ctrl.altered.mind

If the last few blog posts have looked bizarre, it was because of a Twitter cross-posting feature that I enabled via the Twitter Tools plugin. While the tool works fine, it isn’t quite compatible with a blog post structure that includes a discrete header field — it breaks up the tweet across the header and body of the blog. Needless to say, the cross-posting has been turned off now (blog posts will still ping my twitter account, though).

Talk about an inverse generation gap when it comes to technology! Not only is my dad on Facebook now, probably spending way more time on a social network than I would bother to, but he’s also beaten me to creating a Facebook group. Not that I was in any such race, but it is anecdotal evidence of the amazing reach that Facebook is commanding around the globe. If you know my Dad, it wouldn’t be too hard to guess his group has something to do with Maritime Shipping.

Social networks are successfully adding (active) members from demographics that, until recently, were not even considered a target market. Facebook, of course, is quickly headed towards becoming the 800 pound gorilla in this domain with an estimated 175 million profiles (and growing). That is about 1 in 34 people on the planet, which is pretty impressive for a website that has only been around for around 5 years, even if you discount for the number of inactive and duplicate profiles.

Facebook maintains general statistics on their press page, if you would like some more numbers.

I wrote a tutorial back in Dec 2007, on getting the free mediatomb application running (with Fink) on Mac OS X Leopard for streaming media to a Playstation 3 system on your home network. This tutorial gets a lot of visitors even today, and therefore I wanted to post an update which should resolve any further unanswered questions. At the time of writing, I had documented some issues encountered while getting mediatomb version 0.10.0 to install and run correctly on my OS X machine. Since then, the application has been updated and several issues have been corrected. The current version 0.11 of mediatomb installed correctly on my system with no failures (removes the big step of patching the string_converter.cc file).

I shall assume you have Fink correctly installed and running on your system. If not, there is a tutorial on the Fink website (or refer to my previous post).

Fetch a copy of mediatomb by executing the following operation in Terminal -

$ fink fetch mediatomb

Next, install.

$ fink install mediatomb

You will need to initialize the mediatomb application by running the following command (assuming you chose the default path during the Fink installation) -

$ /sw/bin/mediatomb

This should create a .mediatomb folder in your home directory, with the config.xml file included for mediatomb settings.

This config.xml file has also been updated to include helpful comments on the updates required to run mediatomb with a PS3, as follows -

Make the necessary changes, and you should be along on your path to streaming your media effortlessly to the PS3. As always, you can let me know in the comments if something did not work for you. Good luck!

Every social network worth its salt now features targeted advertising in some form. Facebook, easily the most talked about social website on the planet, has been experimenting with their own system for online advertising as well. However, their approach has been somewhat different than the others, in that Facebook is not attempting to directly channelize personal information available on profiles in order to select which ads to display (they may be doing this in some form as a background process, although it is not as evident as with Google ads).

The most ludicrous part about the Facebook advertisement system, however, is this tiny link featured on the bottom left corner of the advertisement frame. More ads. Americans are already overdosing on advertisements, with the numbers of advertising impressions for the average American ranging from lows of 247 to well over 3000 views per day. Seriously, are people even clicking on this marketing link to volunteer for more blurbs and solicited promotions?

Having switched from a desktop to a notebook as my primary computing device (not considering the PS3), being conscious about the added vulnerability of personal data is now imperative. It would be terrible if the laptop was lost or stolen, of course, but there is now the more probable risk of accidentally damaging the portable machine (not that I am sloppy, but it is reassuring to know that I am protected from hard drive damage due to dropping the laptop, or from accidentally yanking it off the coffee table).

Some habits are really worth adopting in order to minimize the pain of going through data loss and/or recovery - even more so in the case of theft (fact: about 97% of stolen computers are never recovered). There are scores of data recovery services available, but they generally seem to take advantage of the customers’ cornered situations and charge a heavy premium for fetching data from a damaged laptop (often more than the cost of a new computer). Of course, there are some pre-emptive solutions available such as PCPhoneHome or LaptopLocate.net, which can help track down machines by monitoring their location. With the iAlertU freeware application, you can even add “car alarm” or security camera protection for an iSight-equipped Apple notebook.

The first and most vital thing to do for any computer user, is to use a backup storage device. The simplest form of this would be to connect an external hard drive. Hard drives with encryption features allow locking down of personal information as all data stored on the drive is inaccessible without a master password. While it is possible to back up data on optical media like DVDs, this is a cumbersome repetitive chore and requires a lot of sorting and organization for the backed up information to be easily accessible.

External drives can play well with automated backup software, thus making what would otherwise be a daily chore an invisible background task for the computer. My external hard drive is network-attached, which eliminates the need to constantly plug it into a laptop, and additionally allows moving all media files to the external drive so they are accessible from all shared computers on the home network. On the flip side, this does have the disadvantage of not being able to access your media outside the home (unless you open up the drive for internet access).

I often find myself minimizing the kind of personal data that is stored on the notebook’s hard drive. I typically use my Gmail account as a network archive as this makes my files retrievable from any computer with an internet connection (more on how to make this process more convenient in a future tutorial). This benefits both security and accessibility, and prevents losing years of data and pictures along with the laptop. There are new web services cropping up now, that recognize this activity and endeavor to help organize data tucked away in your email attachments. Xoopit is one such service that ties in with a Gmail account.

What is your favorite strategy?

When my wireless router started faltering with alarming regularity in the past month, I realized the little device had probably reached the end of its life cycle. The Netgear router has been pretty much running 24/7 over the past two years, and while routers typically last much longer than that, everyones mileage varies.

Therefore, instead of shopping around for an alternative el-cheapo router that would get the job of letting all of my wireless-capable devices talk over the internet done, I decided to take this opportunity to upgrade all the way up - to an Apple Time Capsule.

If you’re familiar with Apple hardware, you will realize that the Time Capsule breaks no new ground - it is simply an 802.11n Airport Extreme base station with a built-in hard drive, which is also its biggest plus point. Having switched from a desktop to using just a notebook computer, a new Macbook Pro, I quickly found the need to have a wireless network hard drive solution quite imperative. It is tedious having a backup drive that constantly needs to be plugged in, to be of any benefit. The Time Capsule steps in with network-attached storage (with choices of 500GB and 1TB), and also integrates seamlessly with the one-click Time Machine backup feature built into Mac OS X Leopard. Additionally, the Time Capsule can also connect (and extend wireless capabilities) to a USB printer or external hard drive. I picked up a 500GB Time Capsule, because the storage capacity should meet my needs for now. There are also web tutorials that prove it is quite simple to upgrade the internal hard drive yourself.

I was a little concerned about rushing out and buying a Time Capsule, simply because initial reviews of the hardware have not been excellent on the Apple website. People have voiced concerns about Time Machine backups taking exceptionally long durations to complete, impact on wireless browsing performance while backups are running (forcing them to turn this off while actively using their computers), and other issues such as unusually high heat generation and wireless device incompatibilities. Having read through all these reviews, I was prepared to purchase the Time Capsule in test-drive mode, ready to return it within the 14-day period if any such issues would raise their ugly heads. Thankfully, I am extremely happy with my Time Capsule.

I have not run into any speed or wireless bandwidth issues while running Time Machine backups or generally accessing the wireless drive (I did use an ethernet connection to perform the first backup, as most would recommend). The router functions excellently, plays well with all my devices, and efficiently utilizes my high-speed connection. I have not experienced overheating issues either, although a higher heat profile is not very unusual for a NAS/router appliance.

The Time Capsule also interfaces very well with my Playstation 3. This was a very important requirement for me, as the PS3 is used heavily as my media center and not just a gaming console. Speaking of games, the console has not seen any connection issues (that I had started experiencing on my earlier router) while playing online first-person shooter games. Additionally, media streaming from my computer to the TV via the PS3 has been excellent (I use MediaLink ($20/free demo) and Mediatomb (free, open-source) for wireless streaming from Mac OS X to the PS3). One thing to note, is that the PS3 does not recognize a NAS - it only supports the DLNA protocol, and would require a computer that is running a media server application in order to access media files. The Time Capsule does not support direct Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP), so if any of your devices require this protocol the Time Capsule is not an option for you.

The Time Capsule only requires a couple of screens of configuring the first time it is used - this is done via the Mac OS X Airport Utility. Once this is done, the router is ready to serve Mac, Linux and Windows machines. The Time Capsule hard drive is also directly accessible by Windows machines, which see it appear as an encrypted, password-protected drive on the network. There is an Airport Admin Utility available for Windows that should allow configuring the Time Capsule using a Windows machine, although I have not attempted this (yet).

As it supports the 802.11n standard, the Time Capsule also allows me to fully utilize the wireless-N capabilities of my notebook. While this does not mean much for casual browsing, it does allow better local networking and is future-proof as far as wireless standards are concerned (at least for a good while).

American Express is one of the major global financial service providers and is best known for its credit card and traveler’s cheque businesses. Naturally, I was shocked to learn that the 74th largest company (Fortune 500, 2007) has such poor focus on enhancing user security for its financial account portal.

The AMEX website permits users to only set passwords with a maximum of 8 characters, with no non-alphanumeric characters supported. This is very strange for a corporation the size of American Express, and especially so for a financial services company. I figure that with these constraints, any kind of password set up on the AMEX site will only qualify as having “weak” strength.

However, I’m sure most people would not even encounter these constraints while selecting their passwords. In a study on password security conducted with undergraduate and graduate students, it was found that over half of reporting users (52.70%) never change their passwords if not required by the system. These numbers drop with increasing frequency, with about 12% users changing their password every three months.

Furthermore, some common practices have been observed to be followed by users when choosing a password. Most users only use a combination of lower case letters and numbers, where the number is usually a personally meaningful one (such as birth dates or phone numbers). Over half of all users also reported using the same password for multiple accounts (around 33% use some variation of the password).

With most websites (AMEX, for example) not enforcing stricter rules for generating passwords, user tendencies are not going to see much change. Passwords are generally considered a pretty basic form of security themselves, and therefore one should be very careful in selecting a password that effectively appears as random as possible to a potential intruder.

Password strength is the amount of security that a password can provide against password-guessing attacks, and is measured in bits of entropy.

Common guidelines for choosing good passwords, as listed on Wikipedia are:

* Include numbers, punctuation, and upper and lower case letters
* Use passwords with at least 8 characters
* Avoid passwords based on repetition, dictionary words, letter or number sequences, usernames, or biographical information like names or dates.

Wikipedia also lists some examples of weak and strong passwords (which are probably already included in password-cracking databases, so please don’t choose one of them for your own).

General alertness is also of extreme importance while using online portals, as even the strongest passwords are of no use when it comes to protecting users against certain forms of attacks like phishing or keystroke logging.

A very special event took form this past week, in celebration of Valentine’s Day. Some guy grabbed credit for making the first ever lolcats proposal (propozlol?).

Oh, and she said yes, lolcats style. =^-^=

Full coverage here.

(picture from icanhascheezburger.com)

A dear friend just emailed me an excellent (and very creative) slideshow, which chronicles some capers his fiance and he have shared in recent years. This presentation also doubles as an invitation - they are getting married by the end of this month (congratulations!!). Sadly, I won’t be able to make it to the wedding that will be taking place halfway around the planet (I’ll get my dinner treat later for sure!). I’d have loved to post this awesome presentation here online, but I’m pretty certain it comes to me accompanied by limited copyright.

Onto the technical part of this blog post (oh yeah, there is always one, isn’t there!)- the slideshow file that I received (in the PowerPoint Show, or .pps format) is not natively playable by StarOffice. While it is one of the better open source application suites available today, StarOffice does fall short in cases such as this one. Fortunately, Microsoft has been graceful enough to offer standalone viewer programs (on Windows) that can handle Microsoft Office formats - not only for PowerPoint (2007), but also for Word (2003) and Excel (2003). There is also a compatibility pack available, which enables MSO 2003 viewer programs to handle MSO 2007 file formats.

By the way, if you have not heard of (or recently taken a look at) Sun’s StarOffice or its parent, OpenOffice, please do. They are excellent substitutes for Microsoft’s commercial Office suite, and have equivalent programs that look and feel almost the same. They can also handle about ninety percent of the functions that the average user requires from their productivity applications suite. Of course, both come at the low, low price of $0.00. StarOffice is also offered via the Google Pack, a convenient package manager tool. For the Mac platform, there is a derivative of OpenOffice available in the form of NeoOffice (with a full Aqua interface).

Now, if only Microsoft gratuitously extended this service for Microsoft Project files, I’d be a happy camper (sigh).

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.