ravneet grewal

moving !

2005-08-24T00:19:00.000-05:00

moving my blog here. i am not sure about this space at the moment, but i hope if you are reading this, you will also stop here

IE7 phishing feature.

2005-08-14T15:07:00.000-05:00

untitled
Originally uploaded by ravneetg.

Not that this is correct reporting for IE, to report Russ's site as a phishing site, I am not sure why it did that. since first installing the beta, I have reported this to be a non phishing site, but it reported the site as a phishing site yet again today.
I hope IE7 team is listening and doing something about this when IE7 finally comes out.
And Russ, dont worry, I am reporting it again as a safe site (except for high does of ideas!)

Yahoo - Konfabulator

2005-08-09T19:31:00.000-05:00

Talking with a friend of mine, we asked ourselved why did Yahoo buy Konfabulator? Moreover the premium service was dropped and everything is now offered for free. Whats in it for Yahoo...? Where would Yahoo use this product? Are there any integration plans for Konfabulator in existing Yahoo products? Maybe Yahoo messenger? now that would be interesting to see, how konfabulator widgets would integrate into YIM.

We have to wait and see on this one.

j2me exception...

2005-08-07T11:08:00.000-05:00

i was writing a small j2me app, making httpconnections to a real IP. initial tests were running good when I started getting ioexceptions complaining that 'maximum number of connections have exceeded'. I realised i was not closing the httpconnection and the inputstreamreader. i altered my code to do that, cleaned the project and ran again after compiling. surprisingly i am still getting the same exception in j2me wireless toolkit.
what else do i have to do? i have cleaned everything, and am closing my httpconnections and inputstreamreaders. but now even on first attempt i get the exception...

any pointers anyone?

VS.NET start page

2005-08-01T22:02:00.000-05:00

VS.NET start page
Originally uploaded by ravneetg.

I was working with VS.NET 2003 Pro edition and I set the envronment to start with the Start Page so that I can see some hosting options available from inside the environment.
On the next start up, I got this screen! I couldnt see anything except the XP blue screen with the close/min/max buttons on top right corner. Anyone seen this before?

cheap dvr using media center.

2005-07-17T01:20:00.000-05:00

coming up in my next post, look out for a cheap digital video recorder solution that i came up with me for home last week.

dvr

xbox media center extender

2005-07-16T01:21:00.000-05:00

ok. so i got the xbox media center extender update also. so far i have been seeing the glossy side of media center extenders. all nice and blue.
once, you get to the actual usage, you see thores of media lying around on your pc, that you now want to watch on the tv in your living room. hmmm i had a avi file for a recent stage show in l.a. xbox media center extender cant stream it. all it recognizes is wmv files, that too not all. only some.
now you feel why would a media center extender would be so picky on the formats. wasnt it supposed to be a media center? to play all your media. come on now, i am not talking of some format thats used by couple of companies. i am talking of avi.
i found some converters for converting your avi vids to recognizable wmv format for the xbox extender, on which i will post more later on.
but how long would i do these conversions? i guess its more sensible to dedicate the media center pc to the entertainment rack, besides your tv, and use the tv as the direct output. you get all you have then. no converters, no extenders.
whats happening about this on xbox-360? i will need to find that out.
Xbox
Xbox extender

media center extender update

2005-07-14T20:54:00.000-05:00

i got the media center extender upgrade today from microsoft. this is supposed to play restricted premium channels on the tv via teh xbox, which was restricted in version 1.0. they also included a msn music card worth 5 free downloads from msn music.sweet.
i have not tried out the update yet, but plan to install it this weekend.

Yahoo 360

2005-07-14T14:40:00.000-05:00

ok, i got another one at yahoo 360. the simple url to my yahoo 360
more on this if i find it interesting and useful. check it out.

media center extender for xbox update

2005-07-09T00:55:00.000-05:00

as i posted earlier, i had some issues with playing premium channels via the xbox extender on my tv. i was able to see these channels on the media center pc though.
just now i got the link to the update at microsoft that would let me play these channels on the tv.
the link is here

media center scheduled recording

2005-07-08T21:27:00.000-05:00

scheduled recording
Originally uploaded by ravneetg.

many a times i have ended up in blockbuster video looking for past seasons of sopranos.
moments ago i was playing around with my new media center, and then thought that why not schedule a recording for sopranos on my media center !
so in i went and created the above scheduled recording. all i need now is to keep my pc on !
nice.

media center 2005

2005-07-06T22:52:00.000-05:00

my laptop (win xp pro) had this pattern for dying off one fine day every 6 months or so, sending me in a frenzy of install-clean-install cycles.
also i was looking for a desktop for home use that i can rely to my ever growing collection of digital images. i had no interest wahtsoever in buying a media center pc, and i used to say, what am i gonna do with a media center.
then i spotted this deal at best buy. a gateway lower end media center pc for $699. the machine was with some decent configs (512ram/250hdd/p43.0ht). add up a princeton 19" lcd flat panel ($280 @ costco) and had a decent setup at home.
media center certainly looked good with the usual microsoft user experiences. the media center console looked real good. but the barebones gateway pc didnt come with a tv tuner card, so i was without live tv working in the media center console. i started liking the console so much that within 2 days i was out hunting for a tv tuner card. luckily got one for $100 next day. next up i linked up the cable into the tuner card, and i was getting live tv streamed upto my 19" flat panel. so far so good.
the same me, who 2 days ago said i wont be using media center capabililities was now thinking 'it would be good if i can stream this to my tv in the living room ,but still leaving my pc here in the other room'. i was back in the market hunting for a new solution. luckily i had a xbox lying around under my tv in the living room. now all i needed was to get that xbox online with my linksys router in the other room. tried wireless but failed in that. then saw a existing cabling channel in the living room giving me direct short access to the other room. so i opened it up and ran a network cable right through the wall, to my linksys router. a couple moments into the media center extender setup (which i bought again for $70) and i was streaming live tv via the extender on the tv.
moment to take a breather. while fiddling with the channels i noticed that i was not able to watch premium channels like hbo and hbo2 when viewing via the media center extender. prompts me about 'restricted content'. seems like there is/was a upgrade for xbox to get rid of this problem but havent looked into it yet. though i am able to watch these channels on the media center pc. so yeah, i can still record these channels.
enjoying it so far, without any issues (apart from the premium channels).

Technorati tag: Media Center
Technorati tag: Media

live8 - london - Sir Paul McCartney

2005-07-02T17:55:00.000-05:00

closing of a big day and a big show by sir paul mcCartney with hey jude, supported by all other performers of the day.
could spot elton john, scissor sisters, the african children choir, bob geldof, david gilmour, george michael....and the list goes on......

na na na naaaaa na na na naaaaaaaa

'what a night ,what a day!' - bob geldof

philly closed with stevie wonder.

live8 london
live8 philly

live8- philly , stevie wonder !

2005-07-02T17:26:00.000-05:00

seeing stevie wonder on the stage, taking the crowd to chant 'live8-2005' & 'we gonna change the world' was also a blast from the past as he started his first track paying tribute to friend luther vandross.

across the pond, paul McCartney gets ready to take the stage in hyde park, london.
tags: live8 philly

live8 - london pink floyd

2005-07-02T16:40:00.000-05:00

the moment I had been waiting all day long - pink floyd about to reunite in hyde park, london.
awessome !! seeing roger waters and dave gilmour back on the same stage is pure blast from the past.
renditions of 'wish you were here' and 'comfortably numb' were great. money & breathe were good.
pink floyd still rocks !!

tags: live8 london

live8 - london david beckham & robbie williams

2005-07-02T16:05:00.000-05:00

david beckham is onstage at the moment in hyde park london. he introduced robbie williams. as david went on he said 'he is a little bit shy....and very very much talented, mr robbie williams'

robbie had his usual energy with him as he came onstage paying tribute to queen with 'we will rock you!' before moving on to high energy 'let meeeeee entertain you!!!'
live8 london

live8- london mariah carey

2005-07-02T15:40:00.000-05:00

dawn french introduced mariah carey, who took quiet a time to get on stage after the intro before she came in with a loud 'wassup everybody !!!!!'

after her first track, she introduced the 'african children choir' to much applause from the crowd.

live8 london

live8- london

2005-07-02T15:34:00.000-05:00

'every single day, every word you say, every game you play......' sting back on his ever green track, memorising crowd in hyde park london.....

the stage now looks awesome as darkness falls around hyde park with the caption '8 men in one room can change....' (didnt catch rest of it...).

sting exited with tis track....... as the large video screens played def leppard's 'pour some sugar on me..' as they played this track in philly earlier on.

live8 london

live8 - london

2005-07-02T15:24:00.000-05:00

lenny henry (from different strokes) introduced sting in hyde park, london who opened his gig with 'message in a bottle..' as evening sets around in hyde park as the stars continue to perform.

live8 london

live8 - philly

2005-07-02T15:16:00.000-05:00

thigns getting hot now. def leppard is onstage in philly with 'pour some sugar on me....'
awesome to see them belting out this one live, again !
as a fact, tehre are now more than a million people out there in philadelphia museum of art.
...joe elliot (lead singer def leppard) exited out philly by taking a picture of the crowd on his digicam.

at the same time, across the atlantic sting is getting ready in hyde park,london.
saturday is going good so far ;-)
live8 philly

live8 - london

2005-07-02T14:08:00.000-05:00

it was good to see ex- guns n roses crew (now 'velvet revolver'). slash still has the same ol hat and cigarette and his hair all over the face as he riffs out some rock chords.
scott weiland aptly said that its not just a rock show, but a show for us all to unite and do something for the betterment.
funny thing was, most of the media coverage was on slash rather than scott weiland.. you could literally see photogs rushing to the corner where slash took position :-)
rock on slash !
live8 london

live8 - toronto

2005-07-02T14:04:00.000-05:00

deep purple rocking out molson park, toronto....
live8 toronto

live8 - london

2005-07-02T13:36:00.000-05:00

bob geldof introduced a photo of a child in africa as '...this little girl in 1985 had just 10 minutes to live, dying of starvation, and to save her we did live aid right here in london.......and tonite as we speak again for africa, the same little girl goes to school of agriculture in ethiopia, and she is here with us on stage....'
this was one of the most touching moments of live8, urging the people to voice their concern to the upcoming g8 summit, that we can change the lives of people.
awesome.
live8 london

live8 - london madonna, 'music'

2005-07-02T13:26:00.000-05:00

'music.....makes the people....come together.....', totally fitting lyrics for the cause, as madonna continues to grip hyde park, london, along with her amazing break dancers!
live8 london

live8- london more madonna

2005-07-02T13:22:00.000-05:00

are you f*** ready london!!! that was madonna before moving into 'ray of light'.

it is actually phenomenal to see that half the world is united for the same cause, at the same moment. hope the g8 summit listens to this one voice and does something to eradicate poverty.
live8 london

live8 - london madonna

2005-07-02T12:58:00.000-05:00

are you ready london??????? are you ready to start a revolution???? are you ready to change the history????- thos were the openings with which madonna came on stage in hyde park in london, before beltinn out 'like a prayer'.
lovin it !
live8 london

live8 - lets go to philly !

2005-07-02T12:46:00.000-05:00

will smith is on stage in philly, will giving the audience some kinda test.
will needs to know that he has some fans right here at home or not..... :-)
philly goes aaaaaa- aaaa to will smith!

live8

live8 - back to london

2005-07-02T12:32:00.000-05:00

after waiting a while for shakira in paris, i had to move back to london to get some snoop dogg screeches. lovin it.

one of the hosts in rome asked the 3rd band in the line up that does this make a change for the people in africa, that we are playing here and all over the world....thats a very valid point, does it?
i certainly shows that the world does care about them. geldof reposponsible for live aid concert almost a decade ago has done it again.
more later, now am back with snoop dogg doing the 'drop it off....'

live8

live8 live blog - world

2005-07-02T12:25:00.000-05:00

right at the moment the performances are as such:
Berlin - Brian Wilson
Toronto - Simple Plan
Philly - Kanye west
Rome - Tiromancino
Paris - Shakira
London - Snoop Dogg
live8

live8 live blog - london

2005-07-02T12:24:00.000-05:00

snoop dog is up next in london.
live8

live8 live blog - London

2005-07-02T12:11:00.000-05:00

UB40 is onstage live now from london. surprising thing was to see bhangra dhols (drums) onstage with ub40. and singing punjabi 'tere bin chain na aave'!!! go punjabis!! playing "red red wine" at the moment. love it !
live8

blogspot community grows.....

2005-06-17T15:17:00.000-05:00

.....by leaps and bounds. october 2004 when i posted this post. the plans to play tennis that weekend were with a friend Dilip. He has recently started to blog, and i am sure we all will see some nice posts on his blog.
welcome & all the best dilip !

my experience with vonage part II

2005-06-07T22:53:00.000-05:00

vonage
Originally uploaded by ravneetg.

ok, so its been more than a couple of months since we moved to vonage. actually we didnt move, but we added vonage (we still have the regular phone line, for my dsl access).
all i can say is that the experience so far is wonderful. i mean for $24.99 + $1.50 + 3% for unlimited u.s. and canada is awesome. we make a lot of calls almost daily to canada, so it pays off well for us.
recently there were articles mentioning that e911 is coming to vonage this summer. so that should be ironed out too.
i have tried this for international calls to india & indonesia, and the voice quality was good. for me it runs a couple of cents per minute higher than my other channels to call india, but saves me from hassles of buying the calling cards for india. just pick up my vonage line and dial direct.
wife approval factor has been awesome too!!

a tulip @ office parking

2005-06-07T22:41:00.000-05:00

a tulip @ office parking
Originally uploaded by ravneetg.

i have been eyeing these tulips at our office parking for a long time, and even though i stopped there with my camera a couple of evenings, but sometimes the wind was way too strong or some days the light was way too dull, until this day when i think i had the perfect light and wind to snap this one!

Flickr

2005-06-07T22:34:00.000-05:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

gogi.mp

2005-05-14T11:04:00.000-05:00

started forwarding my .mp site to this site. my old gogi.mp site was sitting gathering dust, and today i came to know that web forwarding is now available, so decided to forward that to this site.

google search history

2005-04-20T22:51:00.000-05:00

google search history beta in up and running. you need a google account to log into it. It lets you search (again) on your past searches.

at this rate google is expanding into the desktop lives of an average user. sounds like microsoft in early 80's. :-)

dont have much to write on google search tonite. am sleepy, but go ahead and check it out here

vonage experience....

2005-04-16T17:53:00.000-05:00

ok, got the vonage package today. as you open the package, you will notice a vonage cap included in the package. now thats a unique way to put more vonage 'engineers' out there on the road.past the cap, you will see the usual paperwork, user guides, and deals. past that layer you will get to the meat of it: the linksys rt31p2 broadband router with 2 phone ports (in my case atleast).

i am on a sbc-yahoo dsl package. off to the dsl modem, which also acts as a wireless access point for me (2wire home portal). switch off the dsl modem and in goes a rj connector from my phone to the phone 1 jack on back of linksys rt31p2. next i connect a ethernet cable from my dsl modem (ethernet port) to the internet port on rt31p2 router. power on the dsl modem, power up the linksys router. next i connect another ethernet cable from the linksys ethernet port 1 to my laptop network port, to access the linksys router at 192.168.15.1. i didnt have to do much there, and i went straight to the status tab to see phone line 1 registered and idle. I pick up the phone and get a dial tone, and dial to my cell phone. the status changes to ringing and i get connected on voip call.

so far so good. next up, i ring up a long distance (chicago-vancouver) call and talk on for around 30 minutes. suddenly i noted i was not able to browse on my laptop while i was oncall via vonage. no sites opening up nothing. time to hit the configurations. i couldnt see much where i can change the settings, except at the QOS setting for voice which i set at 256kbps (for my ~340kbps dsl). next up i browse to my account on vonage and edit the bandwidth saver setting in dashboard. default is 90 (highest). i move the slider to mid (50) and note that these changes dont take effect upto one hour.i make a call again, generating enough noise on the call to keep the circuit flowing with traffic and note that i am able to browse net this time.

i am not sure what helped me out, as my vonage experience is around 4 hours at the moment, so i am gonna play with the settings and tweak to optimal performance in both data and voice. also i remember that i set the mtu at 1492 instead of 1500 (default) in linksys config page.next up, waiting to do some international tests. so look out for that, right here!

windows installer 3.1

2005-04-13T22:19:00.000-05:00

windows installer 3.1 was made available by microsoft on april 11. it is now being delivered by windows update. some of the updates and features and fixes that are included in this release are here

one month of free vonage service

2005-04-13T14:44:00.000-05:00

......need that? leave a comment here and get a reference from me for your one month free when you sign up at vonage!

vonage update

2005-04-13T13:55:00.000-05:00

ok, i ordered the vonage package today. $24.99 unlimited us and canada. ironically i was not able to get rid of my sbc phone line as i need that to piggyback my dsl service (where is naked dsl sbc!!!). i just need to get rid of all the features on my sbc line and just keep it for dsl connectivity. got a number alloted instantly, which i tested by calling into and getting a voicemail. cool part is vonage emails you about incoming voicemails and you can listen to the voicemails online, anywhere,anytime. now that is moving forward.
more updates on setup and qos when i get my package.

java native interface

2005-04-11T20:57:00.000-05:00

JNI is a standard way to make native calls from your java applications. this flexibility lets you give freedom from writing code for some native functionalities which your java application wants to use. you leave the native functionality on the native platform underneath your java layer and you concentrate on your application code.
its a small set of programing interfaces, but has a little steep curve to learn, especially getting used to the datatypes made available to you by the interfaces and passing arguments between your java application and the native (c++ dll for example). yes, you can even load up java objects in your c++ code and access its methods. you are provided with an environment pointer that lets you access the vm under which this call was made.
now that is fun; to create & load up java objects in your c++ code and if needed return it back to your java application.
stay tuned for some sample code making native calls from java.

2005-04-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

and there it is! the mighty sears tower, high up among other skyscrapers! oh yeah, i have to go down on my knees to get this shot from the boat. but came out good, aint it?

2005-04-10T11:18:00.000-05:00

atlast. sunny days. no more dull gray cold weather.chicago!!!! yeah that was exactly what i thought yesterday (sat) when we ent to downtown chicago. and it was amazing! up here is a cruise ship at navy pier. we were in a seadog.

2005-04-10T11:17:00.000-05:00

thats us on a architecture cruise of chicago, along side the chicago river. it is always fun to go on this ride. lots of history and great architecture to see.

ms web data administrator part II

2005-04-04T21:48:00.000-05:00

my last post talked about much of my sunday morning spent installing the web data administrator from microsoft and get it working with msde.
now as i am able to log into the web console and connect to my msde instance and a sqlserver 2000 instance on another machine, i can see some web access to my databases.
the ui is a typical web application. one thing that you note is absence of branding from microsoft in this product, naybe because its a beta product or more that that, its a by-product of some weekend code by someone on msde team.
the code itself looks non-production at the moment, as you experience lot of 'application error' pages while doing some basic stuff (like navigating to Logins section) which I was not able to consistently reproduce on different machines.
isnt it an attempt to mock oracle 10g's web enterprise manager? can be. but if it is, then it has a long way to go. oracle web enterprise manager is much faster, neater and functionality rich. best part of oem is the svg powered real time graphs.
i guess i am gonna wait for a much stable version of web data administrator.

ms web data administrator

2005-04-02T11:46:00.000-06:00

ok, its a nice sunny sunday today. and i dunno why and how i got involved with the microsoft web data adminsitrator.
so far i have installed/reinstalled the msde 2000 4 times, trying to get the ms wda working with msde 2000.
there should be another post soon about the features of ms web data administrator. look out.

gmail b'day gifts.

2005-04-02T08:07:00.000-06:00

gmail turned 1 this week. as a gift to the users, the still beta gmail, offered more storage space to its users. its based on a concept they call as infinity + 1. now when you see the gamil login page, it has a running counter of total storage space for each user. for me its ticking at 2050 mb at the moment and still counting.
another feature was rich text support, which enables a rich text toolbar at the top.
also introduced was full support for non compliant broswers, which do not support the javascript based functionalities on the pages.

when would gmail come out of beta? is google stil pouring in new ideas, and keeping it from a release?

my orb experience

2005-03-29T09:21:00.000-06:00

i read about orb at russ's blog last night and gave it a try. i signed up at http://orb.com and got a confirmation mail pointing me to https://my.orb.com. logging in to my orb portal i could see some available internet tv channels which i gave a try from the xp pc. worked fine and the streaming was passable.
next up revved up services in my 3650 and logged on to https://my.orb.com but the phone came back with a error message (services:no gateway reply). tried some other sites from the phone and they worked fine, so i looked around a bit and then thought it might be related to the secure https:// so i switched to http://my.orb.com and it worked! i was presented with the login page, which i logged into and navigated to one of the links (channels) that was working on my pc. the phone launched RealPlayer and initiated a new gprs connection (which was ok), but then the real player could not start the streaming. it always stayed on 'connecting...'.
well i guess its the data connection speed thats a problem here, which i am gonna sort out with the provider soon. even the contents from tmobile guide doesnt stream in real player.

i blogged about a silly idea some time back talking about doing voip calls between 2 (or more devices) using gprs, which can make use of a intermediate server to act as a switchboard server. looking at orb i am sure something like that is not far (if not already present! update:Skype does this).

PSP hacked?

2005-03-27T09:55:00.000-06:00

been reading some news about psp being hacked to enable browsing via the handheld. am not sure about the terminology being used in these articles but seems like some game internals were being used to piggy back to the net by over-riding the default look up servers.
avenues opened: lots i guess ! imagine a nice crisp wide screen to surf at your favorite hot-spots. would this compel sony to take this into the next releases of psp? I guess it would (and it should) to gain entry into a entirely new market.

sturdy nokia's

2005-03-26T19:18:00.000-06:00

lost the count how many times i have dropped my nokia 3650 on concrete/hardwood/pavements, all i have to do is pick up the 3 pieces (phone, upper cover, and the key membrane) ,put them together and reboot it.
works fine. also gives me a opportunity to clean the glass from inside :0

yahoo glitch?

2005-03-26T19:09:00.000-06:00

stumbled upon this somewhere on blogosphere:
if you add to www.yahoo.com// (note the double slashes at the end), the timestamp shown on the right side of the page booms and shows the current date time as December 31.

a half baked easter egg?

vonage 911 woes

2005-03-22T15:03:00.000-06:00

according to a zdnet news here, texas state sued vonage voip company over 911 contract disclosures. according to the report:

The attorney general of Texas is suing Internet phone provider Vonage,
charging that the company isn't clear to its customers about deficiencies in its
911 service

looking at the vonage site, i am sure the 911 service is listed as a service to be signed up for and from the vonage site:

911 Dialing is an optional feature
911 Dialing is free
911 Dialing is available anywhere in the US
911 Dialing requires prior activation on your part
911 Dialing and Vonage Service DO NOT function During a Power
Outage

not sure if these changes were made on the vonage site **after** the suit filed or were present there earlier. as for me switching to vonage, it seems to be on drawing board.

Update: Also carried on by CNN

mobile voip

2005-03-21T21:02:00.000-06:00

whats happening on this front? having your mobile phone use the gprs service to make voice over ip to another client? ok, how would the 2 phones be identified? how would the calling phone determine where the target phone is? could a intermediate server be involved where the interested parties are logged on? could the phone imei number be used to identify the parties?

more reading on the topic leads to the news from vonage, the voip pioneer, about announcing their voip mobile phone f1000 in u.s.. its targeted use is being used at hotspots which are scarce in themselves at this time, so the phone would be mostly used at home installations with vonage connections.

never knew these facts....

2005-03-19T12:46:00.000-06:00

about infospace. about navin jain. about the guys who became millionaires overnight. and all this due to 'charismatic' lies and deceit. mansions. ferraris.yachts. and then suddenly the bottom gets away, bringing everything down.
reading more here.

Google X

2005-03-17T11:50:00.000-06:00

/. reported news of a new interface from google labs that was eventually took off within hours of it becoming public.
Chikai Ohazama with google started this as a fun filled way to learn dhtml and javascript, and the result was put up on google lab page. but since then it has disappeared from the pages, but the caches and mirrors still have the working version. mirror here.
why was it pulled off? maybe its related to the 'genie' effect from apple? maybe that drove the legal eagles at google to pull it off.
whatever the reason, it was a cool concept and effect applied to access various google services.

the rising interest rates.....

2005-03-12T11:38:00.000-06:00

......that have appeared rather suddenly on the horizon. internet banks (as they like to call themselves) are becoming mainstream, getting much attention from investors. banks like ingdirect & emigrant-direct are offering competitive interest rates at the moment, living up to the statement of highest rates in usa. inside news is that emigrant-direct is raising up their rates from current 3.00% to 3.25% from monday (3/14). now thats a whopping interest rate for an online bank.
these banks really know how to cut on expenses by folling the internet banking model and cust down costs on brick & mortar model.
i think i am gonna park some in emigrant-direct!

TMobile ways!

2005-03-07T18:51:00.000-06:00

I was updating my services on the TMobile plan and upgraded from a lower TZones plan to a higher TZones plan, by visting the online services menu and adding the new plan.

to my amazement the way this works is, that they totally shut off your current plan and then do the upgrade in next 24 hrs. So now my GPRS service is totally shut-off for 24 hrs.

why would you do this? cant you just keep the service up if an upgrade is done via the online tool?

update: actually gprs doesnt kick in until after 72hrs according to tmobile tech support.

Virgin's 3G radio player

2005-03-04T10:59:00.000-06:00

virgin announced their new 3g player for mobile users, anywhere where there's a mobile signal. Russ blogged about it a couple of days back, and as he notes, this is a step that might trigger some more new innovations in mobile content delivery landscape. cool thing about virgin is that you dont need any subscription or some specific networks to enjoy these streams. down side is that you are restricted only to virgin's stream (is that a downside?).
as reported at Russ's blog, lot of users were able to hook onto the service without any issues, but there still are some issues with the player being installed on some Nokia phones (esp. with Symbian UI 1.0) like 3650.

i went on to the grab the sis file and install it first on my card memory on the 3650. installation went fine, but i couldnt find any application icon on the phone. time to install on the phone memory. still no applicationn icon. time to launch FExplorer and browse to the .app file for the player (SydusS60_VirginRadio.app ). launching this file gives a 'System error' and nothing happens. another thing that i noted was there was no application icon associated with this app file when seeing in the file explorer. now there were a couple of others who reported the same behavior, and it could be that the application works with Symbian UI 2.0 only, which would elminate 3650 and some other phones listed on Virgin's site under the compatibility list.

as for virgin working on this, i had a brief email with james cridland @ virgin who in turn got me in touch with someone at Sydus, who developed this for Virgin. i am still to hear back from them.
UPDATE: Just got an update from Sydus and recieved an updated .SIS file for older Nokia S60 phones, which were not working with the release version. Mail me to get a copy of the .sis file.

google in a tight noose?

2005-03-01T19:40:00.000-06:00

is there a tight noose on google lately? yahoo is already coming up with new ideas in an effort to bring the developer community together under its name, and msn is trying hard to get its new msn search to compete with google.
yahoo announced its yahoo search developer network (ysdn <--> msdn?). i remember google coming up with their web api's some time back (> a year i guess), but this time yahoo has come up with something more than just text search. now you can search for multimedia objects like videos & images. russ cranked out a small jsp to search on the video catalog using the yahoo api's. it looks like a good step towards some new ideas in the search engine landscape after google maps.

Jal Mahal

2005-03-01T19:37:00.000-06:00

This is a majestic view of Jal Mahal, Jaipur-India. Taken Jan 2005. I dont think there is anything inside the palace now, but plans are to convert it into a luxury hotel. The palace is seated between mountains on 2 sides (back and front) and is on teh main highway between Jaipur and New Delhi. A must see.

virtual reality.....

2005-02-28T22:54:00.000-06:00

the other day i was watching some series on telly, where online rolepalying gaming crosses the thin line dividing itself with the real world and triggers a real world homicide.

as if this was not enough, today i read that sony online entertainment's new game everquest2 has capabilites of ordering pizza while you are in the game. the idea is to bring online gaming and real world closer to each other. you can be playing the game (it doesnt pause) and when you are in a safe place, just bring up the command console and type in /pizza and you are connected to pizza hut's web site where you can order your pizza !

sony online entertainment also had features like in-game email systems, where in you can email your online gamer friends from the game!

google maps, gmail and ajax....

2005-02-25T20:11:00.000-06:00

first it was gmail. then it was google maps. now it is google suggest & now there are lots of web application architects moving themselves ajax way. asynchronous javascript xml (ajax) engine is nothing much but a javascript layer behind your web ui, that talks to the server (for the data to be rendered). well, this kind of thing has been around for a long, but now with google adopting this in one of their flagship products, its being well recieved by the community. Chris , a fellow blogger did a thorough dissection of google suggest service.

the way it works at the core is, the javascript layer (hidden somewhere on your web ui) is responsible for fetching data from the server using XmlHTTP object. Since the main html components are not doing the data fetch, the page doesnt do a refresh between client <--> server data fetch cycles.

what can this be used for? lots! for starters you can build a powerful autocomplete / filter connected to your database and driven by a web ui. all this without a page refresh in your web ui!

will post more with examples when i have the code reformatted to post here.....

more on photography....

2005-02-24T22:32:00.000-06:00

having this idea of taking my hobby of photography to next step. been thinking about this for more than a month now. would be good if i can come up with some 30-40 **good** shots in next 3-4 months, which can then be a part of a small exhibhition held privately in the office. the idea is to take that next step after playing with the hobby for a year or so.

would i be able to achieve that goal? one way to get closer to it would be doing a photo a day technique where i shoot atleast one shot a day, trying to get something **good**

will see !

2005-02-16T22:40:00.000-06:00

another breathtaking view from a fort (jaigarh fort) in jaipur, india.

2005-02-16T22:37:00.000-06:00

jaipur
one of the very impressive architecture pieces from jaipur, india.

i am back

2005-02-16T22:14:00.000-06:00

ok i was out of touch for a long time here on blogspot.com.
i was gone to india for a month long and after that, i got busy with home and work. more to come here from now on.

.

2004-11-21T18:55:00.000-06:00

.

(this is all thats going on with me lately.)

controlfreak

2004-11-13T13:21:00.000-06:00

is something we all are. and is also something that we all s60 users should have on their phones. its a nicely done little application that sits on your s60 phones and communicates with winamp via bt and a small plugin in winamp. the utility here is that you can control your media playlist and other things from your s60 phones, via bt, in bt range. now consider this, you have a media center system based on winamp, and your phone now acts as a remote to your media center. you can search for tracks (very fast!!) and jump to them for playing.
the app itself is clean in ui and provides a nicely updated real time spectrum analyzer on your phone, without any lag. awesome. get it here:

mosh

2004-11-06T18:59:00.000-06:00

, a wonderful and pwerful effort by artist eminem to get the people out to vote for the us presidential election. though we all know the results now.....but looking abck and the video of 'mosh' now, it looks a fitting media to get the point (and the truth?) across to the masses.
a must watch.a powerful message.
last time i checked, it was playing at windows media music site. also should be here.

at the moment

2004-11-03T19:51:00.000-06:00

, sitting here, wondering what to write. not much happening. the day was kinda gloomy with a general sense of silence after the results of presidential election here in u.s.
though its not affecting me directly, but the policies by any of the leaders affect the world economy in general.
also, i guess the people voted as they voted for the #1 reason: ongoing conflict. they **have** to support the cause & the leader. so from one point it looks logical, but at the same time to lots of people it looks as bad from as many different views.
but as i heard and read, one thing was sure, ppl did come out in great numbers this time to vote here (i guess the highest since '68)
there were some very good efforts by people to make the difference, but it didnt push it just hard enough to change the results.
well, hope all happened for good (for all and not for some).

me

2004-10-31T16:25:00.000-06:00

thats me this evening trying a self portrait. thats my camera sony dsc f717

power of blogs

2004-10-31T11:53:00.000-06:00

......there are some! russell beattie is using his blogs to educate people here in us and blog reading community to go out and vote on tuesday for the us presidential election.
i feel its a good effor on his part to get and educate people about the facts and their rights which are easy to be taken away if you arent aware. read this on his notebook.

30 down

2004-10-31T11:49:00.000-06:00

......so its 30 years down for me today.
not much going on at the moment. went out for the morning jog, was a bit cold today, around 48f or 8c. sitting back and listening to classic gold digital radio station from uk (see radio in media player 10)

how to be creative....

2004-10-29T15:40:00.000-05:00

...stumbled upon something that is worth a reading. i myself havent read it all, but so far it speaks the truth, and is right on the mark.
Read here

Windows Rule #1

2004-10-28T20:31:00.000-05:00

......if something is not working and you are ready to call the support, just reboot and give it a one more shot. you dont have anything to lose, but it might just work, saving you from the support guy looking at you and wondering 'you geek, see it works now!'

and then it happened.....

2004-10-27T14:31:00.000-05:00

.....again. booted my xp pro laptop at home, and it just sat there after the login. no disk activity.nothing.tried safe mode.no good. tried repairing option.no good.tried re-install over the existing home.setup starts and sits their saying 'setup will complete in 39 minutes'.says that for more than a hour. no activity.
time to recap what happened at last reboot.windows did prompt that it had restored a corrupt registry setting from a backup, and the only button to respond with was ok.did that.i mean what else can you do.no info on what it did restore/repair.
hmm panic starts to build in. the data being lost (mostly my 717 picture library and music library). got hold of a iomega ion usb hdd-caddy. opened up the laptop to get my toshiba hdd out and saddle it up in the caddy. lo behold, the drive now comes up as a e: drive on my desktop [xp pro again ;-)]. anywyas, copied everything out the desktop and now in the middle of a clean new reinstall of xp pro (after a format). hope it goes well.
and yeah, i am at 'setup will complete in approximately 9 minutes'.
thanks to everyone who helped me out. you know who you are :-)

Firefox revvs up...

2004-10-26T10:38:00.000-05:00

....against arch rival MSIE. we all have been seeing this for a while. and we all love the speed with which firefox renders your web.blazing fast. but doesnt it do that coz its not bloated like msie with tonnes of parsers and renderers to make your css and styles better looking (which firefox doesnt....at the moment). stumbled upon this article, speaking greatly of the war between m$ and open source community fueling the blazing fast speeds of firefox.

Weekend Tennis plans,

2004-10-23T10:20:00.000-05:00

wet and cloudy morning
Plans to go and play some tennis this weekend were drenched in the wet and overcast morning this saturday. It was raining most of the night, and I dont see any sign of sun coming up atleast for the day today. Well, no tennis and no photography today (atleast for now)

interesting,

2004-10-22T23:07:00.000-05:00

stumbled upon this website of a upcoming singer/writer. She is from India, and left the IT world to pursue music. There are a couple of sample clips at the site which are kinda good to hear to.
Look out for the single 'Eye for an eye'
Check out at http://www.anjalionline.com/

ahhh, this is how,

2004-10-22T22:43:00.000-05:00

you set the title for the entry!

2004-10-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

4 shot panoramic shot

Shooting panoramic shots is wonderful. Just look around over the horizon, and set up a tripod and your camera, lock on to manual to control 'even' exposure, and go on shooting frames. I usually overlap every frame with 50% of the previous ones. Once they are done, stitch with Panorama Factory (or any other pano tool of your choice)....end results are nice!

2004-10-22T22:17:00.000-05:00

the Creative Zen mp3 player looks cool, ready to give some fight to the iPods, but must admit that iPods have created a place for themselves in the market. Tough to beat, but lets see how this Creative Zen does.

2004-10-22T22:04:00.000-05:00

The Media Player 10 seems to be a good effor to move towards iTune.
There are now integrated tabs to go to the onliune Music library @ MSN, where tracks can be bought for $0.99/track.
The Listening Booth at the music store is kinda cool to let you hear some complete albums, streaming.
Enjoying 'Astronaut' by Duran Duran.