Firecrackers and its Hazards

Ever wondered what a firecracker is made up of ? Its main constituents are Potassium nitrate(75%), Carbon or Charcoal or Sugar(15%) and Sulphur(10%). These substances create a powerful chemical reaction when they come in contact with fire and the result of this chemical reaction is what you see in most firecrackers. The reaction produces nitrogen and carbon dioxide which are very harmful to the human body.

Health Hazards: Respiratory problems such as asthma and bronchitis are the main threats apart from others like hearing loss, high blood pressure and sleeping disturbances. Sudden exposure to noise could also cause temporary or permanent deafness and also a possible heart attack.

Awareness: With kids and youth being the major consumers of fireworks, schools and colleges should be the first source of education which will make them aware of the possible hazards. Media, government and individuals should bring the awareness amongst the public so that the effect of burning crackers is controlled to whatever extent is possible.

We are actually seeing people getting more Eco-friendly and also there is a change in their attitude towards giving back something to the nature. This is well illustrated by the drastic downturn in the sales of fireworks and the general opinion from people about lesser intensity of fireworks getting burnt.

Remotely Connecting to Windows from Linux/UNIX

rdesktop is a open source tool to connect to Windows machine remotely. Install this on your Linux/UNIX machine and connect to your Windows machine on the same network. Its the implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol which provides the user's Windows desktop.

This is how you get rdesktop working:

1. Download the source of the latest rdesktop version from the download link.
2. Extract the tar file to a local directory of your choice ( /usr/local/rdesktop in this case)using the command "tar xvzf rdesktop-1.6.0.tar.gz -C /usr/local/rdesktop"
3. Change your working directory to the unzipped location using the command "cd /usr/local/rdesktop/rdesktop-1.6.0"
4. Setup the installation using the command "./configure"
5. Compile the software using the command "make" and check if there are no errors.
6. Install the rdesktop client using the command "make install"
7. You can now access your windows machine using the command "./rdesktop server" where "server" is either the hostname or IP Address of your windows machine.


rdesktop options :

Usage: ./rdesktop [options] server

-u: user name
-d: domain
-s: shell
-c: working directory
-p: password (autologin)
-n: client hostname
-k: keyboard layout (hex)
-g: desktop geometry (WxH)
-f: full-screen mode
-b: force bitmap updates
-e: disable encryption (French TS)
-m: do not sendmotion events
-l: do not request license