Building Freenet from source on Windows 8.1

Configuring Freenet from Firefox.

My interest on Freenet is mostly towards its goal on the Internet Freedom. Freenet is a software that lets users use share and browse cites without the fear of censorship, while providing anonymity.

In this post, we will see how to build and use Freenet from the source in Windows 8.1. (After 5 long years, I have come back to Windows. It doesn't mean that I have forgotten Linux. I still love Linux and open source. But I hope I can contribute to the open source in different ways using Windows.)

You need java, ant, and git for this. 

First checkout the source code.
$ git clone git://github.com/freenet/fred-staging.git

Rename the checked out directory fred-staging to fred and go into it.
$ mv fred-staging fred
$ cd fred
Create a file "override.properties", with the below line as the content.
lib.contrib.get=true
Download bouncy castle jar and put it into the lib directory as bcprov.jar.
Download JUnit jar and put it into the lib directory as junit.jar.

To build,
$ ant

To build, skipping the tests and documentation tasks,
$ ant -Dtest.skip=true -Ddoc.skip=true

freenet.jar is built inside the dist directory. Move it into the lib directory, and run from the lib directory using the below command,
$ java -jar freenet.jar

Now you are done. Go ahead and read the Usage FAQ to configure and start using Freenet!

Lisbon, once more..

I cooked this wonderful Turkey meat curry

I realized, I didn't blog about my Erasmus Mundus adventures for a long time. This becomes the first post of the new year on my personal life in Lisboa. In fact, I had many interesting updates, where I didn't have time to sit and write them down. I came back to Lisbon on the 30th of December, after an eventful journey around the Nordic countries, using flight, cruise, trains, and trams. The new year celebrations in Lisbon reminded me the new year of 2013, as this was the second new year I had in Lisbon commercial square. I have started to work on my thesis, from INESC-ID, developing the distributed and concurrent cloud simulator. In the mean time, I enjoyed the second winter event of EMDC in Evora, Portugal.

Working from a cafe!

After a productive day at InescID, I was at a cafe next to SEF, metro station Parque. I opened my laptop and continued developing the next generation cloud simulator, whilst sipping the coffee. The gentleman at the cashier asked me something in Portuguese. I thought he was saying, "are you crazy or what?". I said, "sorry?" He asked me again in English, "Do you need the Internet connection?" AAAAAND BOOM.. I AM IN TEH INTERWEBS.. And the cafe has a much stronger internet than my room in the apartment. Long live the cafe, and the gentleman who gave me the access to the wifi, without even me asking. Probably you may see me around metro station Parque more often..

物是人非

..and this strawberry milk shake.. :D

These days I often go to the "Community Canteen" of Instituto Superior Técnico Alameda to have a meal for 2.40 Euro, for either lunch or dinner. I realized, I miss the moments I had with my friends in Lisboa.. (Xiao's small talks, Qi Qi's questions, Zell's drawings, Orçun's slow-paced eating (which is slower than mine), discussing Romanian music with Tamás, Dipesh's vegetables, and Pushparaj's lunch box full of chillies.. :D) Lisbon is full of memories for me. I saw a few familiar faces in the Canteen. But apart from that, I am mostly alone in the canteen. Memories define a place. For me, Lisbon is full of memories. I guess, there is a memory - location - people mapping. I will definitely miss the time I spent in Stockholm with the friends, when I go to Stockholm one day in the future. Without you guys around, Lisbon is not the same. Qi Qi says, this feeling is called 物是人非 in Chinese. Hope all of you guys have started your thesis in different corners of Europe..

EMDC Winter Event 2014 - Evora

I had the opportunity to join the EMDC Winter Event 2014 Evora, 12th - 14th of February, 2014, representing the EMDC batch 2012. Though the EMDC Winter Event 2013 Nuria was the real winter event in a ski resort, full of snow, we still were able to have a good time in Evora. It was more like a spring event with a comforting weather. Luckily it didn't rain while we were walking along the lanes of the Evora town. I received the exciting news about the EMJD-DC (Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Distributed Computing) selection during the winter event, which made me even happier during the event.
 
There were informative presentations from the PhD students of EMJD-DC, describing their work, and also from the professors of IST, UPC, and KTH on research opportunities from the respective research labs. Manos from EMDC batch 2011 and I shared our experience with EMDC, with the youngest batch of EMDC - batch 2013. We also displayed the video from our batch showing the memories of Erasmus life with EMDC in Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, after our small presentation (which was adopted from the previous year's presentation, and is given above for your reference). Below you can enjoy that legendary video, which was made by Qi Qi, the cool guy who never failed to document all the moments of our life with Erasmus Mundus. Special guest appearance of the professors throughout the video is a bonus, I guess. I like the video shot before AVExe exam. I still remember that day. huahuahua..

Evolution vs. Creation – Science An Induction Based Analysis

We had this amazing module titled, "Philosophy of Science" at KTH, and we wrote essays on a topic chosen by ourselves. My essay was titled, "Evolution vs. Creation – Science An Induction Based Analysis". I really loved writing that essay, and ended up receiving an "A". Sharing the paper with the blog readers below. :)

Evolution vs creation science from Kathiravelu Pradeeban

A few things that made my 2013 interesting..

TAP, an Important Part of my life in Portugal

Year 2013 had its own ups and downs. But just like 2012, this year too was pretty fine and probably the best year yet. Now time to look into some random things that made me 2013 a unique year. This is mostly an unordered list, except some logical ordering. This is a list of events in the order that appear in my mind at this moment - not in the order of importance.

1. The new year's eve of 2013 itself. 
That was a colourful new year.

2. Finishing touches of 2013. 
Year 2013 had a rushing set of events till the last moment. The year is ending in style. Never had a year end vacation like in 2013 before.

3. Multiple plots and locations. 
I spent the year in Portugal, followed by a summer vacation in Sri Lanka, and back to Europe, but to Sweden. Just returned to Portugal last night. Other short-term locations include Spain, Finland, and Denmark. This made 2013 a year full of travels for me. I got used to the airports, buying tickets online, trying to connect to the airport wifi, booking hotels and hostels.

4. Cruise to Helsinki
It was an exciting experience, although the strong waves once made me feel seasick.

5. Snowy night of the EMDC Winter Event at La Vall de Núria 
The snowy night full of ice. I lurved it. That night was just perfect.

6. Exams and Presentation
All the semester (all 3!) exams were on this year. This made 2013 a year of exams. EMDC required us to do a lot of presentations. Some were fun; some were a bit boring. But we enjoyed them all! I have never done this many presentations in previous years. :D

7. A lovely surprise birthday party by the friends at Bairro Alto. 
It was the best.

8. Hard Rock Cafe, Lisboa
We visited the Hard Rock Cafe quite regularly during the weekends, and enjoyed it.

9. Depressingly dark Stockholm. 
It was winter, the day time shrank and made Stockholm a city of darkness. 

10. Learning some Chinese. 
I also became addicted to Chinese and Romanian music.

11. Nightly walks at Parque das Nações.  
Also, a remarkable night in a cold winter outside Centro Comercial Colombo.

12. Fine restaurants in Lisbon
Buffets at New Wok Chinese restaurant, friendly waiters of Restaurante Destino of Restauradores, and frequent visits to Restaurante Kathmandu of Arroios.

 

13. Summer in Stockholm
It was really pleasant with a long day time. It was dry and not too hot. I can never forget the beach baths and the forest walks in Farsta.

14. The romantic Porto
Summer in Porto was so special. Rio Douro at Porto - The Sun was pleasantly warm. Yet, Matosinhos beach still had freezing cold water. Lovely memories. I promised myself that I would visit Porto again later.

15. Street food in the food market of Copenhagen
I have never enjoyed the street food before as much as I did this time.

16. Reindeer meat and Glöggi, Scandinavian style. 
Not to forget the elk meat. I have started to love the Scandinavian dinner.

17. Movies at several shopping malls

Campo Pequeno, Centro Comercial Colombo, and Centro Comercial Vasco da gama of Oriente.

18. Playing Chess in Obidos
... while enjoying some quality Ginja.

19. Enjoying the Sun at Setubal. 
The boat was stylish and the Sun was warm. A highlight of the Lisbon Summer trip.

20. Vila Franca de Xira, in Autumn 2013. 
A village full of cobweb and free Internet connection by the river! God bless you whoever installed and left the WiFi open to public.

21. The last few days in Portugal before leaving for Sri Lanka for the summer vacation.   
We were keeping ourselves busy by traveling north and south of Portugal. The water was warm in Lagos, and also I enjoyed the cliffs of Lagos. Still, there was sadness - I had to leave Portugal in a day or two.

22. Barcelona Carnival.

The Sitges Carnival close to Barcelona is surely the craziest!

23. EMDC Summer Event
The walk in the Fejan island in the darkness was unforgettable.

24. Hostel stay in Madrid and Barcelona. 
I have never stayed in hostels, even during my school days. To be specific, sharing a room with random strangers (in Barcelona) was new to me.

25. Cooking in Lisboa. 
I started cooking during the Easter Vacation in Lisboa. It turned out pretty well, and I continued to cook daily in Stockholm, which saved me a considerable amount of money that I used later for my travels in Europe. 

26. Living in a shared room. 
Luckily my room mate and I had so many common qualities. We sleep late. Noise and light do not disturb our sleep - that means, we were able to work while the other one was sleeping. We shared our food - that encouraged us to do new cooking experiments. Since my room mate was a vegetarian, we decided to cook only vegetarian meals. That made me almost a vegetarian for 4 months - I had vegetarian meals except during the rare occurrence of eating outside with friends. I was still healthy. :D I have never lived in a shared room before, as I prefer some privacy and a private space. Just like cooking, this too was a new experience and an achievement of 2013.

27. Kindness showed by random strangers in Lisbon and Stockholm. 
I once asked a route from a stranger in Stockholm - he was unsure himself. He pulled out his smart phone, did a quick search and provided me with a detailed information within a minute. Similarly, another Swedish came all the way to a metro station, while mentioning that he really wish to visit the Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka (also known as Sripada, in Sri Lanka).

28. Interviews.
They were interesting.

29. Internet Communications. 
Living away from home and then from Lisbon, made me use the Internet more to communicate. I wanted to be offline once in a while. However, the distributed nature of my life made my life compulsorily online.

30. Shopping - lots of it. 
Not only for buying stuff - also to have a window shopping - in Lisbon, Porto, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Malmo.

Thanks for reading my list until the end. If you are really interested, you may also read the blog posts on my other years as well. I wish everyone of you a very happy new year 2014. :)