Why I like DRM & Internet based distribution

It’s been 2 months since I am in Delhi & distances are quite long here, it’s hard to do all things at one time. 24 hours in a day seem less to me sometime. Why don’t we have 8 hrs for work, 8 hrs for our personal stuff, 8 hrs to sleep & 4 hrs for traveling from one place to other?

Life is following a static cycle but its good, what else will I do in my free time?? There is nothing much to do. Sometimes I feel bored on weekends. My roommates wait for weekend to finish their pending work, I don’t. I do what I have to do even if it is a weekday but due to all this I don’t have time for time pass. I get weekends but that is passed in doing pending work like shopping etc which means I work, work, work….which is what I hate. I like to work & I don’t sit Idle but I need breaks too. I like being social, meeting people, making friends but I am unable to due to all the work. This isn’t a problem with just me; everyone these days in a Metro City like Delhi has this problem. A person doesn’t know the other & doesn’t even give a damn about him. Lucknow was better, people were better there or maybe I have yet to understand Delhi people. Here, if someone doesn’t know you then talking to you is like a crime for them they don’t want to commit. I even had to initiate conversation with my neighbors here myself.

Entertainment is something everyone needs. For me it is more of a distraction then entertainment. When I am out of my home then either I am talking to a friend on phone or listening to Music as it keeps me distracted from rest of the world. After coming to Delhi only I have realized the worth of “Content on Demand”. I don’t watch TV as there are not many shows which I like so I don’t need a physical TV or DTH here. News I get from RSS feeds of Indiatimes.com or NDTV Delhi which I access in my K750i as well as my Dekstop so I don’t even need news paper, however I do watch some TV shows such as Heroes or House but like I said, I don’t have time to watch House every week on AXN at 11 PM as I have office next day. This is why I prefer IPTV or Internet based Distribution.

Everything is available on Torrents & considered piracy but I would actually like to pay for it if I get a proper distribution system via torrents. If the companies charge me Rs 200 monthly for a subscription based service like we have with DTH of a TV show in 720p HD resolution which should be about 500 MB then I would gladly pay for it because then I can download the Video file even when I am in the office & then watch it on weekend, in my phone or anywhere else as I “own” the file. I don’t mind them putting DRM on it as Piracy is wrong & it is something you realize when you are yourself making such broadcast content but implement the DRM in a better way. Microsoft has playforsure DRM which is available on a wide range of Devices due to which if you buy a song from a Playforsure service provider then you can be rest assured that it will play on any compatible device. I would urge other device manufacturer to provide support for playforsure or some other unified DRM system.

Today I bought a game from Nehru Place for Rs 120 & it is not working. Now, I am not going to go back to that shop keeper & fight him for Rs 120 but I paid him so I need service at least. Valve has been distributing games via Steam & those are original games tied to your account which means you can download & play the game at any computer provided you are logged in with your steam account. I just love this concept. I can simply download the game without thinking of all the hassle or running to the shopkeeper then praying that the game works. I am going to download the same game from Torrent but I am all in for legal digital distribution. Give me a proper & legal digital distribution system for games, videos & music & I am all in & will be the first one to opt for it. Since I like a mobile phone to do everything for me, including if possible, baking cookies once in a while. I have decided to buy Nokia N82 because with it I can download a whole 500 MB House Episode HD rip via torrent in the phone itself using SymTorrent or even Rapidshare & other such file sharing networks with an Unlimited EDGE connection from Idea for Rs 600 a month.

I have a computer which is my TV, Gaming Machine, Web browsing device, Bank & Finance management, account management, Media Center, Video Player, Music Player, Picture Organizer & Album etc etc etc. My Workstation is the center of all my digital needs. I use it for everything so why not enhance it further. Learn something from Microsoft, get your ass up & listen to the customer. We need one, yes just one DRM scheme out there compatible across all devices. You don’t want us to distribute our songs & videos to curb piracy, well….then lock the content with a Login Key. Like I should have one Windows Live ID which I can enter in my computer & it will play all my DRM based files in my computer, I should also be able to enter it in my Mobile Phone to play the same & I should be able to enter in a PMP like iRiver Clix using a software in the OS after which I can play the files in PMP too.

Some people don’t like DRM & in a way I find DRM restrictive too. There are two things a company can do now, either stop supporting any DRM & give content without DRM as today with torrents, DRM content isn’t making any money anyway or Provide a standard DRM scheme tied to one particular Login Account which is compatible across a long range of device out there.

Windows Live Writer : Portable

Since the only source of Internet in Delhi for me is my Office, I needed a portable application for blogging because installing my own applications is not allowed in Office. This is the reason I use portable version of Firefox, Pidgin, 7-Zip etc for my work but so far I wasn’t able to find a proper & good Portable Blogging application. I use Windows Live Writer for posting my blogs which is a boon to all Windows Users who blog. This is an awesome application which even Microsoft haters agree that it is a good application. While looking for a portable replacement I came across something interesting. Windows Live Writer is already available in Portable format.

Presenting Windows Live Writer : Portable by Scott Kingery. It requires Administrative rights to run. The following text is taken from his blog.

Download Windows Live Writer : Portable

The zip file does NOT contain everything you need to run Windows Live Writer. This is simply a launcher which will run Windows Live Writer in a self contained environment so you can take everything with you between computers via your USB memory stick or other portable device.

To get this portable app to work you need to follow these steps closely:

1. Unzip this file to your USB or other portable drive
2. Download Windows Live Writer from: http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com
3. Install Windows Live Write as usual. You don’t even have to run it, just so long as it is installed.
4. Copy ALL of the files FROM c:\program files\windows live writer TO the new structure on your USB drive that looks like the graphic below \WindowsLiveWriterPortable\App\WindowsLiveWriter

5. You can now uninstall Windows Live Writer if you want

To use Windows Live Writer from your USB drive simply double click on WindowsLiveWriterPortable.exe and it will take care of the necessary registry settings and document paths. If you have used WLW on your computer before, the launcher will copy all your settings and files to the USB drive.

Creating an extremely low cost Value PC

My last article about How to make an inexpensive & efficient Computer was praised by many readers. Now that PC was meant to be a one stop solution for everything you can think of. It was a gaming machine, music device, HTPC, all in one. But I was thinking, how low can you go?

In the market there are many people who want to buy a cheap PC for their home for kids or to get online once in a while or for the kids to study for school stuff like some HTML or C++ or to use in the office for Office suites. They don’t even open there computer every day, so they won’t require the previous configuration of PC I mentioned. This is another PC configuration for such use, office & cyber cafes where compatibility is required but high end components are not required & no one plays games on these PCs but still there is a small upgrade path. One thing for sure, this PC is going to be a looker in sleekness & style.

CPU = Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+. These CPU will not win any benchmarks or contest for number crunching but still at a very low price you will get a Dual Core CPU from Intel & AMD with enough horse power for your day to day tasks.

Motherboard = My personal preference is Asus P5N MX for Intel or Asus M2N-CM  DVI for AMD. These are very low cost yet stable motherboards based on nVidia 7050 chipset. They have most of the component ever required on board already like on board LAN, sound & graphics & people don’t even need to go beyond this. Whatever you need this small & cost effective PC to do, this motherboard will help you.

Another option if the above Asus motherboard are not available is Intel DG31PR motherboard.

CPU fan = No need to spend extra money, the Stock CPU fan from Intel & AMD are good enough. If you still want to spend some money on a good & silent CPU Cooler than simply get Cooler Master Hyper L3.

RAM = 2X1 GB DDR2 667 MHz RAM. Any cheap brand like Dynet, Simmtronics or Kingston Value RAM would do the job. It should cost you a maximum of Rs 1,600 for 2 GB RAM.

Cyber Cafe owners should just go for 1 GB DDR2 667 RAM.

Cabinet & SMPS = iBall Baby 306 is my preferred CPU Cabinet for this PC. Not only it is very small in size but also sufficient for this PC. Just get any 500W SMPS like one from Frontech or ColorSit. These SMPS aren’t very powerful but then you don’t require powerful SMPS and these provide adequate electricity for this PC. Install a 80 MM fan on the side & rear exhaust & keep the cabinet in horizontal position not vertical.

UPS = Get an APC 650VA UPS which can easily provide up to 10 minutes backup.

Cyber cafe owners should skip this & use a unified inverter.

Hard Disk = It depends on the user but 160 GB should be enough for such PCs to start with. Get a Western Digital WD1600AAJA SATA 2 Hard disk with 8 MB buffer, it should cost around Rs 2,000.

Cyber Cafe owners should look for old 40 GB or 80 GB hard disk which they can buy 2nd hand for Rs 800.

Optical Drive = There are many optical drives in the market right now but one Drive which is enough for this computer’s needs would be Samsung SH-S203D DVD Writer at Rs 1,200.

Cyber cafe owners need not to install any optical drive on the nodes. Just one at the server is sufficient.

Audio & Video = The onboard Audio & Video of this motherboard is all anyone will ever require in an office or home where computer is used once in a while only. The onboard graphics on Intel DG31PR which  Intel GMA X3100 & on the Asus motherboards are nVidia GeForce 7050 which are enough to run Windows Vista with Aero.

If you still want to buy a graphics card for home use then a low profile Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3450 based graphics card with 256 MB RAM should be adequate.

Onboard Audio is Realtek 5.1 channel which again is sufficient because most users will either use a headphone or 2.1 channel speaker setup with such computer.

TV Tuner Card = Buy it if you need it else leave it. I would recommend Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP Global Media Center with my eyes closed as this TV Tuner is by far the best analog TV Tuner card I have seen. It is compatible with Windows Media Center & even comes with a Media Center Remote. If you can find the PCI Express X1 based WinFast PxTV1200 Media Center Edition then buy that instead to use that idle PCI Express X1 slot to some good use. You can also use these TV Tuners with the DTH service such as Tata Sky or Dish TV

Speakers & Headphones = This is a completely personal choice & I would advise you to go to the market & check yourself after listening to some available models. Since you are looking for a Value PC then buying a 5.1 channel speaker system doesn’t make sense. Entry level Altec Lansing & Creative Models are what you should look for. My personal choice although is Creative Gigaworks T20 or Creative I-Trigue T3000 for Stereo Sound but they will cost you about Rs 4,000 easily.

Webcam = Buy it if you need it. These days webcam start for as low as Rs 500 in the market. Considering the state of Indian broadband, a Microsoft LiveCam VX-1000 should suffice or Frontek Webcam which are surprisingly good for the price at Rs 500.

Keyboard & Mouse = Again, this is a personal preference. Look yourself to judge which keyboard & mouse you find comfortable with your hands & posture. A good & low cost yet effective keyboard is Zebronics Desktop Commander Keyboard which has laptop like keys & is easy on the hands. iBall Laser Precise Speedster mouse is a good low cost laser mouse which works surprisingly well within Rs 1,000.

Cyber cafe owners should go for Logitech Internet Desktop wired edition. A very cheap combination of wired keyboard & Mouse.

Monitor = Despite of this PC being a Value PC I will not recommend a CRT Monitor due to their sheer size & power requirements. LCD Monitors are dirt cheap now so it makes perfect sense to invest in a LCD Monitor instead of a CRT now as monitors easily last for many years & is generally the last hardware component to upgrade.

For Home use buy the LG L206WTQ Monitor. It is 20” TN Panel based but HDCP compliant. You can easily upgrade to a Blu-ray Drive later & still enjoy all your HD Movies as Blu-Ray requires a monitor with HDCP connection. It has a native resolution of 1650X1080 pixels which is more than enough for whatever you want to throw at it, even 720p HD Videos play flawless on this monitor as 1080p will look different from 720p only when seen on a 32? or higher LCD Display. You can also connect your gaming console such as XBOX 360 or Playstation 3 to this monitor to play games on a wide screen LCD with real HD resolution.

Cyber cafe owners should go for 17″ LCD from Samsung or LG with 4:3 aspect ratio. They won’t need a widescreen monitor in a cyber cafe. CRT monitors are also an option if you want to go dirt cheap but I seriously don’t recommend buying CRT anymore.

Operating System = For home use 32bit Windows Vista Home premium is adequate for this computer. Once installed & configured for which you can have a look at my article “Using Windows Vista: The MVP Way” & your setup will be like Set it & forget it. Just start the system, work on it & do whatever you want.

For Cyber Cafe, Windows XP SP3 is advised.

We all know that people in Cyber cafe or casual home users in home pirate the OS anyway so instead of going with Linux & a new environment they would rather prefer going with Windows XP.

About other software, most of the basic home related work can be done these days with free software available for Windows. Some of them are Open Source applications like OpenOffice which will do the work just fine instead of Office 2007. This will further cut software cost & you don’t even have to pirate stuff.

How to make an inexpensive & efficient Computer

Everyone who owns a computer knows how fast the technology gets outdated in Computer world. A brand new hardware which you buy today might be outdated in 10 days. Now, we just can’t keep on upgrading the hardware always so there comes a point when a user is looking for a cheap & efficient computer system with the ability to upgrade it later as required & having the best value for money. If you don’t play games or play games casually only, then this PC will easily last for 4 years without upgrading anything in it. Even if you play games then small updates will do. you might pay a bit high for the PC but then you will not need to pay a penny on it.

Now, you can go in the market & buy the best product available for your money but is it balanced? Remember, a 80% balanced PC will work better then a 100% high end component based PC as it is more efficient & there are very few flaws. I came across a configuration which I think fits this balanced & efficient PC configuration perfectly with a lot of room to upgrade as required.

CPU & Motherboard = AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ AM2 with Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H. AMD has recently released the 780G chipset which by far is the best Value for Money chipset out there I have seen in a long time & with the Gigabyte motherboard, you get lots of features for such a low price. The feature list of this motherboard is quite long & it has everything you will ever want in a PC. When combined with the Athlon64 CPU, this machine has more then enough power to do anything you throw at it for a really low price.

Although AMD in my opinion is better then Intel when it comes to Value for Money, but if you still want to go with Intel Setup then simply buy Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 along with Asus P5E-VM HDMI. This motherboard has similar features to the AMD 780G chipset based Gigabyte motherboard sans DirectX 10 based onboard graphics. Rest all features are almost similar.

CPU Fan = The stock CPU Fan should be good enough but if you want to further reduce the noise of your computer then you can have a look at Cooler Master Gemini S CPU cooler.

Memory = RAM is relatively cheap these days. It makes perfect sense to for 2X1GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM, If you are not into overclocking then you can buy Corsair Value Select RAM for as low as Rs. 2,000 in the market. You are advised to upgrade to 2X2 GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM after about 1 or 2 years when the prices further reduce.

Cabinet & SMPS = Zebronics Cube is something I would recommend for such a PC. It is small, easy to carry & move around, gives enough room for expansion as required. This cabinet comes with a basic 400W SMPS but I would recommend to change it to Cooler Master Extreme power 500W for Rs 2,200. This will provide adequate electricity for the components.

Hard Disk = There is no limit and it depends completely on your requirements. however, as a starting point I would recommend Western Digital SATA2 WD3200AAKS Hard disk with 16 MB Buffer & 320 GB HD space. If you need more space then buy an external HD. If you can pay a it more then look for Western Digital 500GB GreenPower Hard disk. This is a RoHC compliant hard disk & required less power & electricity compared to the above mentioned 320 GB hard disk at a slight price premium but it is worth it as you will save more in electricity bills.

Optical Drive = There are many optical drives in the market right now but one Drive which is enough for needs would be Samsung SH-S203D DVD Writer at Rs 1,200.

Audio & Video = The Gigabyte motherboard already comes with a more then decent onboard audio & video configuration. The Onboard 7.1 channel Realtek ALC889A HD Audio Codec should suffice for all your HTPC needs & the onboard Radeon HD 3400 class graphics should take care of all your non-gaming needs to run the OS. The onboard graphics chip comes with UVD 2.0 which means automatic decoding of HD & VC-1 Content. If you want to upgrade then look no further then a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio Sound Card for about Rs 4,500 & Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 with 512 MB DDR3 RAM for about 11k. However a separate graphics card & sound card will not be needed as this PC is not meant for serious gaming.

TV Tuner Card = Buy it if you need it else leave it. I would recommend Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP Global Media Center with my eyes closed as this TV Tuner is by far the best analog TV Tuner card I have seen. It is compatible with Windows Media Center & even comes with a Media Center Remote. If you can find the PCI Express X1 based WinFast PxTV1200 Media Center Edition then buy that instead to use that idle PCI Express X1 slot to some good use.

Speakers & Headphones = This is a completely personal choice & I would advice you to go to the market & check yourself after listening to some available models.

If you are looking for headphones then look for Philips HiFi SHP-8900 headphones for Rs 3,500. Not only they look good, but for a headphone of Rs 3,500 they sound astonishingly good. It comes with gold plated 4 meter long OFC cable which is long enough to take it to to the couch too.

For speakers, although you should check yourself in the market but I would say as a starting point look for Creative Gigaworks T20 or Creative I-Trigue T3000 for Stereo Sound.

Webcam = Buy it if you need it. These days webcams start for as low as Rs 500 in the market. Considering the state of Indian broadband, a Microsoft LiveCam VX-1000 should suffice or Frontek Webcam which are surprisingly good for the price at Rs 500.

Keyboard & Mouse = Again, this is a personal preference. Look yourself to judge which keyboard & mouse you find comfortable with your hands & posture. Since this Computer is meant to be a life style PC, better go for Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 7000 set if your budget allows it.

Monitor  = LCD Monitors are dirt cheap now so it makes prefect sense to invest in a LCD Monitor instead of a CRT now as monitors easily last for many years & is generally the last hardware component to upgrade. Since this is the HD Era it makes sense to buy a HD certified LCD Monitor such as LG L206WTQ for Rs 10,500. This monitor is 20″ with TN Based panel & HDCP compliancy. You can easily upgrade to a Blu-ray Drive later & still enjoy all your HD Movies as Blu-Ray requires a monitor with HDCP connection. It has a native resolution of 1650X1080 pixels which is more then enough for whatever you want to throw at it, even 720p HD Videos play flawless on this monitor as 1080p will look different from 720p only when seen on a 32″ or higher LCD Display. You can also connect your gaming console such as XBOX 360 or Playstation 3 to this monitor to play games on a wide screen LCD with real HD resolution.

Operating System = With all this perfectly balanced hardware, it would be a shame to use Windows XP which will severely hinder the feature & hardware power of this Machine. On the other hand, 64bit Windows Vista Home Premium for Rs 4.200 will compliment this hardware completely out of the box. It’s more like the OS & this machine are made to complement one another. Once installed & configured for which you can have a look at my article “Using Windows Vista : The MVP Way” & your setup will be like Set it & forget it. Just start the system, work on it & do what ever you want.

If you are into Linux, even then this hardware setup is perfectly suited as the drivers are easily available & since you are into Linux, chances are you are not afraid or tinkering around with the OS. Linux Mint is something I would recommend to start with in this case. You might loose some features such as Blu-ray playback etc with Linux but there are always other ways.

I have written some prices which I personally know, however you can have a look at Lynx India or TheITwares for better idea of approximate prices.

This PC is not supposed to be a high end PC, it is supposed to be a small, silent & “Does your work without hassle” PC.

Windows Diary

I was thinking today, what happened to the good old diary we used to keep in real life? Where did it go, has it vanished somewhere? It seems that it really has vanished, or maybe the form is changed.

We now spend so much time on computers, why not have a diary which we can password protect or share with other family members. So far I have not seen any compelling diary application for Windows so I decided to make a concept UI as I am not a software developer. Now if only like always I could find a software developer willing to make this a reality. Presenting Windows Diary…

Windows Diary uses a database to save all the diary entries. You just start the app & select the date from the calendar on the sidebar which you can show or hide using the sidebar button on the task toolbar & click on the “New Diary Entry” button on the toolbar. You can have multiple diary entries per day & multiple pages per entry. You can edit, add music, video or image to the diary, export the diary entry as a PDF or XPS or mail it to anyone. Then you have the Show/Hide sidebar & Options button.

You can also search for a particular diary entry by name, tag, or date using the integrated search field.

I don’t know much, what else would you require in a diary application? Or is there any idea using which I can make it further simple? Let me know in the feedback.