Venkatarangan (வெங்கடரங்கன்) blog
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HP Chromebook x2

2 Mins Read
HP Chromebook x2

Earlier I had written about how unsuccessful I was trying to load Chrome OS on a PC, still, Chromebook is an idea that continues to intrigue me – the first one I had tried in 2015 and it was a Samsung Chromebook 2. Last week, a friend returned from the USA, and through him, I got a new HP Chromebook x2, the best Chromebook outside Pixel line up. HP Chromebook x2 is a lightweight and attractive looking laptop that cost US$467 (INR 33,200). With a comfortable (slightly smaller) keyboard it is a convenient machine at a good price. Unlike, other…

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In Gadgets

The podcasts I listen to, and the best app for playing them is now free!

3 Mins Read
The podcasts I listen to, and the best app for playing them is now free!

What’s a Podcast? A podcast is an episodic series of audio or video files which a user can download in order to listen. Next, to messaging & listening to music, I use my Smartphone for listening to Podcasts. For nearly a decade now, they are my companion during my evening walks and commute – helping me to relax, learn and catch up on the happenings effortlessly. Earlier I have written about the podcast episodes I have listened: Listening to the (late) Sci-Fi author Jerry Pournelle, and reading his classic “The Mote in God’s Eye” Listening to Rob Reid and then reading…

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In Technology

My experience of loading Chrome OS and Linux on a PC

7 Mins Read
Linux on Desktop - Chrome OS, Fedora, Ubuntu and Linux Mint

What do you do after you get yourself a Gym membership? You go to the mall and buy all new workout wears – new dry-fit Tees (T-Shirts), Trackpants, Gloves and more. Are these really needed? Do these help in your exercises, no, but it makes you feel good and increase your self-confidence! MacBook – was expensive, so a non-starter! The equivalent of the above, when you start learning a new programming platform (nowadays) is to buy a MacBook. If you plan to post anything online on coding, the screenshots have to be taken from a macOS Terminal. In the past,…

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In Coding

Python and Google Cloud Vision for Tamil text

5 Mins Read
Python - Tamil OCR and Translate

Learning anything new is NOT easy. And doing it yourself is tough after for years you had a team who can do it faster and better than you. I am talking about me (learning &) writing code in Python programming language. A few weeks ago, I wrote (mostly copy ‘n’ paste) a couple of snippets in Python to do Speech To Text, and, Text to Voice, for the Tamil language – the blog post is here. I followed that with a small program to OCR of the Tamil text from a given image and then machine translating to English. The…

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In Coding

Python code snippets for Speech in Tamil

3 Mins Read
Sample in Python for Tamil Speech

Using Python is fun. In a matter of minutes, I was able to build a rudimentary speech to text recognition app, for Tamil. And after that, in reverse, that is, to speak out loud a sentence of given Tamil text. Speech to Text: I got the base code from here. You need to install SpeechRecognition package (available through PIP) and PyAudio (available through PIP in Linux, but on Windows, you need to install appropriate package from here). Text to Speech: When I posted the above code, I got a reader request for a code that does the reverse – to…

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