij Daalaa
tab kokh mein tirii hii nau maah ham ko paalaa

phir is jahaaN meN ham ne jab aaNkh apnii kholii
nazroN meN teraa ruKh thaa, kaanoN meN terii bolii

ho goad kii vo narmii yaa haath kii ho shafqat
har pal rahii nichhaavar ham par tirii muhabbat

tuu ne sukuuN ganvaayaa, raatoN kii niind khoii
hone na dii kabhii bhii takliif ham ko koii

terii hii ungliyoN ko pakRaa to chal sake ham
mamtaa ko terii ham ne paayaa to pal sake ham

dunyaa kaa ilm siikhaa, paayaa sha.uur-e-mazhab
donoN jahaaN ke laayaq tere baGhair the kab

piichhe jo dekhte haiN, har samt tuu khaRii hai
ahsaanmand terii, har saans, har ghaRii hai

ik chiiKh par hamaarii fauran vo teraa aanaa
phir sar pe haath rakhnaa, ham ko gale lagaanaa

raatoN ko imtihaaN kii teraa vo saath jagnaa
himmat baRhaate rahnaa, sau sau duaayeN paRhnaa

mamtaa meN terii Duube taazaa vo garm khaane
gaajar ka garm halvaa, bhuTTe ke narm daane

sardii ke vo paraaThe, vo garmiyoN kii lassii
kuchh Khaas hii khilaayaa, mausam ho vo koii bhii

apnii zaruuratoN ko baalaa-e-taaq rakkhaa
ham ko diyaa hai tuu ne, jo kuchh bhi ham ne maaNgaa

KhushiyaaN mileeN jo ham ko, tujh saa na Khush thaa koii
kuchh dard ham ne paayaa, to saath tuu bhii roii

tujh se banii hamaarii aasaan zindagaanii
tuu to judaa hai sab se, teraa nahiiN hai saanii

har har qadam pe tuu ne kitne karam kiye haiN!
jo kuchh haiN aaj, terii mehnat se ham bane haiN

teraa kiyaa kisii ne ab tak kiyaa na hogaa
thoRaa bhii qarz teraa ham se adaa na hogaa

karte haiN terii izzat, tujh se hai pyaar, ai maaN!
qadmoN meN tere apnii hai jaaN nisaar, ai maaN!

maaN! behtariin hai tuu in.aam aasmaaN kaa
yaa rab! rahe salaamat saayaa hamaarii maaN kaa!

By Irfan Abid

I have been trying different photography techniques to learn as much as possible about my camera and improve my photography skills to capture good photos.   I have come to realize that long exposure / night photography is a lot of fun.  So while trying long exposures, I ran into a problem where my images were just not coming sharp and full crop of these images showed severe blurriness more often than not.  I was following the guidelines, using a tripod, and using delayed shutter release in lieu of a remote, locking the mirror before the shutter release to eliminate any vibrations caused by the mirror going up, but I was not succeeding.  Here are a couple of examples where by chance, 1 out of 5 exposure did come out nice and sharp, but most of them came out blurry.

Long Exposure, 30 seconds at F10, shows blurriness in the image, even with a delayed timer

Now the above photo shows pronounced blurriness.  The camera was secure on the tripod. I used the kit lens, 18-55mm IS, that came with the T3i and I used a 2 second delayed timed shutter release.  I also locked the mirror, although it should not have been necessary as I was shooting in live view mode.

Long exposure - 30 seconds at F11 - full crop shows a sharp image with no apparent blur.

In this example above however, the photo came out very sharp.  Yes the apperture was a bit smaller than the previous photo, but this seems like a chance picture.  I took 5 different exposure of this building and this was the only one that came out sharp.   I proceeded to take other photos as well that night, not really zooming in to check how sharp the images were when previewing them.  It was only after I opened these photos in Lightroom that I realized that these were not sharp at all, luckily I did get one that worked.  Now the question was, what was causing the blurriness.

I posted the issue on POTN (Photography-on-the.net) forums and the kind hearted folks there tried to come up with solutions, or possible causes for this occurence.

One of the major reason that I heard from everybody was “Cheap tripod”.  Granted I am using a relatively inexpensive tripod, but it is not as flimsy as the words “cheap tripod” make it sound like.  In fact, I have taken some nice sharp pictures with my 70-300mm (long exposure) with the same tripod.  The lens is much heavier than the 18-55mm kit lens.   Cheap tripod that may succumb to vibrations in the ground or some movement, or even breeze could be a problem, but here, it didn’t seem like that was the case.

The other major reason  -  I clicked the button.  Yes, I used the delayed timer shutter release instead of using a remote shutter release.  That can cause vibrations and result in the blurriness.  It was a fair assessment and I think pressing the shutter does result in some vibrations that may cause blurriness.  Some even said I should have used a 10 second delayed timer instead of the 2-seconds that I used in my photos above, only to ensure that the vibrations induced by pressing the button could dissipate before the shutter actually releases and the exposure begins.

In addition to these two reasons, the major one was Turning the IS off on my lens.  Image stabilization on the lens is great when holding the lens in your hands but not on the tripod.  This was echoed by many who responded on the forum and it made sense for me to try and test this.  At the same time, someone had suggested to me that I should use the EOS utility that comes with Canon along with a laptop and use that as a remote to take my long exposure shots in the absence of a proper shutter release remote.  So I went out to test the theory.  Here are the resulting 8 images:

All of the above images were taken in absolutely similar conditions.  Nothing was changed.  As you can see, when using a remote, the image came out to be very sharp, even with IS on.  Now to really see if the IS was the culprit, four more pictures using the similar settings but with IS off were taken.  It’s important to note that the camera is still sitting on my relatively inexpensive tripod.

No questions asked, this is absolutely clear, pressing the button, the cheap tripod, the delayed shutter release, using a remote, all that, while valid reasons, were not the ones causing the blur in my photos, it was rather the IS system on the lens that was doing that.  Turning the IS off reduced the blur completely in all conditions.  I’m going to assume that pressing the button causes vibrations in the camera and the IS, when active, tries to compensate for those vibrations to stabilize the image, but what it does becomes counter-productive to the photo as the camera is already stabilized.   This in turn causes blur in the pictures.  Remember, when IS was on, using a remote resulted in a really sharp image as no vibrations were induced in the camera due to the button press.

So folks, moral of the story, turn the IS off on your lens if you are using a tripod.  There’s no need for it.

Here’s a shot I took a few days ago from Mount Royal, it shows the lovely city of Montreal.  I remembered to turn the IS off and used another tip I picked up in my research:  I zoomed in while using live view to focus on something to ensure I get a sharp image.  If you didn’t know that, while using live view for shooting, you can zoom in by pressing the zoom button on your camera up to 10x.  This allows you to manually focus with precision.

Ville de Montreal

I hope that this post will help some other newbie photographers like myself.

VERSE 1
Raat javaan mast samaan -
Aise mein honthon se honth mila
Jism tera aur ye adaa
Saansein sulagtii hain hosh kahaan
Meri baahon mein aao zaraa
Meri dhaRkan mein samaao zaraa
Meri ulfat mein bikhar jaao
Jalne do, bahakne do

CHORUS
Sun ye machalti raagini
Jaise teri adaa
Jazbaat ki ye mastiyaan
Teraa hi hai nashaa
Let me love u down, down, down
All night long, long, long
I wanna turn u on, on, on
ChaRhne do ye nasha

VERSE 2
From your lips 2 your hips 2 your fingertips
I wanna kiss your body all over
From the goosebumps on your skin
Baby U don’t have 2 say a word
Use your imagination
Kashif’s on a mission
2 give u everything that your body’s been missing
I can’t wait no more, I’m gonna explode
I’m waiting, Anticipating, Tonight it’s goin’ down

CHORUS

BRIDGE
Tujhe baahon mein bhar kar pyaar doun
The more I get the more I want
Tere pahloo men raat guzaar loun
I’m drowning in your love
Meri jaan merii wafa

CHORUS

Sun ye machalti raagini, Let me love u Down
Jaise teri adaa, Let me love u Down
Jazbaat ki ye mastiyaan

Lyrics

VERSE 1
Kabhi haan kabhi na karti hai Bol zara ye chakkar kyaa hai
Itna confusion tujhme aakhir kisliye bhara hai
Vaade mujhse jo kiye the bhool gayii hai unko kyaa tu
Main job hi houn so houn par kaun hai tu aur hai bhi kyaa tu
Ye bechaini ye aahein kiske liye bharti hai
Aanaa hai aaja varna jaa re jaa re tu
Teri rangat mein ye jaadoo meri ulfat ne diya hai
Aana hai aajaa varnaa jaa re jaa re tu

CHORUS
She said I don’t know what I want, I want
But I knew what she really meant is I don’t wanna be with U
So Baby U can get gone, get gone
There’s no question
I’ll be happy 2 move on cause i’m thru with U

VERSE 2
Koi love song sunaaoun aisaa bechaaraa bhi nahiin houn
Pairon pe main gir jaaoun gham ka main maara bhi nahin houn
Qeemat meri kyaa hai gar samajh sake to samajh bhi le tu
Main jo bhi houn so houn par kaun hai tu aur hai bhi kyaa tu
Ye bechaini ye aahein kiske liye bharti hai
Aanaa hai aaja varna jaa re jaa re tu
Teri rangat mein ye jaadoo meri ulfat ne diya hai
Aana hai aajaa varnaa jaa re jaa re tu

CHORUS

You’re gonna get what U deserve
A lesson will be learned
There’s no running from karma
Mera jaisa kohi nahin, Ain’t nobody, ain’t nobody
You’re gonna get what U deserve
A lesson will be learned
There’s no running from karma
Mera jaisa kohi nahin, ain’t nobody, ain’t nobody

CHORUS2

First thing you will want to do is ensure that your Asterisk server is configured properly to accept connections from outside.  Look for sip_nat.conf file within the /etc/asterisk directory on your server.  If it doesn’t exist, create it.  We don’t need to modify the sip.conf file for these purposes, however, you do need to make sure this line is contained in your sip.conf file:

#include sip_nat.conf

This ensures that sip_nat.conf file is also read.

If you have the external IP address of your server, make sure you have that handy.  Your sip_nat.conf file should look like this:

externip=176.0.0.1  ;replace the IP address given here with your asterisk server’s external IP address
localhost=192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0  ;put your localhost IP range here
nat=yes  ;make sure you include nat=yes

If you have a dynamic IP address, you will want to probably give your dynamic IP a dynamic DNS using services such as dyndns.org and if you do have a dynamic DNS being used, use the following in your sip_nat.conf file:

externhost=yourdomain.dyndns.org  ; replace the domain name with your domain name
localhost=192.168.1.1/255.255.255.0
nat=yes

Save your sip_nat.conf file and reload your asterisk configuration.

Now what you need to do is make sure your router is configured to forward the required ports to your asterisk server: Point the ports 5060-5082 on UDP to the IP address of your asterisk server and also point the ports 10000-20000 on UDP to the ip address of your asterisk server.  This will allow any incoming connections on these ports to be routed directly to your Asterisk server which we have already configured to accept external SIP connections.

Now, you should make your new SIP extension that you will be using from the outside world.  Make a normal SIP extension, but make sure to configure your extension to have “Nat=yes” and “Qualify=yes” .  This is what it looks like on my trixbox when I make that SIP extension.  Notice the highlighted areas in the image:

And you are done, try registering your SIP extension from an external network on your Asterisk server and you should be good to go.

At first, I tried to make a new inbound route by simply adding the VOIP number that came with the Primus adapter in asterisk as a DID, but that didn’t work.  Incoming calls to the VOIP number ended up with a message of “This number is not in service”.  I could see the call landing on the zaptel channel, but it was not ringing any extensions.  The trick was to change the context in the zaptel config file.  The Zaptel.conf file had the context listed as “context=from-pstn”.  Changing that to context=from-zaptel and then pointing that new inbound route to the specific zaptel channel allowed incoming calls to ring the extension.  Being new to asterisk, I’m not sure if I add a PRI in future, would the DIDs still work with context=from-zaptel instead of from-pstn .. but it did solve the issue.

So if you are looking to connect your new primus VOIP adapter to your asterisk PBX, get a FXO card and connect the adapter to the PBX instead of connecting a regular analog phone to it.

Problem:

Show a “More From this author” Block on nodes of specific types without using the $uid variable provided by Drupal.

Let’s assume that you don’t want to use the “Posted by: username” on your stories/nodes, but rather you have your own CCK field setup to display the name of the author.  Now this CCK field may be a reference field to author pages, or just simple text fields where the authors are typing their names.  To show a block in your sidebar that displays more articles from the same author, you will want to use Views.

Solution:

This applies for Drupal 6.x only:

• Add a new view
• Add your fields (e.g. node->title)
• Add your filters (e.g. node->published->yes; node->types->select your types)
• Add your sort criteria (e.g. node->published date->desc)

Now it’s time to add the argument.  Assuming the machine-readable name of your “Author name” field is “field_byline”, you will have to add a new argument.  Select your field from the Content section and change the “Action to take if argument is not present” to “Provide default argument”.  Now in the following section, select “PHP code” and enter the following code:

if (arg(0) == ‘node’ && is_numeric(arg(1))) {
$node=node_load(arg(1));
$by_line = $node->field_byline[0]['value'];
}
return $by_line;

Now, go ahead and add a “Block display” to the view and place the block on any content type.  You should see the recent posts, based on the number of items you selected in your view, in a block.

Refining this view further, we should be excluding the current node so that it doesn’t show up in the list of nodes in the block.  To do this, simply add another argument, select Node: NodeID from the Node group.  Provide the default argument and select Node ID from URL as the option.  At the bottom, select “Exclude the argument”.  Save your view and visit your node again.  You will find that the node you are currently visiting will not show up in the list.

Suno

suno meri sadaa, mahkii huii, hai pyaar ki sargam
suno kahtii hai kyaa, bheegii hawaa, zara sun to lo sanam

saahiloN pe haiN nazaare ye haseeN…naachne lagin hain maujein bhi
baadaloN se baadalon ka milan… ye ishaare dekho samjho bhii
suno bahki lahar, machali huii, hai pyaar ki sargam
suno uRti ghaTaa, kahtii hai kyaa, zaraa sun to lo sanam

bridge –
ghaneri zulfeiN, damakte aariz, ishq ki tum jannat jaan-e-jaaN
gulaab aaNkheiN, shigufta chehra, meri ho tum mannat jaan-e-jaaN
deevanagii meri tumse javaaN
dhaRkan meri hai tumhaari sadaa
aaaaa…..
beKhudii meiN hamse koi Khataa, ho gayii.. chalo ab chhoRo bhi
is tarah se rah ke Khaamosh tum, kab talak mujhe taRpaaogii
suno dil ki zubaaN, jaltii hui, hai pyaar ki sargarm
suno mausam kaa, chaRtaa nashaa, zaraa sun to lo sanam

Now that Bilzmusic have released their album “Breaking Barriers” {link to itunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/breaking-barriers/id364930732}  I figured I’d post some of the lyrics of the songs that I have written

Here’s one:

Tanhaii

haaye sulagati tanhaai
betaabiyaaN javaaN
afsurda afsurda aaNkheiN
DhooNDheiN tere nishaaN

meri muhabbat, meri ibaadat meri vafaa
zaKhm bane dil ke armaaN
raNg yahaaN baste the
ab hai dhuaaN dhuaaN

saaz hai bikhraa dard se bhaari geet mere
lafz mere hairaaN hairaaN
KhushiyoN ki vo bahaareiN
jaane gayiiN kahaaN