WDTV Live - HD Media Player

WDTV Live! is the new entry into my home.

It is a full-HD (High-definition, 1080p) Media Player that can play most Video/Audio formats and codecs available today. My EEEBox was in this place earlier to me but EEEBox (B202) struggles to play anything more than 720p video (some frames in even 720p video also stutter if there is too much of a change from the previous frame). I really couldn't enjoy the half/full-HD videos using that. Also, I had to control my EEEBox from my mobile phone via VNC -- this did the job, but wasn't as comfortable as a TV remote. So decided to buy this player.

The choice was between XStreamer and WDTV Live! but I was convinced that I should go with WDTV Live for my needs (Why? is a different topic altogether, that I'm not touching right now).

This is how it looks:

Although small, this is a real monster. I did realize its power only after I played the full-HD (high data rate) version of Avatar (11 GB for 2 hours of video with DTS audio). It flawlessly played the full-HD movie without any glitch, while my EEEBox would hardly render a frame of it. It is connected to my home-theatre receiver via the optical digital audio connectivity (S/PDIF). It transmits the digital audio via the optical interface and the home theatre plays it well (Dolby-digital or DTS). Watching Avatar full-HD with DTS sound was a new experience at home! For those who don't have a home theatre or that doesn't support Dolby Digital or DTS, WDTV Live has a down-mixing support that converts high-end audio to Stereo.

WDTV Live uses the Sigma 8655 chipset, which gives it all its power. Btw, the most interesting thing is that it runs on Linux, but for you to enjoy a Linux node, you need to mod it to the unofficial firmware that exposes telnet. From then on, it's a whole linux box that one can play around with.

It can play media from a USB storage attached to it (no, it doesn't have built-in storage) or from a network. It supports Wired Ethernet and some fixed set of Wifi adaptors. I currently have a Linksys Wifi-adaptor, but that's not supported :(. Due to the lack of Wifi, I had to do some network-bridging to transparently connect my WDTV to my home network, so other devices also can access my WDTV and vice-versa (eg., I can remote-login into my WDTV's linux from my laptop). Media via network was the key thing to me. However, it supports only SMB (samba) based network shares (the unofficial firmwares do support other types; I'm already playing via a FTP share from my NAS).

The remote looks a bit less responsive to me. The UI looks really cool. A cold boot takes around 20-25 seconds (official firmware) and a warm boot takes less than 5 seconds (actually only the UI goes down when the device is powered off via remote).

This device has redefined my TV experience at home! Although I had Dolby Digital/DTS setup earlier, lack of full-HD was definitely a setback. Ah, that's past :)

Heavy rain in Bangalore

Heavy rain lashed eastern Bangalore today noon. I was driving on the Marathahalli outer ring road then. Visibility was terribly low. My car's wiper could barely manage even at its full speed swing. I could barely see anything beyond 50 meters. Every car was crawling at 30kmph while the normal speed would be around 70-80kmph (the speed limit is 60kmph btw).

See the photoes. It was shot near Kadubeesanahalli junction, Marathahalli Outer Ring Road, Bangalore (15-Aug-2010, 2.10 pm.).





It was fun!! I've never driven earlier in such a heavy rain. It lasted at least 20 minutes like this.

Dual boot Meego with Windows XP

After quite a bit of hesitation, last week I managed to install Meego onto my hard disk on EEEBox along with Windows XP. The success stories on getting dual boot on Meego aren't many (in fact none that was satisfactory to let me confidently try). Anyways, it was a pain to boot the live version on USB and reconfigure every time.

This wasn't smooth. There were at least 2 times when I thought I just lost one or more Windows partitions!! I wasn't sure how good is Meego's installer's partition manager, so did all the partitioning on Windows.

/boot -- primary partition; better to keep this primary (ext3)
/home -- logical partition (ext3)
/ -- logical partition (btrfs) - recommended by Meego for /
swap -- logical partition (swap)

Obviously, formatting was done during the Meego installation. The first time I started the install and configured all the mount points, filesystems etc., and let the installer to proceed. The installer failed half-way while formatting my / partition! Not sure if that's related to btrfs or whatever. But it failed and the installer exited. Huh! The first thing I did then was to boot into Windows and check my data (and they were in tact). Although I was actually hopeless to retry, the second try just worked! This time, I didn't have to format /boot, /home, swap as they were already formatted in the previous try - not sure if that means anything here.

Okie, the Meego install was super-fast. Takes less than 5 minutes. I believe they just copy the live image as-is to the disk and just do some post configuration. The post configuration has the boot loader part. It detected my Windows and asked about the default option etc., Sadly there is no option to configure the boot loader timeout. I purposely let Meego as my default boot, so I can fix the boot loader if some thing goes wrong (it helped). Renamed the "Other" option to "Windows" and completed the install.

When EEEBox restarted, I couldn't have even a glimpse of the boot loader. Meego was quickly on its way. I had read about this timeout issue earlier in other forums. The boot loader does not wait enough by default. The boot loader config file is in /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf. Edit the file as root and fix the 'timeout' configuration to 100 (means 10 seconds). Also comment the "menu hidden" line by prefixing with #.

timeout 100
#menu hidden

I didn't know that a shocker was waiting. I rebooted the EEEBox and tried entering into Windows, just to see the notorious error : "NTLDR missing". I was quite scared if Meego just blew up my Windows partition. Thankfully, I vaguely remembered that during the boot loader configuration (in install), I noticed that my Windows partition was identified as /dev/sda2. I had doubted that right at that time, but I hoped Meego would do it right. Actually my Windows was on /dev/sda1 (and most Windows installations would be). But the extlinux.conf file doesn't have any mention of /dev/sda2; for that matter even "sda2". The Windows boot is done by chain.c32 and the boot partition is an argument to this image.

# this is how the conf file looked
kernel chain.c32
append boot 2

Here, the boot parameter means /dev/sdx2. As it doesn't say the disk id, it looks to me if Meego can detect only other OSes on the same disk as where Meego is installed. Hmm..

Changed the config to 'append boot 1' and got into Windows successfully. Sigh!

Though there were hickups, Meego didn't make any damage beyond repair - Happy about that at least. Now Meego automatically logs into my home Wifi without any additional config. Installed gcc, cpp, kernel-headers, kernel-source etc., It has been a week since then; never got back to it :D

Keep Moving In Life

Courtesy: Pravs World

He who is silent is forgotten.
He who does not advance falls back.
He who stops is distanced, crushed.
He who ceases to grow becomes smaller.
He who leaves off, gives up.

When you decide to stand still in life,
you mark the beginning of your end.

Meego on my Asus EEEBox

I've been planning to do this for a while, at last managed to do it this weekend -- installing Meego on my Asus EEEBox.

Meego is primarily a Linux platform for the handhelds. While Meego is under rapid development for the smartphone sector, the Netbook version 1.0 of Meego has been out for a while (more than a month). The interesting thing about Meego is that it supports two hardware architectures: ARM and IA32 (the x86). As you might have guessed, ARM is mainly for the smartphones and x86 is for the notebooks -- primarily targeting the Intel's Atom processor series. In fact, x86 Meego is supported only on Intel's Atom and Core 2. My EEEBox is Atom N270, so didn't have any issues with it.

As any other modern linux distros, Meego needn't be installed, but could be run live from USB (or whatever). One can download the image file from Meego's official website (Note: there are two versions for Notebooks, one with Google Chrome browser and the other without Chrome -- due to the need for a separate EULA from Google). The image file is a standard img file and can be burnt on to a USB stick. One can use win32diskimager on Windows or use the well-known 'dd' (dd bs=4096 if=imgfile of=usbdevice) on Linux.

Note: Burning the image file onto USB disk, will messup with the existing file system on the USB disk; so be ready to lose those files, if it wasn't obvious.

Once the USB image is burnt, it was flawless. Here are some screenshots (you are seeing my TV, as my EEEBox is connected to my TV):

Boot loader:



Boot splash screen:



From the time, I selected 'Boot Meego' at the boot loader, it did not take more than 15-18 seconds to boot and get to the Home screen. It was impressive. For a handheld, I guess this is a big plus. A quick boot and a bunch of features at the finger tip, makes sense. Unless you know it already to be a Linux variant, it is difficult to predict by its appearance.

The Home screen:



Actually once I opened a bunch of applications, this home screen has more items. It acts like a task bar to switch between various running apps. All my devices were detected and Meego had its drivers: Display, Audio, Ethernet, Wifi. The first thing I wanted was to bring it on to my Wifi network and run VNC so I can play with it remotely. My EEEBox is just a computing node with no input devices (so I had to borrow it from my desktop for a while). Setting up Wifi was easy as any other OS. It detected all the wifi networks. Key-in the password as necessary and it just connects!

Wifi Configuration:



Once connected, I was so excited to play around with the network stuff. With Google Chrome browser handy, it wasn't any different than any other OS. I wanted to try out a video from youtube, to test the graphics capabilities. I was only stunned. I even ran the video in full screen and it was hassle free. See for yourself.





I am seriously considering to use Meego when I need to use my EEEBox as a media center PC -- which is what I do most times with it connected to my TV. Primarily because it is much faster to load and light-weight. Presumably, given that it is a Linux variant, it may not be difficult to port any non-UI services to Meego (the UI framework is specific to Meego, I could see that right at first look -- in Meego terms it is called UX, User eXperience). Btw, I did install the VNC server (vino) on Meego and was able to control it from my network. There is a Linux Shell available in the menus, which is a native linux shell opening up the beast behind. 'rpm' is the package manager. It was fun!

Logitech Harmony 525

I bought this cool gadget last week. It should ideally be part of every household that has more than 2 remotes -- but due to the technical complexities involved in configuring it for their devices, it is not actually meant for every one. But for those with little techy background, this is a bliss.

This is how it looks



This is basically an universal remote, which can be used as a single replacement for all the remotes in your drawing room. What is unique about this product is that it can be configured for an activity instead of a device. To be more clear, the functionality of the remote is not based on which device you choose to operate on; instead it is based on which activity that you want to operate on. For example, in a typical home with a TV, home theatre (HT) and a set top box (STB) for digital TV, when you watch TV, you need to change volume on the HT, change channel on the STB, program guide on the STB etc., etc., Basically there are a number of actions that you would perform while watching TV and each belong to its own appliance.

After proper configuration, this is what my remote does when I say 'Watch TV' (on a single button press)
1. Powers on my TV, Home Theatre (HT), Tata Sky Plus - SetTopBox (STB)
2. Waits for 3 seconds (for the devices to load)
3. Sets the TV's input to Component1
4. Sets the HT's input to AUX
5. Changes the channel in the STB to 'NatGeo' (to avoid the irritating ad-channel at the start on tata sky).

all at a single click. Now when I change volume, it sends out the volume up/down to the HT and when I change channels it sends out the channel up/down to the STB. This is what I called 'activity-based' against 'device-based'. Pretty useful and cool.

There are few things that I don't like about it: I hate their configuration mode. It should have been better. You need to have internet connection to configure your remote at home (horrible). Every page in the configuration wizard sends out HTTP requests via the internet to their servers (even worse) -- this makes it too slow. And the justification they provide is: the remote configuration is available at any place at all times!! WTH!!

For configuration, the remote needs to be connected to your comp via USB..Hmmm, soon a wall clock might have a USB port to sync with your outlook calendar! I hate the fact that there is no way to alter any configuration of the remote, without a comp (and yuck, an internet connection too). Some times this makes me postpone a configuration that I would love to have then. Also, the remote's LCD display is always ON; that makes me feel the power is wasted all the time -- I'm surprised why isn't there a power button for the remote itself! No wonder it runs on 4 AAA batteries. Not sure how long it runs.

Anyways, while configuring the devices it controls, they have a huge collection of devices for you to choose from. The software identifies the correct device for you based on various inputs (make/model/type etc); sometimes it asks you to press one or more keys from the original remote and compares it against their database to disambiguate. This was impressive to watch. I had to get used to 'thinking in harmony' before I got comfortable. I should say it wasn't a easy thing to get started immediately -- but given the task, not sure if this could have been any simpler.

But once configured, it rocks! I'm starting to forget that there are 3 devices involved while I watch TV -- there it wins, silently!

Never Give Up On Anything

Courtesy: Pravs World

Its Madness -
To hate all roses, because you got scratched by one thorn.
To give up all your dreams, because one did not come true.
To lose faith in prayers, because one was not answered.

To give up on your efforts, because one of them failed.
To condemn all your friends, because one of them betrayed.
Not to believe in love, because someone was unfaithful.

Remember that, another chance may come up.
A new friend, A new love, A new life.

Never give up on anything!

Jakkuboys

A funny play, describing an IT office :) In tamil though; subtitles still can't bring the original effect!

Jakkuboys - The Movie from Scube Productions on Vimeo.

Digital shredding

Everyone who runs a business or those who are concerned about their confidential documents, make sure they shred their documents when they realize that they no longer need it. Shredding old bank documents, telephone bills etc., are common things. There is a strong need for this, undoubtedly.

In this revolutionary digital world, we should also realize the bigger danger that we have. Many do not know or realize that deleting a file from a comp, does not really delete the file's contents. Based on the size of the file, the fragmentation on the physical storage, the amount of free space left, the number of files written later to the disk (etc., etc.,), a portion or even the whole file may not get over-written at all -- thus facilitating the recovery of the file. The odds of recovery is higher on magnetic disks (unfortunately, the typical HDD medium so far) -- it seems to have a (fairly) non-zero success rate even on an over-written file. This is why the digital shredders usually write various unique patterns over and over again to completely shred the file from recovery.

To quote just one example, it is a common practice, to write down username and passwords on desktop temporarily and deleting it after use -- well it's not over then. It is a bitter truth that someone who gets hold of your hard disk today can retrieve quite some "deleted" confidential data. The odds of losing a disk is pretty high when it is a laptop or when it is a portable hard drive -- these devices aren't uncommon anyways.

There are so many free file shredders available to choose from. Most of them integrate an option to the Explorer's right click menu on the file, so it is easy to use. You can even choose the shredding algorithm to use based on the size of the file and the extent of confidentiality. The stronger the algorithm, the slower it is in shredding. I use this File Shredder, but that's just one among many.

In the digital world, it is so risky that when the damage occurs it is faster than we could react. If you are thinking about shredding your files when you sense a danger, you might most likely fail to do so successfully. It would rather be a good idea to shred (instead of just deleting) the files as when you are done with it. It should come as a practice so we leave less footprint of confidential information overall.

But beware, you can't ever recover the file if you accidentally shred it!! everything comes at a price, ain't it?

Microsoft Windows Mobile - an interesting bug

Bugs aren't rare; that too on Windows.

But this bug on my Windows Mobile phone, was a bit too much. See this snapshot:



The SIM card was very much present in the phone. That isn't the strange part here -- but note the signal-strength meter and the EDGE-support symbol at the top. While WinMo had connected to my service provider and registered itself successfully, some WinMo component still thought that the SIM card was missing! To add to it, I was even able to make/receive calls and the status was still adamant that it was 'missing'.

The well known Microsoft fix worked finally...yes, 'restart'.

btw, this isn't an april-fool hoax ;)

Cisco (linksys) wifi client

I recommend reading my earlier post on my home network before reading this one.

I need to agree that my use case was a bit uncommon, but the impact was a bit too much. The first thing that I had to do after installing the Cisco Wireless Client (called CWC from now on) was to uninstall it. This is why:

I bought a USB wifi dongle from Cisco (was a linksys product) to use it on my EEEBox.

As explained in my earlier post, the idea was to use this wifi dongle as an end-point for internet/intranet access in my home. I connected from my laptop to my EEEBox via VNC over the existing wifi connection. The dongle's box insists on installing the software first before I plug in the hardware into the comp -- possibly for simplicity and to avoid user errors. I remotely mounted the CD (remember? EEEBox doesn't have a CD drive) and started the install. As I started, I was starting to think about how this software is going to handle an existing wifi card which doesn't belong to Cisco. The software didn't show any sign of detecting such a card. At this point, I was calling that as 'seamless' integration!! but that thought didn't last so long. The installation proceeds and reaches the end and my VNC viewer closes!! I was a bit shocked with this behavior, but was hoping that the new wifi client will initialize and get back, and I should soon see my EEEBox back on my wifi network -- but it never happened. As I have static mapping (MAC->IP) on my DHCP server, I knew the IP that it would get every time. Clearly it had gone for a toss!! Then I rebooted the EEEBox using the hardware button on the case and watch the display on my TV. I realized there was an issue (Note: I haven't plugged in my cisco wifi dongle yet). The CWC started up but it was not able to connect to the network -- and the reason: authentication failure. CWC had only picked up my SSID from Windows but not any other credentials (WEP key in my case). This is half-baked migration. If it was not possible to read such credentials from Windows client, it should have at least warned me that it couldn't do so or have asked me for the credentials again! Ok, I forgave and reconfigured the settings on CWC and got it connected to my network. As I thought, I was all done but just plug in the USB dongle, I had a surprise waiting. The moment I connected the USB dongle, the CWC detects the new interface, installs the required drivers and brings it active. BUT, disables the old wireless connection!!! This sucks! defeats my whole purpose. I later realized that CWC doesn't allow two wifi connections (for that matter, any two network connections) at the same time -- at least that software that I got with this dongle didn't! Simplicity at the cost of functionality? I didn't have to think again, just uninstalled CWC instantly. Thankfully, this time, the software did what I expected. It didn't uninstall my wifi dongle drivers, but only the client software. So, one reboot, the Windows wireless client takes over, with both my wifi network interfaces active! Sigh!! Windows resurrected me from something else, for the first time ;)

My Home Network

With more and more devices coming in to our homes, building a wifi network is mandatory these days. But with the devices spread across the whole house, a single wifi network isn't enough anymore. I had the same issue. I have built a cost-effective wifi network through out my home, so all my devices have wifi network all the time available to access my local n/w as well as the Internet.

Constraints:
1. Should cover a wider area than a single router could cover.
2. Cost effective.
3. Lower power consumption.

Here is how my home network looks:



There are two wifi networks (ie different SSIDs) in my home; the source being geographically spread out across my home, covers the whole house. The lines shown in red belong to one wifi network (SSID) and the lines in blue belong to the other one. Almost all wifi devices have a configuration to switch to the other wifi network when the connectivity drops on one connection. With that handy, switching between these two networks isn't a big deal for me.

The easy means to expand the range of a router is to buy another router and configure the two routers in WDS (Wireless Distribution System). This lets them share a common SSID and make it look like a wide range wifi. However, due to lack of standardization (yet) on WDS, it is not guaranteed that two routers from different vendors would correctly work on WDS. Given that I already had one router (given by my service provider) of unknown brand, I would have to buy two routers from the same company. That would add up to my cost and power consumption (I would still need to run my ADSL modem, or get one router with ADSL modem). With my EEEBox coming in, and managing to stay online all the time, I decided to make my EEEBox act as a wifi router for me. EEEBox is not multihomed by default, and comes with only one wifi adaptor (that has an external antenna with a good range). The idea was to get a USB wifi dongle on EEEBox and let it allow adhoc connections to it and route the packets via the builtin wifi card to my other router as required. This works pretty well. Now I don't need to power on a separate another device (router) and that too at the cost of just a USB wifi dongle. I got a wifi dongle from Cisco. Btw, the Cisco wireless connection software has issues with multiple wifi network cards!! I installed the wifi dongle's driver/software from a remote machine (remember? EEEBox doesn't have IO devices) via VNC and boom!!! I lost the connectivity on the other card too, leaving me with no idea of what was going on then -- I had to plug in the keyboard/mouse from my other comp and fix this issue finally. More on it later.

When I watch videos via YouTube application on my Windows Mobile phone, it is awesome to think off that my mobile connects to my EEEBox which understands youtube is a non-local address and forwards it to my other wireless router (in a different room), which sends it out to the Internet. All these happen seamlessly to provide continuous video. No, I don't watch videos all the time, but that's the best way to stress-test a network. I get around 16Mbps bandwidth between my two wireless networks -- fair enough.

Asus EEEBox B202

I have to blog about this awesome machine. There are a bunch of factors that together add glory to this box. There is nothing extra-ordinary about this configuration, but the key factors are the form-factor, power consumption and the price (now).

Any web search would get you this configuration, but still here it is:

* CPU Intel Atom N270 with Hyperthreading
* Memory 1GB
* 160 GB SATA 2.5" HDD
* Integrated graphics with DVI output
* LAN 10/100/1000 Mbps
* Wireless WLAN: 802.11 b/g/n
* Card Reader SD/SDHC/MS/MS Pro/MMC
* Audio chip Realtek ALC662 Azalia CODEC
* Front I/O port USB x 2, Card Reader x 1, Headphone-out jack (WO/SPDIF) x 1, MIC x 1
* Rear I/O port USB x 2, GigaLan x 1, Line-Out (L/R) with S/PDIF x 1

Doesn't sound great? Read more:

Now, all this with a maximum power consumption of just 20W (did you read maximum?). This is awesome, and fits very well for a dedicated server that doesn't need a terminal. It consumes only around 1 unit (kwh) per 2 days while running for 24 hours at full load. And it's ultra silent.

Next, is the form-factor. Its sleek, neatly finished and its dimension is 22.2 * 17.8 * 2.69 cm and weighs just a kg. You just need to see it to believe it, so see it:



Now the price!! I should mention that B202 isn't a recent invention from Asus, but has been here in India for more than a year now. But the prices weren't attractive then (I guess the launch price was around 18K!!). Now one can buy B202 for as low as 10K on ebay India (I bought for 9K with a 10% discount paypal gift voucher). I believe the reason for this price reduction is likely that Asus is clearing off its inventory and is all ramped up for the next models; B206 etc., B206 has HDMI support, but I couldn't get it online in India. I originally wanted to assemble a low end machine with Atom N270 but when saw B202's price, I didn't think again.

If you are gamer, this isn't for you!! The graphics controller is the integrated graphics controller and is not that powerful. But it is more than decent for normal desktop applications at full HD resolution and video usage at half HD. It drives my LG 32" LCD TV at full HD resolution (1920x1080) without issues via DVI (mind you, I'm NOT talking about full HD "videos"). I was told that this struggles playing full HD videos -- I haven't tried. But it plays half-HD without issues, I'm ok with this. Getting a full HD video itself is a bigger pain, so I don't bother. Look at the full HD resolution on my TV:



One funny thing worth mentioning: Asus distributes the drivers in a CD for a comp that doesn't have a CD drive :) Not to blame them, there is no such cheap media available. So, you might have to do some initial gimmicks before you can start using it (yes, the BIOS does support boot from USB).

So all setup, eeebox is running, I see the desktop; what do you do now? There are bunch of things for which I use my eeebox. It's worth discussing how technology helps. Stay tuned...

Remotely access your servers without a static IP

This is a very common problem that many of us face. We might have 24 hours internet service at home, but it is not quite straight forward to access our home PCs remotely from office or elsewhere, simply because their IP address is a DHCP one (at least in India, we need to pay for a static IP address).

I used to ignore this issue earlier, as I never wanted to run a server 24 hours at home. Recently I started networking a bunch of devices at home. With more and more devices coming up, specially a file server or a download server, it is becoming important that I have access to them remotely wherever I'm.

As mentioned earlier, the only issue here is the changing IP address for the server (to keep it simple and focused, I have excluded my router configurations from discussion). I had almost completed a custom solution for this: a simple python script running on my server periodically, which would discover my server's public IP and will post a tweet (content with the encoded IP address) to my secret twitter account whenever the IP address changes. I can remotely watch this tweet and decode it to find my server's IP address. This is pretty neat; except for the small fact that the script needs to be constantly running and polling for IP changes.

Last weekend, when I was fine tuning security on my wireless network at home, I stumbled upon this feature called 'Dynamic DNS' - and that's exactly doing this job in a more efficient way. Dynamic DNS is a means by which any host can ask the DNS server to modify a DNS record. There are at least 2 well known Dynamic DNS service providers : www.dyndns.org, www.tzo.com. Note that this requires Dynamic DNS support from the router (thankfully my router has). Once configured, the router by itself communicates with the dynamic dns server and notifies the change in its IP address. This is much more efficient and reliable as the router by itself handles the change. I used dyndns.org, and it works great. Whatsmore, you can create a dynamic host in dyndns.org something like 'myhomeserver.dyndns.org' (only if it is still available), and map it to your account (your router uses this same username/password to update the dynamic entry for that host). Now you can just remember this hostname, and it dynamically maps to the IP address that your router reported last to the DynDNS server. dyndns.org also has options to the control TTL values of the DNS entries. This shall be used to ensure that your remote client doesn't cache the DNS response for very long, as the IP could potentially be stale by then.

No doubt, this service is useful.

My pencil arts - #6 - Einstein

First and last are scanned ones. The second one is a photo.

Privacy is more and more a concern

I was really taken aback when I read this news this week that the Facebook CEO says "Privacy is no longer a concern" and that "sharing information online is the new social norm"! I'm shocked and I'm not sure if he really thought of anything more than running his own business successfully. I think the reality is "social networking is the new norm and privacy is becoming a concern more and more. Facebook/Orkut should ensure privacy of the information".

That said, I do not under-estimate the complexity of the problem they have on hand. It is not as easy as it sounds (if it did). Bringing up literacy on -- privacy of confidential information, the way the data leaks, do's and dont's, is more than difficult in reality. The fundamental problem as I said earlier in one of my posts is that, the users are mostly common men. No one can blame them; there are many such cases in real life. I still drive my car without knowing how a Common-Rail-Diesel-Engine (CRDI) works -- but there I never had/have to. Hmm, that's not the case with the Internet.

I see so many issues around with more and more social networking platforms coming up with more and more vulnerabilities. Sure, the social networking sites provide a means to collaborate and share info; but how many of us ensure that the info we share reaches "only" the people we intend to share with!! and that's where the problem is. There is so much private info shared all over these sites, that I bet, you can unlock one (out of say 200) of your friends' mailbox using 'forgot password' feature just by visiting their profile. We can't blame the email providers, as if they go any stricter than this, the actual user doesn't remember them too to recover his own password! Still, the email providers are forced to come up with more and more security options. If this is the case with a mailbox, imagine banking!! omg! Don't be surprised if you are asked with a security question like 'who is the best friend of your father-in-law's second sister's husband?' ;)

People are so happy to have more and more online friends. The "count" is all that counts. What they don't think about is that, people whom they don't know are also going to be treated equally with their best friends in terms of sharing info. Sure, the websites offer granularity and options to group friends and control the privacy settings. But how many know it / use it? Not many. Apparently, the ones who are consciously handling the privacy settings are the ones who share the least already! And all this does not happen consecutively for someone to remember. I might add 5 friends this week and I might end up sharing a confidential information after 6 months. I may not remember that I had those totally "online" (and possibly virtual) friends, but they now have the info that I don't want them to know. In spite of the websites (like facebook/orkut) warning the users, it is difficult to enforce this. Users are mostly in a hurry to share and go read what others have shared. At some point, the users only look for an easy way to get rid of that popup and get back to business -- unfortunately defeating the whole idea of those warnings!! but that's reality. Sometimes I feel really odd when I see the privacy setting for 'friends of friends' -- this doesn't make sense to me at all. In spite of you being extra careful on sharing info, this might just screw up the entire deal. To me, a friend of my friend should belong to 'Everyone'. In security, one should consider the worst case as default.

I've read and also realized that there is a lot of encroachment happening into the privacy of the individuals without they knowing about it. It seems there is a concept catching up called 'virtual friends' wherein, bots (computer programs) try to create friendships with unknown people. There was also a study that says many people have the tendency to accept unknown online friends. I can tell you that recently the number of friend requests that I get on both orkut/facebook have increased and believe me, I don't know most of them. With more and more real people having funny names on their profiles, it is obviously getting easier for bots to deceive us. I might have rejected some real friend requests because they sounded abnormal. Maybe someone (or many) somewhere is making the grounds; silently gathering info; or waiting to.

and someone out there says privacy is no longer a concern!! hmmm...

Various video interfaces and their qualities

There are so many types of video interfaces (ie., cables) that we come across every other day and not everyone understands what they are. It is essential to understand them, so we can use the best option that we have. There is definitely differences in the video quality and because these standards have evolved over time, not all video devices (be it a TV or a video player) have all available options. This has enforced the recent device manufacturers to support a variety of video interfaces, thus they ensure backward compatibility with the other end (a TV or a player). Unfortunately this has brought in confusion to the common people when they just look at the back of their new LCD TVs. Those olden days TV would just have one RF cable input, nothing else!! Gone are those days! Now, if you look at a modern TV, there are whole bunch of outputs (yes, including that RF cable input), and it isn't easy to choose the right cable to use for your need unless you understand what it means. Thanks to all those unique swanky colors, that lets us easily identify them on two devices.

It so happens that if both your devices (player/TV) are recent ones, you will have many choices. At that point, it becomes important to use the right one. Here are the various cables in the increasing order of their quality:

1. RF coaxial cable: This is the old one, that used to run from the Antenna on the terrace. This has the least quality. The TV Tuners for computer are exactly meant to decode this input. Carries both audio and video.

2. Composite (RCA): This is the most popular yellow plug thingy. Composite cable offers more quality than the coaxial ones. This is so very popular that, people still use this for video signals even when they have better options. That said, even today, this is still the most available option (in India). Many lower end DVD players/TVs only support till Composite. Carries only Video.

3. S-Video: The name apparently derives from the phrase 'Separated-Video'. In S-Video, the video signal is mainly separated into two parts: Chrominance (color) and Luminance (light intensity) signals. This offers much better clarity while solving some shortcomes in the composite signal. S-Video cable appears as a single cable, but has multiple terminals within it. Quality better than Composite. Not so commonly seen/used on TVs/players. Carries only Video.

4. Component: As it's name indicates, component video carries various components of the video separately. It is an enhancement over S-Video, by splitting the video signal into Chrominance (color) and 2 Luminance (light intensity) signals. And the luminance signal carries the subtraction of luminance and the Chrominance (Y). The signal is carried via 3 cables (Green, Blue and Red). The component video input/output is usually marked with Y, PB/CB, PR/CR. The second and third channels are actually B-Y, and R-Y respectively. This subtraction method reduces the bandwidth requirement and offers much more clarity than any earlier ones. This is becoming increasingly available these days (my Tata Sky Plus STB has component out). The clarity is apparent (against Composite/S-Video) when the size of the display is bigger and when the source of the signal is digital (note: Component signal is not digital, it is analog; I'm talking about the source of the signal, say MPEG2/4 as in DTHs). There is also a RGB Component video, which carries the R, G and B signals separately in 3 cables; but unless qualified with RGB, a Component video means the normal one. Quality better than all the above. Carries only Video.

5. DVI: Acronym for Digital Visual Interface / Digital Video Interconnect. Provides really high bandwidth to transfer high quality video including full-HD (1080p @ 1920x1080). DVI uses a single high quality cable with a number of internal lines. DVI has a quality much superior than that of component video too. DVI does not carry audio signal -- usually a preferred interface for computer to high resolution LCD monitors.

6. HDMI: Acronym for High Definition Multimedia Interface. There are various revisions on this video standard and this is the state-of-the-art video interface standard as of today. Unlike DVI, HDMI carries both video and audio. The video quality is just the same as DVI, and it also has provision to carry signals for 8 audio channels!! In addition it also carries a commanding control line (called CEC - Consumer Electronics Control) which allows the HDMI devices to communicate and command each other. To quote an example, when I turn off my LCD TV, it automatically turns off my Home Theatre (yes, both are connected by HDMI). HDMI-CEC is usually called in different names by different TV/Home theatre manufacturers. For eg., LG calls this SIMPLINK. This is a really high-bandwidth interface and requires a good quality cable for best results -- the cable is pretty costly; as of this writing a good HDMI cable of 3m length costed me Rs.800 in Bangalore. An interesting note is that: DVI and HDMI are compatible with each other at signal levels too, so it is pretty easy to get converters between them -- obviously HDMI-to-DVI will result in loss of information on audio, CEC on the receiving end.

The bottom line is: If you ever have a means to connect via HDMI, just do it! else, follow this ordering by quality and choose the right one. In my home, I have my home theatre connected to my TV via HDMI (I can watch full HD movies with Dolby Digital audio, with just that one cable running between them) and my Tata Sky Plus STB connected to my TV via Component.

Avatar 3D @ Fame Lido

I watched Avatar 3D at Fame Lido, Ulsoor, Bangalore. I took enough time before I went ahead to watch this film, so that I can get enough feedback on the 3D experience from the people who have already watched it. This was essential in Bangalore, because this is the first 3D film screened in commercial screens. Someone had reported bad experience on INOX, Jayanagar; There were lots of negative criticism on Fame Lido Shankarnag (MG Road, Bangalore) -- these were useful and I avoided these two. If not positive review on Fame Lido, at least I didn't read any negative comment on this one - so went ahead.

At the end of the movie, I realized there were various factors involved that affected my movie experience yesterday. So I would have to rate in three different ways:

Avatar 3D:

It was an awesome experience. This is first time I saw a full length 3D movie with 3D effects. The creativity on the various creatures, plants, trees, sceneries was jaw-dropping!! The concept slightly reminded me of The Matrix though. I believe, James Cameroon has consciously stayed away from making funny 3D effects, but concentrated more on making a real 3D film. 3D has been utilized as a tool to make the audience perceive the depth and details of the frame than anything else. I liked that. At some point, we get so involved in that 3D mode; removing the 3D glasses would show you how dumb the movie looks otherwise!

Fame Lido:

The theatre is located in Lido Mall, Ulsoor, Bangalore (near Trinity Circle). Due to the rail bridge construction for namma-metro, finding the mall and getting into the parking entrance is not easy for the first time. What's more? The Box office is on the ground floor and the screens are in 2nd and 4th floors. No indication or whatsoever. I went to the 4th floor directly (thanks to those notices inside the lift), just to learn that I had to collect the tickets at the ground floor. The automatic ticket kiosk was the only rescue. There are just 2 lifts of medium size, no escalator. If you reach the theatre just on time, you are going to be in soup. Parking is very very limited and a big mess. Specially if you reach there on a time when a previous show ends (which is usually the case), you may or may not get a lot. I was fortunate to reach there for the first show. But, it took me at least 20 mins to get out of the parking space. The ticket cost, snacks were all costly to the standards of other high class theatres in Bangalore, but I'm not convinced on the quality front. There was always a long queue in the snacks counter; the restrooms were like caves (albeit clean). The mall is still not complete and there is almost nothing other than the Fame Cinemas and a Coffee Day. I would never go there again, unless there is a compelling reason. There is a fundamental problem with the space and infrastructure, which I'm worried they can't resolve.

Avatar 3D @ Fame Lido:

The experience of watching a 3D movie, definitely changes based on the theatre. I've not watched Avatar 3D in any other theatre, so can't really compare against anything. But overall the experience was not disappointing. I could sense the 3rd D; the sound quality was good. The 3D glasses weren't of great quality, bit heavy; my nose bone was paining for a while after the film. The biggest issue in Fame Lido (Screen 3) was that the screen was small. When you look at the screen, it does not cover your complete view. This definitely makes a negative impact on a 3D movie -- lacking a complete 3D effect. That said, the quality of projection was good (unlike Fame Lido Shankarnag -- as per comments on the net). Ignoring everything outside the movie hall, the overall movie experience was not bad; but not a first choice theatre for Avatar 3D!

Tata Sky Plus -- Television redefined

Tata Sky Plus (TSP) isn't anything new that I'm trying to introduce to the crowd, but its extra-ordinary power pushed me to write about it. Even, I knew about Tata Sky Plus right from the time it was launched; knew about the features and felt amazed. But believe me, you need to experience it to appreciate it even further. The flexibility it offers is a real big leap in the realm of television broadcasts.

My USB TV tuner card had somewhat similar features (along with my TVProgramGuide application), but TSP is even better.

The crown of TSP is the ability to pause, rewind, record "live" TV. I know, some might feel that these are unnecessary features or luxury, but I've used it already many times in these 2 days (not because I have it, but because I needed it). It turns out that it is pretty common that we miss some critical scenes while we watch a TV, and ignore an inner urge to rewind it (because there is no way). We just live with it; but we don't have to, if 'we've TSP. I knew earlier that TSP allows the viewers to record one channel, while watching the other channel (yes, it has dual tuners built-in), but I didn't know that it would even allow you to record 2 different channels simultaneously while you watch one of the earlier recorded programmes - this is awesome. It requires a good amount of processing power. With a 160GB hard disk built into the DVR STB, TSP has all its space and power to do wonders -- it's a real multi-processing machine!!

There are many other good features in TSP too that are common across all DTH providers. I've only blogged about what's so special.

With their easy to use UI (I believe so), they have integrated all the features very well. Their user guide was a simple 15 page guide, with cool guidance. That said, the features it offers is a little beyond the understanding of a common man. e.g., a non-techy person "may" not be able to understand and enjoy all the features.

The high beam non-sense

I am getting to feel that the high-beam non-sense has tremendously increased on the roads in India in the recent times. With more people starting to ride on roads, with more and more powerful bikes and cars coming up, this has really become a PITA.

I wonder if (those) people even know that there are ways to control their beams. Maybe people like that extra indicator glowing on their dashboard, without bothering to worry about what it means. Not just cars, these days bikes' beams are also too bright to withstand. I hate these bike manufacturers for providing such big domes and reflectors -- specially the pulsars, unicorn etc., I can really feel that pain in my retina and like everyone else I would struggle to see through. No need to mention the consequences on the ride.

The other day, I started from office in a bad mood (as usual). Was driving my car on the service road in Outer ring road, Bangalore. There was an opposing car with high beams (nothing uncommon). It was really too bright, and with the scarce lighting on the service road, I could only see those two head lights in the whole world around me. Being frustrated already, I didn't want to ignore this. I thought I would at least let him know how it feels. So I just put my headlights on high-beam and drove towards him :) I was happy that he would have learnt a lesson by now; but interestingly, as our cars cross each other, this guy stops his car and scolds me for my high beam and leaves. Hmmm. feeling totally helpless when you are frustrated? priceless!!

Nothing is going to change, until this is seriously considered a traffic violation.