ctrl.altered.mind

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.

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.

I came across an interesting feature while reinstalling Skype on my notebook computer - one called Skype Prime. This program is a (relatively) new addition to Skype’s family of services, and like most things Web 2.0, is still in beta. Apparently, the feature has been available since March this year, although I didn’t hear or see anything about it until today. This service uses the tag phrase, “Get paid for sharing your skills, or learn something new”. If you guessed paid phone services, you were quite right.

Skype presents you with an opportunity to earn (big bucks?) by letting you create your own personal ‘call center’. Anything that can be taught over the phone, is up for the offering. You could teach people a new language or narrate horoscopes, while charging them a fee (either per-minute, or a one-off charge). People who call in to avail of your services, will need to use their Skype credit to make payments - the minimum per-minute fee for any service is €0.10 (although that could possibly drop further in the future, as people start seeing greater value in having or providing such a service online, instead of setting up toll-access lines the conventional way).

Just a little online investigation regarding the marketability of this program has me convinced of its value. People are already familiar with the concept of being charged for receiving answers to their questions and problems online (through the popular Yahoo! Answers marketplace). I can easily see someone add the sentence “Call me on Skype if you need additional help with installing your new router (for example)” to their Yahoo! answer.

All this has me thinking.. how clichéd would it be to set up my own personal tech support line as an experiment? Riiight, an Indian guy on the line here on Skype too? At least I’d be charging less than your ‘friendly neighborhood‘ Geek Squad. Thank you, come again.

I snapped this picture at a local grocery store, where a kiosk’s sole function of displaying catchy ads for coupons and new products was marred by a familiar Windows error, although not quite as attention-grabbing this time as the other one I had blogged about.

(click for larger image)

Interestingly, the command line reveals that the kiosk runs Laplink Everywhere, commercial software that allows remote access to a PC from anywhere. I guess all the kiosks from the store (and across the country) connect to a central machine that selects the advertisements to be run by the store, and thus rely on 24/7 internet connectivity for their operation. Given that the kiosk is using a capable machine with a complete Windows XP installation, I would have guessed that a better design would be to run local custom software and just provide daily (or even hourly) updates via the internet connection - which is also the way most Windows spyware work.

Of course, capital costs could have been cut significantly if the kiosk ran cheaper x86 hardware with a basic Linux installation - although I wonder if that was even an option considered by the company that designed the kiosk.

The Government of India has recently set up an online grievance forum with the intention of opening up a more direct line of communication with citizens, who can use this tool to highlight problems faced when dealing with Government officials and/or departments. Avenues that immediately come to mind include (but are certainly not limited to) the Passport Office, Electricity Board, BSNL/MTNL, and the Railways.

Submissions to the forum may not be falling on blind eyes after all, if unconfirmed anecdotal evidence making the rounds on many online message boards and by email, is to be believed. It talks about a certain CSC employee in Faridabad who used the forum to log a complaint about the local municipal corporation digging up newly paved roads to install cables - an annoyance most of us in India have had to deal with. Apparently, this was successful, as the BSNL and the Faridabad Municipal Corporation were served a show-cause notice soon after. While it is not clear if the online forum played a vital role in bringing the two departments in sync with each other, it is definitely a tool that more of us can make use of.

Unfortunately, the website (as with most other government-controlled websites in India) suffers a great deal in the aesthetics department (I doubt that any sense of design even exists for the persons in charge of getting websites implemented). With a heterogenous mix of poorly selected html design elements and colors, spending too much time browsing the site can drive one to poke their eyeballs with a fork, in disgust. Alright, dramatic effects aside, I guess a complete redesign of the site (with a hint to derive some inspiration from other functional and spartanly designed administrative websites around the world) would be my choice for a grievance to be filed on the forum. Let’s see how that goes.

The USB Implementers Forum is planning to announce the next generation of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology by mid 2008. USB 3.0 will allow a ten-fold increase in data transfer rates, by adding fiber-optic links alongside traditional copper wires in the bus - which would boost the specification to a theoretical 4.8 Gigabits per second (the current USB 2.0 version has a top data-transfer rate of 480 megabits per second).

Although not too many external peripherals would be able to make use of such bandwidth, the technology implies a completely different meaning for devices such as external hard drives and next-generation optical drives like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. The data transfer rate of internal SATA hard drives today caps out at 3 Gbps, with most desktops and laptops using a lesser SATA version that allows only up to 300 Mbps. The prospect of an external hard drive having the ability to exceed transfer rates of today’s internal drives, is very promising - as transfer speeds are the only strong differential that separates the two categories of consumer hard drives today.

There is probably no need to hold off on that impending hard drive purchase just yet, as USB 3.0 products won’t be arriving in the marketplace before 2009 or 2010.

(via slashdot)

When I first arrived in the US, I was quite overwhelmed by the broadband access available at my University on the Internet-2 network, and also the connection my roommates and I shared at our apartment. This was already light years ahead of the dial-up connection my brother and I sparingly used back home in Mumbai. That said, the United States is nowhere in the league of nations with screaming-fast broadband speeds. Here’s a chart of the average (downstream) speeds available for consumers by country, in megabits per second. Japan and Korea are an order of magnitude ahead, with the US trailing off at 14th place with around 5.0-6.0 Mbps average speeds.

It’s amazing, how a geek’s lifestyle can seamlessly expand or contract according to the resources presented. While dial-up seemed quite adequate at the time, even in its most frustrating hour (like those last-minute submissions for the IEEE-VESIT online contests), to the point where even a mobile phone today that’s ‘turned off‘, needs 24/7 broadband connectivity to stay fully functional (no, I don’t have nor plan to get an iPhone). When it comes to bandwidth, can one ever have enough?

I registered for a new Comcast High-Speed internet connection a few days ago, and the experience so far has been quite alright. Comcast has made some changes for the better, since I last dealt with them in order to get a connection at my last apartment. With a bandwidth offering of 6.0 Mbps (download) and 1.5Mbps (upload), the deal is not too shabby. The service also promises a new PowerBoost feature, that is supposed to add an extra kick to your bandwidth over a smaller initial data transaction - in order to provide faster completion times for frequent accesses such as uploading and downloading email attachments.

According to the Comcast User Agreement:

Comcast 6Mbps High-Speed Internet with PowerBoost provides a burst of download and upload speed above the customers provisioned download and upload speeds for the first 10 MB and 5 MB of a file respectively. It then reverts to your provisioned speed for the remainder of the download or upload. Many factors affect speeds. Actual speeds may vary and are not guaranteed.

Here are the bandwidth rates that I’m clocking, as recorded by a quick speed test on SpeedTest.net. Other speed test websites that use Flash or Java based tests, register much lower speeds, probably due to the fact that the PowerBoost feature does not kick in on plain HTTP transactions.

According to a slew of blog articles posted recently, Comcast has been observed throttling bandwidth for BitTorrent users. While this may be the ISP’s preferred way of deterring illegal file sharing, it does hurt legitimate avenues where the file sharing protocol is being applied (Linux distributions and content upgrades for online games come to mind). Selective throttling based on the nature of content goes against the very principles of the freedom of speech and neutrality, on which the Internet was formed.

The fact that Comcast sets up a MAC-address based cable modem connection, however, means that I will have to go through the laborious 1-800-COMCAST process once I need to swap Comcast’s rented cable modem with the one I just bought online. Here’s to hoping that does not turn out to be a chore.

If you have not (attempted to) visit my website in the past few days, you wouldn’t have noticed. The site was down through most of this past week because of a domain transfer that went wrong somewhere, and I ended up with a bad A-record and incorrect DNS servers. Well, I’m glad that’s fixed now. I was dreading having to get in touch with technical support by my domain and hosting providers to help get this fixed as soon as possible, but surprisingly, it was not too hard getting in touch with a person each time I called. Unfortunately, the fix itself took days to fix, because of the whole 24-48 hour DNS propagation time involved with each change (but that’s beside the point).

It is really nice to be able to get talking to a person when calling a phone-based service, despite the great advances that have been attempted (and accomplished by a few) in phone support technology - like voice recognition. Instead of hitting keys on my phone keypad, I can now be spotted (albeit rarely) conspicuously uttering single words, punctuated by long pauses, on my cellphone in public. English.. Register.. Yes..

Fortunately, there’s an easier way out in most cases. Thanks to the GetHuman project, a database of phone-based services along with the method of reaching a human at the other end of the line, is now available online. Check it out. Most of the time, hitting ‘0′ at each prompt helps speed up the experience, but a lot of services have different combinations, like a cryptic ‘1433′ code for Wal-Mart (but really, who in the world needs to call Wal-Mart?). I wonder if these codes are present for better assistance, or as easter eggs waiting to be discovered. I can say for sure, from experience - please consult the GetHuman directory if you’re planning to call your credit card company