Audio Box - My Music, Anywhere, Anytime

Audio Box lets you upload music to the cloud and hear it anywhere

My music collection means a lot to me, but I often end up working in different PCs at multiple locations and don’t always have access to what I like to hear. I know there are options like going to YouTube or other such sites and looking up your favourite artistes, but very offer the option of uploading your own songs and playlists.

Last week, I chanced upon a new website called Audio Box (www.audiobox.fm), one of the few that really deliver what they say. A few minutes later, I had opened my free account and started uploading mp3 files from my collection. The upload speeds were good and I was getting a full 512 kbps on my home broadband of the same bandwidth. Though the files uploaded pretty fast, I could only upload a particular batch at one time — once a batch is selected, new files can only be added after the batch is fully uploaded.

I also loved the iTunes-like interface that the player offered, and the fact that I could build my playlists, edit tags and favourite specific or multiple tracks online. Now, I could listen to my songs wherever I was without installing any software.

Though the free plan offers you a storage space of just 1GB on the cloud, you can upgrade it from anywhere between 11 GB to 151 GB by paying a monthly fee of $3.99 and $ 24.99 at either end. The costlier accounts also add API / Third Party integration, which will allow more applications around your music, mobile support and support for formats other than MP3. However, I don’t want to use Audio Box as a permanent backup for my media files or a storage dump.

Paid account holders will soon get iPhone, iPod and iPad integration as well as full integration for Android phones. Last.FM and Twitter integration will let users Twitter directly from the site. But Audio Box is not a social media application and you can’t use it to share media with your friends, unless you want to share your password with them. You also cannot download music tracks you have uploaded to Audio Box, which from my point of view is a neat feature as it will stop people from pirating music. An upcoming feature called ‘Featured in the library’ will showcase artistes and songs so that you can buy their music or listen to it for free.

For audiobox.fm to work without interruption you should have at least a 512 kbps broadband connection. Since you will be uploading and streaming the content, make sure your data plan allows you unlimited and or a high volume of downloads, otherwise you will end up paying a lot of money to your service provider.

I would, however, love to see a feature where Audio Box automatically pulls the cover art for the songs which don’t have them as well as the option to select streaming quality, in case the connection is slow.
For now, I will be closely watching and using Audio Box, waiting to see what new features they come up with

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, Sunday April 18, 2010

So What Happened - Reliance Downtime New York to London

A couple of days back I was talking to a good friend and a senior person in the Industry on what would happen if the Alexandria crash of 2008 happened again and how long will it take to recover. I understand that Reliance, has built spare capacities, their new network diagram for the global foot print



You will notice that there are 3 Landing Points in the USA.

Palo Alto called PAO001 / Los Angeles LAX002 and New York NYC005

The Palo Alto to Japan Link was working fine but for some reason the link between London and New York stopped working. Also no data was available from the LA002 to Japan Route so not sure if this pop is operational.

I am also not sure why the network between NYC005 and PAO001 was not routing. Though there is no comment from Reliance about the Downtime, and since the Downtime lasted between 1345 GMT on 14th April 2010 to 1939 GMT on 14th April 2010, it should not be a Cable Cut.

I am still trying to get a word from Reliance Communication on what had happened. This is my 2 cents from the understanding of their network. Though it is quite possible that the problem is on one of the routes from New York to London and the Redundant Route is now working or it could just be a NAP / POP issue.

I will keep updating this threat as and when I recieve information. As of now the Reliance network is routing fully and traffic is moving on the New york London Link.

The Diagnosis was done using multiple points of presence and public Traceroute / Ping Servers across the Globe and also using Looking Glass Toolkit on Flag Telecom's website to ascertain the location of the outage.

The one-stop media centre - Review Boxee

Boxee plays all formats of video, audio and pictures. It can also play DVDs from DVD Rom drive, download info from IMDb on the fly

There are signs that things with your TV will improve. Despite over 200 channels streaming high-quality pictures using a DTH or an IPTV feed, you get to see what the broadcasters want to show. So the prime time slot is hijacked by all the saas-bahus of the world, leaving those who hate soaps with very few options. Broadband did come to the rescue, since they could stream videos from YouTube, download electronic content likes songs and movies and watch the content on demand. The iTunes store from the Apple even streams live television shows. So, if you missed Bart and Homer having fun in The Simpsons, you could always have it streamed on your computer. But this had a problem: the small computer screen. And, all said and done, most computers are not as user friendly as the TV. Though the front row on the Apple computers and the Windows Media Centre on the Windows PC made browsing media slightly better, a company called Boxee is improving things.

So, what is Boxee? As per Wikipedia, it’s a cross platform (it runs on a Windows, Mac and Linux) media centre with a 10-foot user interface— it’s designed to be run on a TV with a TV Remote—but built in social networking features.

Though Boxee is still in beta (it actually went beta on December 7), it is making heads turn, especially for features such as automatic album art download. It will run through your local library and download the album art automatically, so that you can see all what you have— right from the song, the movie it’s in, its singers, lyrics, reviews and the film’s trailer, depending upon their availability on the Internet.

Friend recommends a movie on a social networking site, and the movie is paid for, the Boxee will download and stream its trailer and other people’s review, so that you can figure out if the movie is worth your time. If it is available for free on the Internet, the Boxee will straight away stream the content for you. So, you need to no longer go hunting for that funniest video on YouTube, which your friends were talking about at the party. Just Google it and Boxee will play it for you.



The best part about Boxee is that it plays all formats of video, audio and pictures. It is your one-stop media centre. It can also play DVDs from your DVD Rom drive, download information from IMDb on the fly. It also has a built-in karaoke and many other audio visualisations (which I believe are a fancy only for the first few days). Besides, it can make multiple screensavers with your photo collection or the pictures you like on sites like Flickr, and your favourite music. And if you were always impressed with the Ken Burns (pan-and-scan) effect of photo shows, which only your friends with Macs could do, well Boxee does that also for you!

But there are limitations too. Boxee can’t play DRM (digital rights management) protected content. So, if you have bought music from the iTunes store, or maybe ebooks you bought from Audible.com, the boxee will not be able to handle these for you.
However, since Boxee is based on opensource software, it is only time before these hassles get sorted out.

This week, Boxee signed up with DLINK to make its hardware (expected to be available at $200 in 2010). So, if you are thinking of buying the next media centre for your home, wait and see how the market evolves in the next few months. And maybe you and I will get a chance to change our Idiot Box into something more fun, more useful and more interactive.
Just in case you don’t want to miss out on the action till the hardware is available, and are fine with using a 2-foot user interface (computer), go to www.boxee.tv and download the software and start enjoying media like you never did before.

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 13th December 2009

Lessons Not Learnt from 26/11 - How to Hack a wireless

Security is the utmost importance for all our companies. Recently CNN IBN Asked me to become their Citizen Journalist and show easy it is to hack into a wireless network. Attached is the URL to the Show that was aired on CNN IBN on Saturday 21/November. Do let me know your comments.

Smart print - Review HP Photosmart / Touchsmart C309G

If you are printing at home, you can use the photosmart to crop photos on the printer, apply colour effects, adjust the brightness, make a photosheet, or an album
Over the past two weeks I have been playing with a new printer from HP called the C309G Photosmart, launched in India a few days back. When the printer came in from HP for testing I was stuck with a lot of things and had to ask my wife to pitch in and do an end-user review, and this is what I heard: “Can we buy this? This is the best printer I have seen in terms of setup, usage and speed of print.”

Soon, I got to test it and this is what I think. The printer comes with built-in wireless and Bluetooth and it is really simple to set up. The touchscreen on the printer, where you type in your wireless password, is easy to use, but sadly it is an A-Z screen and not QWERTY. The large 3.5” screen is impressive, the touch functionality is great and the overall look, feel and the build quality even better.

The printer set up in about five minutes and the driver installation on the Windows PC was a breeze. I could not set up the printer on my Mac directly, but I know I can do this if I download some drivers.

If you are printing at home, you can crop the photos on the printer, apply colour effects, adjust the brightness, make a photosheet, or an album. It also prints office stationery directly using templates. There is even a free application for iPod Touch and the iPhone, so that you can directly print pictures from these devices. The printer also features smart web printing which realigns the webpages so that they printed properly and on the minimum number of sheets.

The Photosmart has an in-built Snapfish interface so that you can upload pictures directly to the website and get them printed, provided you have a Snapfish account.
The printer uses five cartridges, two blacks, a cyan, magenta and yellow. The first black cartridge is used for your documents, and the second for your photos so that they never end up with a bleached look.

The scanner and copier are fast and you can directly scan to the computer or to a USB memory stick or memory card—a feature becoming common on new HP printers. It can scan up to 4800x4800 dpi and use an enhanced scan resolution of up to 19,200 dpi. It can by default do duplex / two-sided prints and handle about 2,500 pages per month. The input tray takes approximately 125 sheets, and the output tray can hold up to 50 sheets before you have to pick them up. The printer has a Pictbridge / USB interface, and can read memory stick as well as SD and XD cards.

Though some home users might be put off by the Rs 13,350 price tag, I think the price is justified if you look at the built of the product as well as the effortless printing that it ensures.

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The above review was printed in the Indian Express, on Sunday 22nd of November 2009

IN CASE YOU DID NOT READ THE HINDUSTAN TIMES TODAY

Though This statement of mine is not going to be favored well with all the Telecom Providers, but I thought I must share it with my blog readers and other twitter followers etc, who don't have access to either the Hindustan Times or don't read it. Here are the snapshots of the full cover page of the Hindustan Times (National Daily) and the blow up of the article mentioning my comments on the state of the Telecom Providers.

"I’ve shifted to fixed telephones now for all important business calls,” says Gagandeep Sapra. As CEO of System 3 Group, a data centre provider, he cannot risk depending on an unreliable connection.

“Though they don’t offer mobility or have restricted mobility, getting someone to call on your office desk is the best practice and safer for business,” Sapra says."

Solving a Problem, Online

If a man fell off a plane from an altitude of 10,000 ft, how long will it take for him to hit earth? Well, this is no joke. It is actually a mathematical problem which will take some old fashioned brain slogging to solve.

I have always been in awe of mathematical equations and how using the relevant formula you can explain and solve any problem. However, I am not good at remembering anything but for basic equations from school.

So, the other day, while discussing the rate of evaporation of water for an Olympic size pool with an architect, both of us realised that we had no clue which formula to use, after all this wasn’t one of those problems we were faced with everyday.

Carrying a scientific calculator all the time is not really a practical option. I still do carry one, but not everyone can, and the old scientific ruler is not really available anymore. So how do you get to remember equations, and what happens when you are stuck with a problem.

My immediate thought was to Google the problem, or maybe checkout Wolfram Alpha, the search engine making all the waves. Then I decided to check if Casio—I love their scientific calculators—has put something online, may be a formula search.

And it had. Since June 1, the company has made available its Keisan portal—Keisan means calculation in Japanese—and it was online at www.keisan.casio.com.

The architect and me, both science students, were enamoured by the number of mathematical equations on the site. From the trivial ‘When is Easter for a particular year’ to the serious Bessel functions and probability calculations, they were all there.

The website is accurate up to 50 digit calculations, and users can select how many digits they want in the result. Another great feature is that you can paste both the calculation results and the chart into Excel and incorporate it in your report. So if you are a science student, or just enamoured by mathematical calculations, it is about time you checked out Keisan, 1,50,000 others do so every day.

That’s not all. In July alone, seven new calculations were added to the site, quite an achievement considering serious mathematics is no child’s play. With such interest being generated, Keisan should grow fast and become a useful tool for students and aspiring mathematicians.

By the way, it takes about the 70 seconds for the man to reach earth, Keisan says so.

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, Dated 26th July 2009.

HP LEARN WITH A TWIST COMPETITION

Video is the new age of communication, sometime back, I got into this whole debate with Niyam Bushan on how the Digital Divide is here to stay, and the Print / Online are still just pawns, but the Video is the King.

HP Just launched it's global competition called "Learn with a Twist", where you have to make a 2 / 3 minute video that shows useful tips of using a computer in an Entertaining Way.

There are a lot of prices to be won for contestants, as well as people who vote for it. For details on this contest, click here, or check out the Facebook Page by clicking here

The Closing Date for Submissions is 31 July 2009, and Voting Ends 14th August 2009.

So go on create those videos.

G

PS: I am the only blogger from India to be a Judge on this Panel.. hip hip hurray.

ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT - NEW BAND CALLED SMOKE

While catching up on my daily dose of Music, I saw this video in the morning on one of the channels, a Band Called Smoke Signals, has Kailash Kher, who I absolutely love, singing with them. The Song is titled Summer Time Rocks

To know more about the Band visit their page at Blue Frog, the Independent Label they have their album out on.

Always believed Independent Music and Labels will be able to change the whole crap that bollywood has been feeding us with for all these years.. Rahman Sahib, think you are going to meet your match soon with these kids.

Great work guys.. Would love to see you live one day.

G

Finally - The Buddha Arrives

I have been wanting to get a Buddha Head for my office for a very long time. I was out buying some mugs for the office, and spending time at this pottery shop, and came across the head, I had to buy it, got it for a cool price of Rs. 180, and now it is sitting atop the speaker of my Mini Book Case system in the office.

Jai Buddha

Passing Sunday: Scramble on iPhone

I love words, I love word games, but it usually takes two to play, crosswords in the news paper seem too tough for a guy like me to go through on a lazy Sunday, and everyone is busy relaxing or doing their own thing, that asking someone to play a game of scrabble, may just get you ignorant stares. So this sunday, I chose to download and install Scramble, a free game for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, on my iPhone.

5 minutes down, and I was addicted to it, addicted, that I thought to start a weekly blog post on an apple application for the iPhone, after all with so many free and paid applications available, it will have some nice combos, at-least some great word games.

Scramble, installed in about a minute on my broadband connection and I was breezing through it, and got the hang of the game in about 5 odd minutes. The game offers a 4x4 or a 5x5 Board of balls with letters on it, and I loved the fact that it offers a Qu and not just a Q in the balls when it comes up. You are shown how many possible words you can make and you go on and make the words. Though it did not like all the funny words I had up my sleeve, and the minimum word length is 3 letters (so no, you can't make AT / AX / IS / WE / ME).

It allows you to play either a 2 minute or a 3 minute game, though this is annoying at first, that you were only able to make a few words, but hey, if there is no deadline, how do you actually have fun.

The use of accelerometer allows you to tilt the phone in any direction (90degrees) and change the way the balls are laid out, so maybe you see some other words.

The game also allows you to play 2 player, passing the phone between people, or play with people online.

So if you are a word game fan, and want an interesting game to fall in love with, check out Scramble at the iPhone App Store

Game Cost: Free / Version: 1 / Size 3.1MB / Current Average Rating: 4+

Time to Switch off the Lights - Earth Hour

Global warming is a pain in the *** and needs to be addressed. WWF is having an Earth Hour, at 8:30 PM on 28th March 2009, i.e Today, the date of the posting. Though it is not possible to do this globally, it's being done per country. A question that comes to my mind, with India where electricity supply is irregular, more than half of our population not having access to Electricity, will something like the Earth Hour really make a difference. I propose to shut off my car, lights, and other electronic items (No not my data center equipment) tonight at 8:30, will you .. What do you think, taking an hour off of our Electronic devices (Plugging them off), our Carbon Devices (Cars, Generators etc) will help ?

What is EBS 2008

Microsoft, released Essential Business Server 2008, in November 2008. I have been playing with it since the time it had released and finally have now implemented it in a production environment.

Over the next few days, I will mention about the trouble I had in deployment, errors recieved and how I fixed those to finally get to a production environment. But a lot of people recently asked me, what really is EBS 2008, and how different it is from SBS 2003.

SBS was one of my favourite programs when it came to small companies looking at a Microsoft based deployment. A single server edition worked as your Active Directory server, your Exchange server, and in case you wanted a Database, also your Database Server (If you had premium edition).

The limitation with SBS 2003, was that you could not have more than 75 client machines. Now the limitation is gone. EBS ships in two variants, EBS Standard (Limited to 75 Clients) and EBS Premium (Limited to 300 Clients)



To know the differences between editions, click here

For Microsoft website on Essential Business Server, click here

A great resource on EBS FAQ's, EBSFAQ.COM