Cross Over – using Windows apps on a Mac
I have found that the easiest way to run many apps on a Mac is CrossOver for Mac. It’s built on the Wine codebase, but is a much easier and friendly way of installing Windows apps in virtual “bottles” on a Mac. They actively fund the Wine community.
It’s funny that most Mac users don’t seem to know about it. There doesn’t seem to be much need to buy Parallels and have a heavy overload on your system if most of the apps you want work fine here.
You can try and give it a spin. Here are the applications that are strongly supported, however, you could probably be lucky if you use any other software as well (Yes, many games are supported).
Google Gears: Browser up, OS down!
We all knew this was coming and it has finally come. The final problem of offline access to web-based services has been addressed by Google Gears which was released last week. Today, I saw the first instance of it being available to the end user via the Google Reader.
You can have consistent, transparent access to all your favorite websites/web applications through the browser. The OS becomes less important now and the need for natively installed OS specific applications is greatly reduced.
It would be interesting to see the changes this will bring in our world!
Joost is the new TV
I have tried Slingbox and I have tried Democracy TV. Joost is different. Community features, high quality programming, full screen smooth video. It's a joy, a pleasure. I was captivated for hours as I kept watching show after show with a numbed, retarded expression on my face. The PC is the TV now and I am loving it.
And did I mention how cool the interface is? Check out these screenshots:
More screenshots
Note: click on the images to see the full size. When was the last time you saw free streaming internet video of that resolution? It's a joy that even my Slingbox doesn't provide despite a 3MBPs connection at both ends thanks to the low upload bandwidth of ADSL.
Note 2: It's not yet open to general audience, you need an invite to get started.
Yahoo! Travel Updated
I am a little disappointed with Yahoo! which seems to sneak in great updates without a lot of buzz being generated around it. For instance, the only way I find out about the fact that Yahoo! Travel has undergone a major revamp is if I look closely at my Yahoo! page.
Where are the blogs, the news, the reviews around this wonderful update?
I do not think I can manage a full-blown review just yet, but some interesting things are:
- They have added community features to the Travel website
- You can browse other's people's trips, share your trip details with friends
- You can duplicate other's trips and make reservations for the same itinerary or fudge it to create your own unique trip
I am going to play around with this and probably comment more. But I am still confused about why the only thing Yahoo! has been in the news recently for is people stepping down or Yahoo! Photos shutting down!
Democracy TV
Democracy TV is a pretty good video player. Not only can it play many formats, it also has RSS feed subscriptions, podcasts and it also does video blogs. It is also integrated with the video sites like YouTube etc. It also has a built in bit-torrent client. It's underlying goal is to free up the consumption of media and also promote free creation of media. It is a project of the Participatory Culture Foundation.
Watchout! It takes quite some memory. So instead of being MPlayer fast, it's more like Windows Media Player slow - if you get the drift.
Demystification: GPS and GPRS
[This post talks about the difference between GPS and GPRS. If you already know the difference you may skip it.]
As an engineer, I would like to apologize to everyone for confusing acronyms being shoved down normal people's throats. GPS and GPRS is one such pair of acronyms in the mobile domain which normal people tend to use interchangably. But these terms are totally different and have nothing in common and I will try and make it clear and easily distinguishable.
Global Positioning System (GPS):
GPS is used for establishing your location in the world.
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS):
GPRS is a service offered by your cell company which allows transmission of data to/from your phone.
If you have Internet on your phone - it's probably coming through GPRS (or EGPRS, EVDO or all the new fancy high speed methods). If your phone has a special system by which it can accurately find out it's location in the world then it is GPS.
Facts:
GPS is a free service. GPRS costs money. GPRS connects your phone to the Internet. When you check your mail, browse the web etc. through your phone, then you are using GPRS.
Tip to Remember: GPS does only one thing and it is a shorter acronym. GPRS lets you do many things and it is the longer acronym.
Confusing but perfectly correct usage:
I get my location coordinates through GPS. I get information about this position through GPRS.
So, my GPS tells my phone that I am in Ann Arbor. My phone uses a GPRS connection to get a list of restaurants in Ann Arbor from the Internet.
Customize Outlook View based on SpamAssasin’s tagging
Read on if you use IMAP and Outlook and your IMAP account is configured to use SpamAssasin and it is configured with SpamBox. SpamAssasin can be instructed to put all mails that it tags as SPAM into a different spam folder. If you use Outlook, you might want to review this folder and check for false positives. Since I get almost 200-300 spam messages each day, it becomes difficult to browse through the spam folder looking for false positives. I would prefer some way to see messages that fall in the category of "MaybeSpam" - these messages would have SPAM scores upto a certain threshold. I have personally set up my account to treat anything above 2.2 to be SPAM and I personally consider a score between 2.3 to 10.0 to be "MaybeSpam" since I often end up with false positives in that range.
So I defined a view in Outlook that only shows me messages that have a higher probability of being false positives and hides all messages which get a very high spam score.
You may use this filter for the view for looking at your Spam folder. It is simple to set it up:
- Browse to your SPAM folder in Outlook
- View > Current View > Define Views ...
- Click on "New..." and select the table type. You can name it as "MaybeSpam"
- Click on "Ok" and you will be presented with a "Customize View" window
- Click on "Filter" and move to the tab called "SQL". Check the box called "Edit these criteria directly ..."
-
Copy and paste the following text into that window [Note: you might have to use CTRL+V since context menus are disabled in that window]
"urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**2.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**3.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**4.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**5.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**6.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**7.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**8.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**9.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**10.%' OR "urn:schemas:httpmail:subject" LIKE '%**SPAM**11.%'
- Click "Ok" and click "Ok" again.
- You have just made yourself a new view which will only show you messages whose SpamAssasin score is between 2.0 to 11.9
Feel free to change the values of the numbers in the 'LIKE' clause in the SQL statments to suit your setting. Hope it works for everyone.
Good Fun: Indian Soaps
I was just watching "KumKum" on Star Plus on Indian Television through my SlingBox. Boy, I never really watched all that when i was in India, but I really find myself getting addicted to it. Ekta Kapoor sure has something going. It's good fun.
… I love you … Please Repeat?
Me: What time is it?
She: It's 10:48 pm
Me: What day is it?
She: The date is Tuesday, December fifth two thousand and six.
Me: When is my next appointment?
She: Tomorrow at 4:30 pm in 2260 USB
Me: Play music
She: Do you want to listen by genre, album, artist or anything?
Me: Artist
She: Do you want to listen to U2, Phil Collins, Collective Soul, ...
Me (interrupting): U2
She: Playing U2 ... (Windows Media Player opens up and Zooropa starts)
Me: I think I am falling in love with you!
She: Please repeat!
Me: I said I think I am falling in love with you!
She: Please repeat!
End of converstation.
I had the above conversation with my phone after installing Microsoft Voice Command on it. It really is one of the most amazing voice command softwares I have seen. It's a good example of the serious research microsoft has been doing in "speaker-independant voice recognition". You do not need to train this software, just speak to it in natural english and it works fine (if she can understand my Indian accent, I think she is pretty good).
Oh yes, I call the software a "she". I just can not bring myself to calling her an "it". Examples of other things I can ask her to do:
"What is my schedule for today", "Change profile to silent", "Turn off all reminders", "call john at work", "start calculator" etc. She even reads out the contents of emails that I receive. This software is a good reminder of the fact that we really are getting somewhere with digital assistant technology. I would really recommend watching the demo video to get a sense of what it really feels like.
Closure
So you quit your job in a good software company, move to a new country, start school again but it just doesn't feel complete until you do that one thing: Format+Clean+Reinstall Windows on your laptop.
I finally got around to doing that yesterday and it's only now that I feel like my "transition" is complete.
Interestingly, as a cheaper alternative to Microsoft Office 2003, I go ahead and install Microsoft Office 2007 Beta (which can be had for as low as $1.50 which gives you a valid license till Feb 2007). And I am quite impressed by it. Coupled with Microsoft OneNote 2007 Beta, I feel all set for school. Proudly using Microsoft Outlook 2007 Beta for all my structured and non-browser information needs I am happy that they have removed the Exchange Server bias and treat IMAP accounts with more respect. I also go ahead and install Internet Explorer 7 RC1 and I am surprised at myself for not using Firefox anymore. More interestingly, I also go ahead and Format+Clean+Reinstall the OS on my phone and I suddenly become aware of how stress-relieving this activity can be.
Ofcourse, I do not feel complete until I have installed Zonetick which I so willingly bought as the best solution to the "what time is it there?" problem. 
Nor can I feel at ease until I install my good old Babylon - a tool which is surprisingly indispensible despite the fact that a browser can probably get you more information than it. Probably its only winning factor now is that it's a more efficient and structured interface to the big-bloated-information-blob the Internet is.
With a light heart and a light mind I sleep at peace when I retire to bed.
Opera 9 is here
A very slick looking flash intro. A nice site for promoting the new features. Check it out here.
The feature list is quite interesting, the one that stands out is integrated torrent support. Check out all the features here.
Yahoo Messenger 8 (beta) is here
Just out, fresh out of the mill. Yahoo Messenger 8 (Beta) with open plugins. Get it here.With plugins for Yahoo!360, I think I know where this is heading. With an excellent web based content creation system in place, Yahoo! is now focussing on making content creation more intuitive.
Windows Live Local Outlook Add-in Beta
Windows Live Local for Outlook (Beta)
It's less than 3 MB. Give it a spin.
GPS track of Flight from Mumbai to Rajkot
I recently flew to Rajkot from Mumbai. I had my GPS receiver on and captured the raw NMEA data of the entire flight. Here is the take-off part of the flight-path.
The plane took-off in the South-East direction, looped over South Mumbai and finally took a bee line NorthNorthWest path towards Rajkot. I got a chance to see my own house from a height of 1000 metres (3000 feet)
WordPress 2.0.2
I don't know why I am putting it off 
. I updated the other blogs with it, but am yet to update this one. Why? Lazy me!
Windows Media Player 11 Bete released
Taking a big cue from Google, Microsoft too has entered the "Beta" frenzy. Well, I don't care. I am all charged up and excited about the latest update to Windows Media Player. Windows Mobile Pocket PC & Smartphone owners, don't worry about getting ROM upgrade, no plans of a Pocket PC or Smartphone version yet! But this desktop version does enhance syncing with compatible devices to supposedly "a better partnership as compared to iPod and iTunes".
It's main highlight seems to be URGE service (with MTV) and a revamped Media Library.
Read an amazingly enticing review on it here.
GWT – First nail in Windows’ Coffin
Microsoft so far was confident about Windows since they provide a very easy to use development tools - the Visual Studio. Using those, a developer can create binaries for any variant of the target device without any incompatibilities.
On the other hand, Web-based client development is a nightmare. Opera, Firefox, Netscape, Popups blocked, JavaScript disabled, Coookies Washed, Different Screen resolutions, differing Bandwidths are some of the hostilities a developer needs to face.
Due to this, it seemed quite unlikely that we would see the web development platform offering any serious competition to the thick OS-hosted softwares of Windows.
Ed Burnette reports that yesterday Google released the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) which unifies web-development. Like an MFC of sorts, we will now see many glossed up AJAX developed web clients, since this will really simplify and hasten web client development. You write the code in Java and the hosted eclipse converts it into AJAX based JavaScript.
Do give it a spin.
Google Shut Up!
It's quite sad that even before Microsoft can release it's Windows Vista, a respectable company like Google cries foul over it's integrated search feature.
How can a company innovate and provide a good experience to it's end users if the "new companies" keep trying to break it's legs.
This particular case is: Microsoft has decided to include a search box in Internet Explorer 7, just like we have in Firefox & Opera. If it defaults to MSN Search, there's nothing wrong? Should Microsoft be defaulting it to Google Search? Definitely not. Google pays a lot of money to Firefox & Opera so that their search boxes default to Google Search. But obviously, Microsoft won't be interested in any kind of money to default it to Google. This worries Google, and they go to court!
Well, the court ruled that there's nothing wrong in what Microsoft is doing, since they have made it very easy to change the target of the search box and have also provided OEMs the capability to brand it before first boot. What more can they do?
Now consider this:
I have a Sony DVD player. This DVD player comes with a swell remote control. Now, this remote control has some buttons, which are actually meant for a Sony TV. It has buttons for changing the input source & controlling the volume of the TV. So if I have a Sony TV, I can use just one remote control, the DVD control, and enjoy watching the DVD on the Sony TV.
Now, if I don't have a Sony TV, then those buttons are of no use to me. And there's no way I can re-configure the buttons to work with the different brand TV. Is this a case for an Antitrust issue? Google guys, do you have a Sony DVD player and a Hitachi TV? If yes, then you should move court!!
A very pithy post about this can be found here.
Stale: Yahoo bought MusicMatch
The Old:
The New:
This is strange, I never came to know that Yahoo! bought MusicMatch until I looked for it today (It used to be one of my first media players in the olden days - does anyone remember Sonique?)
But this PCWorld article confirms that Yahoo! bought MusicMatch way back in September 2004, for $160 million.
So Yahoo Music Engine is based on MusicMatch!?
