Friday, December 15, 2006

Apple. DRM, Rand...

This article is long over-due….it all started when I ‘n madcap were discussing about apple, DRM…’n I asked him…how do you think Ayn Rand’s philo will fit into all this….? ‘N the Q got redirected to me…’n due to lack of time? Said‘ll blog about it sometime…. ‘N having nothing better to do, coz of being sent home early due to ppl staging protestations in front of office, here I am inking my thoughts on the subject…

Disclaimer…

Let me clarify, this post is just to air my views or rather my lack of views, coz ‘m still not sure where I stand on this… ‘n coz I keep seeing this, thought will put in here also, though doubt if this topic is that controversial, anyways here it is –the views are mine alone ‘n not subscribed by my employer :D And all the said things below are based on what li’l knowledge I possess, so if some things are wrong then it is due to non possession of facts rather than any intentional over-looking…

Ok, let me begin with what started it all…iPod. Now I must confess ‘m a big-time apple fan but in this post I will try to be as un-biased as possible…. It started off with my confusion o’er what mp3 player to buy. Well I had always loved the apple’s click-wheel interface ’n the oh so classy look of ipods but they did have a major draw-back that they dint have any kinda radio support( which was a major major reqmt for me) ’n dint support that many file formats either. But even with these draw-backs I was considering iPod. At this time was asking everyone I knew about other alternatives ’n that’s where madcap came in- ’n he being my total opp. i.e. apple hater… , started off on a tirade against it. His major gripe was the ‘DRM’ of-course, well even ‘m against it but it dint bother me much coz me never plan to buy music off iTunes ’n neither am I rich enough to possess more than one player, so the Q of playing the bought music on other players doesn’t arise at all. :P Probably ‘m being selfish ‘n looking at only my needs, but if ‘m buying the player for myself, then it should follow that I should buy something which suits my needs…rite? ;)

A li’l history…

Anyways his take was ‘apple’ is evil, coz of the DRM, ‘n all that customers who bought the music have no where to go but stick to apple. I totally empathize with the ppl, it’s one sick situation to be in. But let’s start off from beginning….When iPod was launched, did any one ever (cud have) imagine (d) such a situation…? A song for 99c was such a brilliant move that it was instantly lapped up by ppl as well as by the music industry which was then fighting the ‘napster’ ‘n such p2p sharing. It was like, to quote Godfather – “I’m gonna make you an offer, you can’t refuse” ‘n to top that it was perfectly “legal” too….: D The record companies never imagined that iPod would become so bloody popular, I doubt even if Jobs himself imagined it would grow this much… So now you have ‘Universal’ music wanting a chunk of the cut, coz it considers all music on iPod as stolen!!!

Btw here’s a nice script of a hypothetical conversation b/n Jobs ‘n Doug Morris.

DRM…

Btw why did it take so long for any decent competition to arise for iPod? 2 yrs back I doubt if any one wanted to use any player other than iPod, but that was then. ’N the fact is that now ppl don’t want DRM, they want to pay only once for their music ‘n be able to play it on iPod, zune or any player. So why it is that apple is still sticking to DRM? ‘Coz IMHO it doesn’t need it to lock customers using it, coz iPod is such a gr8 prod by itself that ppl will use it anyway. Probably that explains why there has not been a major customer cry o’er this ‘coz ppl don’t want to use anything else…? But then as madcap was saying all these big-players ‘apple’, ‘M$’, ‘sony’… can all come up with a DRM standard which allows inter-operability. :D So then is DRM to prevent/disabuse P2P? If so, it’s a total failure coz as long as you have DRM you will get hacks to circumvent it…

Then is ‘Music Tax’ the way to go, like Peter Jenner says? ‘M not sure but what ‘m sure of is that DRM is defi not the way to go….

Artists, Record Labels, free music….

Free music…well rather music for free…are you really depriving an artist’s lively-hood when you d/w a song illegally off the net? When you d/w a metallica song, is it that they will lose one rupee, oh I mean one dollar from their millions? So you see it is really a bad thing to do…

It’s a different matter that new artists/bands don’t mind their music being distributed freely on the net, coz that’s how they will get popular but as soon as they start getting popular and get signed by record labels, there goes your free stuff…

Now record labels are painted across as the evil ppl, which is not entirely wrong considering that not much of the proceeds go to the artists who deserve it. But in this dog-eat-dog world, no one is free of blame: artists sign enormous multi-million dollar deals for a record whether they deserve it or not is another matter altogether. ‘n the consumer, of course if he is get something for free, will he pay for it else where?

Pls: On one hand you have artists like developers of ‘South Park’ whose sole aim of creating is so that people should watch their shows…’n then you have comedy central whose aim is to milk as much money as possible from the viewers…

How much greedy is greedy? Where do you stop? ‘N should you stop at all?...

Well guess this is the crux ethical Q involved in all the above.

All companies start off small; they develop one revolutionary product on top of which they start growing. So you had M$ beginning with MS-DOS, then Windows ‘n then came the Office ‘n IE. Now this is where the things got murkier. You had Netscape a pioneer in the browser ‘n Word Perfect but M$ started shipping IE ‘n Office integrated with windows. A gr8 business strategy some would say, but ethical? But then some ask what is ethics in business?

‘N then you have some companies piling upon patents on patents, which hinders the very purpose of ‘patent’. Patent concept was developed to foster innovation, but with all the patent filing by big conglomerates one never knows when one may use an idea unknowingly, which is already patented ‘n the big corporation comes knocking on your door for royalties.

Free s/w Vs Proprietary….it can be one entirely diff post altogether but for samplers - if I want to make money off what I code is it a bad thing? ‘Coz if you release the source, any normal intelligent person can compile it himself ‘n use it for free. It seems ppl have no problem with making money but it’s only when one starts to make too much off it they start having problem. They expect you to start allowing others to compete with your own product. This was where I thought of Ayn Rand. Remember ‘Atlas shrugged’ ‘n Hank Rearden's companies? No one should make you feel guilty of being rich when others are poor, when you have earned it. But in what way you earn it is what matters. ‘N in today’s competitive business environment there’s no way you can live without stepping on someone’s toes. So you have company like ‘Google’ with motto – ‘Don't be evil’ getting increasingly into danger areas where it’s being accused of wrong-doing.

Having said so much ‘m still no where near the answer for the above question.

‘Haves’ ‘n ‘Have-nots’ ‘n ‘Doers’ ‘n ‘Non-Doers’…who is black….who is white? But ‘As it always is - there’s only grey….’

pls: tried to post this frm Google docs as the blogger keeps telling me to....but da darn thing doesnt work! hope google stops advertising stuff which dont work...

Friday, December 08, 2006

Wii-llenium?

Quite a nice-term actually to describe the Wii wave sweeping o'er da world...Well 'm no gaming freak...actually hardly no da 'ABC' of gaming.... :) but now this is one which i just cant wait to try....it looks like pure-joy... :)
You can check out this site. for more info....Look out for the video with da girl-boxing... :)

'n this is so funny... :)

Monday, November 13, 2006

star wars


well this weekend saw the entire star wars saga... had watched the Episodes I, II 'n III before, but it was a different thing all together to watch all six episodes @ a stretch.

Think 'revenge of the sith' will be my most fave movie of the lot....just love da way its been directed...so dark...da journey of "Anakin Skywalker' to da dark-side so perfectly captured....

All 6 movies should be on the must-watch list(collection) of any movie-lover....
'n for those who still haven't managed to watch 'em even once...thn all i can say is 'Go...Watch...Now' :)

google reader

well...today was just telling one of my friends that i blog here whate'er i find interesting in da technology world 'n use a lot...'n realized that i hadn't put in an entry regarding 'Google Reader' to which 'm so addicted these days...

For starters Google Reader is a simple, free to use 'Feeds a.k.a RSS Reader'. You can go through this incredibly easy-to-understand 'n to-the-point FAQ. So that saves me the trouble of explaining it. :D

And now where all does it find its uses. A single place to track if there are any updates to the blogs you visit often. A great place to get all the latest news, gossip, rumours...well only if you subscribe to the right sites ofcourse. For e.g: if you are a sports freak, you can always subscribe to bbc sports or if you are a technology freak you can subscibe to the zillions of such sites out there on the net.

Now, the feature i like the most is sharing ofcourse :). Then there are tags. 'N Something which i found today, the 'Goodies' section. It has two cool goodies called 'Put Reader in the Bookmark' and 'Subscibe as You Surf' . 'N the former displays this when there are no new updates. :)

So, Njoi reading!

adiós

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

time-line

well just now stumbled upon this great site, while searching for a good time-line software.

It all began when i stumbled on this sometime back. Somehow the idea seemed to remain in that mind of mine...so searched for it again yesterday. But again the complexity just to get it to work overwhelmed me.

'n today realized tht i hadn't dugg the link, which meant finding it will be tough in case i need to refer to it in future. So off i went again to the site, 'n strangely went to the bottom of the comment section, where in i found this gem. :) Though granularity of the time-line needs a lot to be desired, it makes up for it in its simplicity 'n easy-to-use interface. Perfect for lazy ppl like me. :)
so it may be some time before i spend some time figuring out 'n setting up this, as now i have a great alternative. :)

its funny how so many new 'n innovative ideas people come up with, like 'YouTube' which has been named the 'Best Invention of The Year' by the Time magazine. :)

Sunday, October 22, 2006

My Dosha ... :D

Your Dosha is Pitta

You have a quick mind, a gift for persuasion, and a sharp sense of humor.
You have both the drive and people skills to be a very successful leader.
Argumentative and a bit stubborn, you have been known to be a little too set in your ways.
But while you may be biased toward your own point of view, you are always honest, fair, and ethical.

With friends: You are outgoing and open to anyone who might want to talk to you

In love: You are picky but passionate

To achieve more balance: Be less judgmental of those around you, and take cool walks in the moonlight.

Friday, October 20, 2006

GooTube... lol

NAM 3.0

i.e. Novell Access Manager 3 for you, the product 'm working on or rather a very tiny part of it... :D

http://www.novell.com/podcast/Detailpage.jsp?id=103

'n now that's the podcast, explaining all about it...
Listen to the part where Lee talks about SSL VPN, now that's wht 'm working on... ;)

'n just some more info on NAM 3 :
Novell Access Manager 3.0 represents the next generation of access management and federated identity solutions. It introduces new “in-the-flow” technologies and SSLVPN functionality that broaden its access-management capabilities. It supports a broad range of platforms and directory services. Novell Access Manager provides an advanced solution to secure your infrastructure, prevent information theft and protects the privacy of people inside and outside the organization. Novell Access Manager3.0 lets you separate security from individual applications and Web servers, enabling single-point, policy-based authentication management and access privileges throughout the Net. Novell Access Manager 3.0 also includes identity-based Web security services and provides users with secure authentication and access to portals, Web-based content.

Using Novell Access Manager organizations can simplify security management, control the use of digital assets across the extended enterprise and get more from investments in eBusiness applications.


Or you can check this out -
http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1155

'n yeah i know....'m blatantly marketing? for a lack of better word.... :D

Monday, October 16, 2006

Peck, Spacey 'n De Niro

this weekend managed to watch 3 gr8 movies...'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'The Usual Suspects' 'n 'Taxi Driver' in that order. Well not so sure abt da 2nd one, coz u kinda guess da ending in da beginning itself... prob @ da time when da movie released it was diff... neways its a decent watch made more so by Spacey's amazing performance.

'n tht's what these 3 movies have in common...superlative performances by their lead actors...which just lift da movies to a higher level...

Peck was just perfect in his role as 'Atticus Finch'....'n till this day only other movie of his i had seen was 'Roman Holiday' 'n had loved him in tht...but he was so so much better in this.... wonder how come they dont make 'em such nemore...
neways, as i watched da movie...bits 'n pieces slowly started coming to me from da half-read book, some aeons back...which in retrospect was gud...coz so often u end up comparing da movie to da book...'n u end up disappointed....but not so this time as da pace, da char
m, da telling of da story thru da kids eyes was just outstanding...

Spacey....well he was gud but felt he was better in 'American Beauty' 'n ofcourse tht movie was way way better thn this... :)

De Niro...well wht can u say...words just fail... :D Really what a performance 'n wht a movie! 'n cant believe thts Jodie Foster in da movie...u know wht i mean... :D Neways tht shd be in da must-watch movie list of neone...

adiós



Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Kopete 'n iChat

well...after da umpteenth gaim crash today....thought enough...no more sticking to an IM client which dint support GW, doesn't support 'Now Listening' feature da way its meant to be(even for that, u gotta take so much of pains!) 'n one which just loves to crash every now 'n thn...
So even with my dislike for KDE stuff...'n da last time experience being none too gr8...thought will give 'Kopete' one more try...guess necessity does make human open to more stuff... ;)
After getting myself used to da KDE icons...UI(believe me it does take some getting used to...after da 'oh so simple, plain, uncluttered gnome UI' :) )...delved into da vast feature set which kopete offered...
> 1st thing i saw...it supports GW...not like gaim, where its broken...
> 2nd It allowed you to change the interface themes... 'n to my pleasant surprise...found 'iChat' in thr... :) It is a good 'imitation' ... but nothing more thn tht...coz though it implements da cute 'speaking-style' of iChat...its surrounded in da big ugly KDE chat window...which doesnt let u forget...not even for a moment...tht u r on linux...'n it is an imitation afterall...
But seriously i have major gripes abt tht...y do u need to have such big,ugly window , a major content of which is surrounded by unused/of-little use features...y cant it be like Mac...where chat window is just a 'chat window'...pray how many ppl actually use da drop-down menus in a chat window...file,edit,tools,settings...seriously?!
u wanna do some fancy stuff...go to da toolbar...'n another thing which i like abt da mac is da one menubar which changes depending on da application...y cant linux also have something like tht?
> neways 3rd headed straight into the 'now-listening to' plugin...it seriously da best among wht i have seen so far...da ability to configure so many things...so easily...was just too gud...'n da 'best' part was it did that for my GW IM too...so finally got da thing i wanted since da day i joined work...thnx to kopete... :)
> 4th was some 'Text Effect' plugin...'n using it was so much fun...well 'm sure in a few days da novelty will wear off...but had a blast today...playing ard with my friends...who had no idea how/what was going on... :)
well thats all i have checked out so far...it was defi worth it...even if only for da 3rd feature's last part... :)

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

anti-DRM Ad



whose side you are on...?

Sunday, September 17, 2006


just something i found off da net...'n aboslutely luv those lines...

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Monday, August 28, 2006

Amarok 'n Gaim 'n iChat

Yest nite finally configured gaim to display the current playing song on Amarok as da status...but da sad part is 4 tht to happen ur stat shd be set to away...hopefully autoprofile or gaim guys will fix/provide tht soon...

Neways here's a mini How-To, rather few things which i found difficult...'n which others may do well to avoid...
> D/W gaim beta3 'n Autoprofile 2.14 source
for links...plz google
> untar gaim 'n then untar autoprofile to gaim/plugins/
> do a ./configure in gaim dir
> do make in autoprofile subdirectory
> do make 'n make install for gaim
> so far so good...'n same as wht the autoprofile website says. But next step is whr u cud waste considerable time...if you end up following wht da site says...! 'n which sadly wht i ended up doing... :(
Instead of copying da autoprofile.so to ~/.gaim/ as website says...find out the path where the other plugins are installed 'n thn copy it thr...in my case it was "/usr/local/lib/gaim/"...thnx to my friend's suggestion...you can easily do this by grep'ing for "plugin" in ~/.gaim/prefs.xml...
> now that you have da autoprofile plugin installed, all tht is needed is to configure tht to display the amarok status...thnx to some tip i came across googling, this can be easily done thru a shell script.
something on the lines of this -

while [ 1 ]
do
echo `dcop amarok player artist` '-' `dcop amarok player title` > $HOME/Currentsong
done

> In the component settings of autoprofile, for text/songs select the path for this file($HOME/Currentsong)
> thn set ur away status as %x 'n u r done... :)

You can do this by setting %e also...saves you da trouble of running a shell script...but somehow i never got it to work...

Now tht was yest nite...today morn rather noon, i 'discovered' iChat.
For some totally inexplicable reason, i had never tried out iChat before, atleast after gtalk came into existence 'n before tht it was as much use to me as binoculars to a blind man...
Neways configuring iChat for Gtalk was pretty straight forward, thnx to google... 'n it just WOWed me afterwards with its simple 'n so beautiful interface!



'n you just have to select 'Show current iTunes Track' from da drop-down menu...so unlike all da circus one has to do on gaim...'n very much similar to da 'Show current playing track' on google talk...now i know frm whr its 'inspired'... :D
yea i know iTunes is da only player on Mac...whr u have some dozen for linux...but still thts no xcuse for not providing with a gud interface to display da current playing song...

well not only this...Apple takes every small detail to another level altogether...be it changing da display pic or da cute way to show person's thinking while inputting text or da way incoming chat notifications are displayed...
think iChat's gonna be my default IM client for some days to come now... :)

Saturday, August 26, 2006

EQ ... :D

Your EQ is 147

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick!
51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese.
71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely.
91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that.
111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt.
131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin.
150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.


Friday, August 18, 2006

Billy Joel

well recently downloaded da "Piano Man : The Very Best Of Billy Joel". Its an absolute jem.
Had always loved his songs. They have such beauty abt 'em...so simple 'n yet so poignant...
This one has da name suggests has all his best songs...
My fave ones among 'em r defi - 'Piano Man', 'Goodnight Saigon', ' She's always a Woman', 'Innocent man', 'Honesty'....well u can say almost all da songs... :)

Honesty is such a lonely word....

And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But its better than drinkin alone...

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep
I know I'm searching for something
Something so undefined
That it can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night ...

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

How-to-Exaile

1st Step:
go to http://exaile.org/index.rb?command=download
2nd Step:
d/w Exaile 0.2b4 Source Tarball
3rd Step:
Check if your system has all da requirements specified. You should be having most...some which i had to install were-
> upgrade python-gtk2 to 2.8.6
> install python-ogg 'n python-vorbis plugins
> install mad 'n python-mad
> gstreamer 0.10 'n gstreamer0.10-plugins-good must already be present if u r using sled 10, if not install 'em. 'n gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly for mp3 support. though hasnt worked for me so far. will update this post, if 'n when i get it to work.

Now tht you are done with da requirements, time for da final step.
> untar da source ball.
> cd to tht directory
> do ./exaile.........voila....you have exaile up 'n running :)

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Blogger Beta...

Well trying out da new Blogger beta...'n i must say 'm terribly disappointed.
> option to share ur blog, only with friends...
Looks like google is trying to do a yahoo in here...So now you have ur google account linked with blogger...very much like what yahoo already provides, thru Yahoo 360. So if all i wanted was a blog to share only with my close friends, thn it makes gud sense for me to use yahoo 'n save myself da additional trouble of sending out invitation mails to each one of my friends!
2nd me thinks da core user base of blogger wont care much for this feature coz their blogs r intended 4 da world. Now thts just my guess in here 've got no statistics 'n stuff, but based on what 've come across, its a very reasonable guess to make.
>Labels
Now this is a feature very late in coming...Coz you already have some hazaar hacks on how to add category support to blogger 'n not to mention that other service providers already have this feature.
>Changing da appearance
well from a totally naive user point of view, this should be a gr8 feature. I mean adding links, rss feed, embedding scripts...changing their relative positions...colors...fonts...its all automated now. As they promote "change da appearance with mouse instead of html". But think i still prefer da old classic one. Anyways da advanced raw template editing is shown as 'Coming Soon'...so guess have to just wait 'n watch.

Now, two features i wud like to see-
> a field which shows da song you were listening to while posting. Yea i know not tht much of an useful feature, but one i wud still like to have. think this feature is already thr in live journal, not sure though...
> Blogging from Google notebook @ da click of a button. yea guess this feature must go into google notebook, neways blogging it in here just da same... :)