ctrl.altered.mind

I’ve only been hit by one meme in the past, but that has not stopped me from wondering about things that matter the most to me when I happen to chance upon memes on the interwebs. It also makes me realize the lameness coefficient of my own blog (sigh). Oh well, now that I have an incoming meme, here are the ‘Top Ten Most Awesome Things That Happened On This Blog’* (in no particular order) -

I went through the task of setting up a UPnP home media server involving a Mac and a PS3

I was amused by the fact that the fastest personal computer to run Windows Vista is a Mac

I discovered xkcd and then chugged through the entire comics archive - and in the process discovered a talk at Google by Randall Munroe, and his ball pit couch

I wrote about recovering hidden disk space on the Mac

I publicly professed my infatuation with all things Audi

I got myself a sportsbike!**

I responded to my first meme

I discovered that Shift Happens

I made fun of Windows (especially Vista)

I wrote a tiny Mac application (based on Automator) that concatenates multiple pdf documents into a single file

Well, that got done quickly. At first I thought I was going to have a really hard time coming up with ten things to list here. Now for phase two of the meme - distribution. Tags go out to Mike, Murali, Rohit, and Sean.

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous new year! See you all in 2008.

* Your Mileage May Vary

** In terms of awesomeness, this one trumps the rest by an immeasurable margin

I just signed up for Jaman, a service that brings people access to movies from around the world, including Bollywood. The website attempts to build an online community around its large library of independent and international feature films and documentaries. Jaman was founded and is currently led by Gaurav Dhillon, the former CEO of Informatica Corporation - a company that provides data integration and delivery services. The name Jaman has been derived from the Hindi word Jamun, a tree and the purple plum fruit of the same name that it bears.

My first impression of Jaman’s website has been very favorable - it sports a polished, yet lean interface that is careful not to over-indulge in cliched Web 2.0 design elements. The movie catalog is easy to browse and is neatly categorized by genre, geographical regions, and ratings. Jaman also has a neat movie discovery feature that allows you to tune your preferences in order to find a movie to watch - complete with an ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button, as made famous by Google.

Jaman is however, primarily a movie rental service that employs its own DRM and P2P network platform that enables users to rent and watch movies in high definition on their Mac OS X or Windows computers. While the site is free to browse, the Jaman player needs to be installed in order to watch licensed movie titles (which come in at $1.99 for a 7-day rental, or to purchase for $4.99). New users get three free ‘movie tickets’ when they sign up, which can be applied towards rentals. You also get two free tickets for every friend that you introduce to Jaman (so please do let me know in the comments if you intend to sign up after reading this, and I’ll email you an invite :P)

The Jaman team has also developed an unofficial AppleTV plugin that lets you stream content from your computer to the TV (if you own an AppleTV, of course). While the AppleTV has received a tepid response thus far, that scene has been predicted to change come January, once Apple announces their much-anticipated movie rental service via iTunes.

I previously mentioned that Jaman has built a social network around its media collection - this network enables users to get in touch with other movie buffs who may share common interests, fans, as well as filmmakers. People can also submit and share their original professional-quality content for distribution via this channel.

I have to mention Bollywood too - while Indian filmmakers and movie studios are waking up to the command that Internet audiences have in terms of bringing in revenue, Jaman is perhaps the first to offer audiences access to (a few) Bollywood movies on the Web. Zeroing in on the Bollywood section on Jaman, I see about 48 movies currently available - these range from the 70s (like Sharmilee) to contemporary releases (like Black and Paheli). Hopefully, this section will grow over time as more people start using the service.

Unlike other free and commercial offerings on the Internet for video consumption (such as Babelgum, Hulu, Joost, and a slew of others), Jaman is focused on providing a Web-based alternative to the Hollywood-dominated mainstream, and simultaneously improve the meager percentage of world cinema that is available to movie enthusiasts in the US.

I think I shall use my first free Jaman movie ticket to watch Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories, a film by citizen journalist Mike Shiley.

..Indian ishtyle!

(hat tip: aditya)

A long, long time ago, I tacked on some OpenID support to my blog by enabling the WPOpenID plugin (developed by Alan J Castonguay and Hans Granqvist) without testing it. After some gentle prodding from spl (who is probably the only visitor to my blog using OpenID :P), I have now finally had the chance to complete this project. OpenID support is now up and functional. Thanks Sean!

The plugin is designed to work with a standard wordpress installation, but kept failing for me because my site is restructured to live outside the conventional /wordpress directory structure. I had to update the permalinks translation at a few points within the plugin code, but it seems to be running fine now. I was able to test this by registering for a free OpenID account (with MyOpenID).

So what really is OpenID? It is essentially an easy-to-use form of online identity. Just like an email address, you can simply use a web address (or URL) that communicates your login information behind-the-scene to a blog or website that accepts OpenID, thus eliminating the need to create and maintain numerous user accounts for each of these sites. Click here to learn more about OpenID.

Care for a swig of style?

A TV writer/producer named Kevin G. Boyd has had an inspiration: ultra-premium drinking water selling for a very, ahem, splashy price — around $38 per 750-milliliter bottle. The water comes from the highly regarded English Mountain Spring source in Tennessee and goes through a nine-step purification process. And then it’s packaged in glazed bottles hand-decorated with sparkly Swarovsky crystals.

Well, at least in this case and unlike conventional bottled water, most people would know that they are buying into pure hype.

(via Daily Dish)

UPDATE! Since writing this post back in Dec 2007, mediatomb has been updated to version 0.11. The build issue has been fixed in this version, and the config.xml file has also been updated with comments. See my follow-up post.

Especially motivated by the recent firmware update rolled out by Sony, I spent most of my available time this past week trying to get a robust media server running on my home network, and it was not quite the simple task as I had hoped it would be. Hence, I felt the need to document some of my learnings and findings here (so someone else trying this setup can hopefully save a few minutes).

All of my photo, audio and video media files live on an external hard drive connected to a Macintosh, which is not in the same room as the TV and PS3 - hence the primary need for a wireless media server. The Mac has yet to be graced with a single full-function UPnP server utility that is easy to setup and configure - this is just a matter of time, however, as I hear that Nullriver is working on developing a PS3 version of their very popular Connect360 program (which plays excellently with the XBox 360).

I have tried pretty much every available Mac/PS3 interconnect solution out there, at least the ones I could try first before buying (which ruled out EyeConnect). I did find reasonable success with Twonky Media Server (30-day demo, $40 license), although this (rather detailed) post is all about MediaTomb - a free, open-source UPnP server application that meets most (if not all) of my needs as far as a wireless media server are concerned.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sony rolled out a firmware update for the Playstation 3 this week, which added enhanced media playback capabilities (specifically, DivX and VC-1/WMV support), and Profile 1.1 support for Blu-ray discs. An interesting feature that was thrown into the mix, is one that enables players to change the tone of their voice during online multiplayer gameplay. It seems like there will be a few more Darth Vaders joining the network now.

I have been trying to get a home media server set up and running to take advantage of these new features (and the media capabilities of the PS3 in general), but that task has been not so straightforward as I first believed (since I am looking to stream from the Mac platform). I will try and document my findings on that soon.

The design principle of a car door has not changed much since the very first concept automobile, save for a few advancements in high end supercars (such as the scissor door design, made famous by the Lamborghini Countach). Scissor doors, however, also suffer from the same hindrance as conventional doors and can impede access to some extent.

The Disappearing Car Door design seeks to change all that. This modification reworks the vehicle architecture to allow the front and rear doors to be concealed under the framework, thus providing some significant benefits as described in the video.

The principle structural design change is the elimination of the B pillar. While this modification may reduce the structural integrity of a conventional vehicle, some reinforcement can be designed into the A and C pillars, as is the case with convertible designs.

In addition to the benefits described in the video, the Disappearing Car Door design could also aid rescue efforts in the event of a collision by reducing the need to cut vehicles open. It would be quite interesting to see if this kind of traversal from conventional design is adopted by car manufacturers in forthcoming models.

This is the one game my PS3 is eagerly waiting for.

A new Final Fantasy XIII trailer surfaced on the internet this week, supposedly sourced from a new gaming dvd released in Japan. To say the least, the styling continues the Final Fantasy dream on the Playstation 3 platform, and the visuals are breathtaking.

The video is mostly pre-rendered, but has some tiny bits of preliminary in-game footage (if I’m not mistaken). Square Enix moved their White Engine development completely over to the PS3, which makes the Final Fantasy XIII set (there are three distinct games in this project) a PS3 exclusive. Expecting in-game footage of any kind would be a bit much to ask at this point, since no release date has been announced yet (although people are expecting it to be available end-2008 or early 2009).

I found this image online, and had to wonder for a second before assuming it to be photoshopped in a satirical vein.

(via reddit)