I also think that for any broadcast medium to become some sort of a political mouthpiece (in this case the Republican party), leads to a general lack of credibility.

But, there is a wonderful Sci-Fi show called “Fringe” on Fox, that I think is absolutely fantastic and I am somewhat intrigued as to why a TV network embedded with Republican conservative ideology, would air a show that appeals to Sci-Fi enthusiasts who would question even the most basic tenets of the conservative base of the Republican party (Mixing human and animal DNA, Infinite Universes with differences being examples of  such ideas) .

Well, I think the makers of Fringe did realize that, and sprinkled some references to “God” in Walter Bishop’s explanation of what happened to him after he brought back a living version of his dead son from an alternate universe.

My conclusion is that the makers of Fringe wanted an additional season of Fringe on Fox and made a few strategic adjustments. Whether this idea is true or not, Fringe is a welcome addition to Fox.

The Coby DVD-233 is a cheaply made DVD player and currently available from Buy.com and several other places for about $30. This DVD player can be set to play DVDs with any region code by turning it into a region free DVD player with a simple hack/procedure.  I have several DVDs   I’d purchased from visits abroad that I’d never watched in years and the Coby DVD-233 is the perfect solution.

Here’s the hack: (All of the following are to be done using only your remote)

1. Turn on the player and eject the tray using your remote.

2. Press “MENU”, 8, 8, 8, 8 on the remote. You should see 5 asterisks near the top left of your screen.

3. Press DISPLAY. A dialog box will show the current region code.

4. Press 0. A new dialog box shows 0 (region free) and a warning. Ignore the warning and don’t press any keys on the remote.

5. Close tray using the remote control. Turn the device off and on again and the DVD player is now region free.

So far, there has been little difference. JPMorgan Chase does have a very nice online control panel that lets you look at all your credit cards and banking accounts in one view, however there was little difference in terms of features that affect your way of life.

That is, till last week when I dropped into a JPMorgan Chase ATM to deposit a handwritten check. I was first struck by the absence of deposit slips and envelopes which in the past have been ‘out of stock’ at some locations and either you had to come back another day or drive to another location to make a deposit.

But then I noticed that the ATM machine had this new neon green slot that said “insert check”. Intrigued, I logged in, inserted the handwritten check, indicated my preference for a receipt and confirmed the amount of my deposit which was miraculously displayed on the screen.

Essentially the process of depositing checks that previously took about 4-5 minutes and licking an envelope, now takes less than 45 seconds and no paper is involved. This is an example of a perfect implementation of a paperless system, handwriting recognition and where technology really makes a difference to the customer. Wait, the environment now benefits too.

Today, The Zodiac is better know for its ability to play games from many different consoles from the last decade such as the Genesis, SNES, NES at terrific speeds. By “speed”, I mean the ability to play a game made for another system at exactly the kind of speed at which the game should be played (having a slow game performance beats the idea of playing video games doesn’t it?).

To play game, the first step is to get a free software for the Zodiac called “Little John Z”. Install this software on your first SD card slot on your Zodiac (for some reason this does not work on the second slot).

Get the software from here:
http://little-john.net/

Next, you need some ROMs. ROMs are packages containing code that used to come in cartridges many years ago. There are many such sites that can give you ROMs. ROMNation is one. Google for ROMs. and you’ll get a dozen sites that allow you to download ROMs for free. Get the edition of ROM for your region if possible.

While Little John plays ROMs from many old consoles, stick to the SNES and Genesis as they have the best games.

Drop these ROMs files into the SD card in the correct folder, using a SD card reader. Then insert the card onto slot 1 on your Zodiac.

You can launch these games using the Little John launcher icon now available on your Zodiac.

More recently, a Korean company, recognizing the market for a hand-held emulator friendly console, released the Linux based GP2x and the GP2x Wiz. The GP2x has the advantage of being an in-production unit but is more bulky than the Tapwave Zodiac. But I see that this platform is going to get very popular soon as vendors such as ThinkGeek.com carry the product now.

Here is a link to the GP2xWiz
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/bfc7/

The GP2X

There is truth in what he said. We all use Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail for email. We’re mostly all used to working in a cloud. So what exactly is new with cloud computing?

The idea of leasing processing and storage space online with a company such as Amazon (Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud) looks like the leased main-frame concept of the 80’s. Except now, the services are internet based and we have a diverse collection of applications and operating systems. Add virtualization to the mix and essentially cloud computing is a new term for an improved version of a concept that’s been around for a long time -  commoditizing computing resources.

Oracle customers for example, especially smaller ones, could benefit substantially from the cloud computing concept where they can be freed from the intricacies of maintaining both software and hardware. But  then, as a customer you lose control. If Oracle makes all their applications software available online using a SaaS model, it could very well attract new customers who are willing to sacrifice control for convenience.

Instances where one is not likely to buy into cloud computing:
Location of Critical Applications
Larger customers may not buy into the concept. Think about this, how much are you willing to trust an outside company to manage your critical applications? Say like AIG or Lehman Brothers a cloud computing
service provider goes belly up rather fast for whatever reason? What exactly are you going to do?

How Many Platforms?
What happens if your company used multiple application platforms and one cloud computing service provider cannot support all platforms? Are you going to use multiple clouds?

VMware has a solution for this and their virtualization technology may very well make then an acquisition candidate (Without virtualization cloud computing is really not possible).

Cost vs. Convenience
Your applications still sit on a server somewhere. If at some point your application usage requirements are such that you really need dedicated ownership of a server’s resources, would you really save money utilizing a cloud computing environment? Would not using a managed server be a better option?

The Internet is not 100% Reliable
How many companies are going to feel comfortable about depending upon their ISP to reach their critical applications/data?

Privact and Legal Requirements
I would assume that most cloud computing data centers are based in the USA. Just yesterday, there was news of UBS handing over confidential tax records to the US tax authorities (not a bad thing in my opinion).

How data contained within cloud computing data centers are governed and made available to government authorities will be of considerable concern to companies that are not American. This is still a legal gray area.

Liability
Does anyone read the fine print about liability? Zoho, GoogleDocs do not guarantee that your data is 100% safe. They are certainly reliable but that’s not the same as a 100% data security guarantee. What happens if a company loses their sales leads to a competitor who hacked into one of their sales accounts available online?

Instances where one is likely to buy into cloud computing:
Small Companies and Start-ups on a Budget
Smaller companies who wish to provide a world class experience to their application users but with a limited budget, would find cloud computing to be a welcome alternative to huge upfront costs. The idea here would be to start making money first before investing into dedicated hardware and infrastructure.

Scalability
Say you a have a new online service that may become the next big thing overnight. A cloud computing environment can give you the additional computing power seamlessly if you have a surge of new users/customers.

Mobile Applications
If your workforce is geographically dispersed, chances are that your workers are accessing reporting, applications remotely. In such scenarios it may make more sense from an availability point of view to use a cloud computing environment to serve applications.

Lower Cost Hardware
Your workers will have the added advantage of using the new range of sub $300 Netbooks from Acer/Asus/Dell since they will not need substantial localized computing power.

Online office suites like Zoho and GoogleDocs are good examples of online applications that are widely used.

Unlimited Storage Capacity
This is one of those features that can be called a plus but really is not, since most computers today come with atleast a 150GB hard drive. So unless you’re collecting movies or something of that nature, this is not really a huge plus for end-users. From an enterprise point of view, storage only gets cheaper with time.

Native Group Collaboration
If 10 people need to look and comment on a document, it becomes easy to do so with a cloud based application.

In conclusion, I think cloud computing will become an accepted means of delivering software as a service (SaaS). Cloud computing will initially be adopted more by those companies that are starting up and who are keen on saving on tech infrastructure costs and by smaller companies who cannot afford to maintain a dedicated infrastructure to deliver online services. But it will take a certain amount of time for the model to mature to a point where security, reliability and legal issues have been worked out for large corporations to become comfortable.

VMware Cloud Demo Video here (really good intro)
http://download3.vmware.com/vcloud/demos/cloud_demov2.html

Some references:
UBS to ID clients accused of tax evasion
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/18/news/companies/UBS.reut/index.htm

I decided to shop around for a new Wireless G router becuase I Wireless G was good enough for my needs provided it worked at optimal speeds.

After some research I came upon the Netgear WPN824NA Wireless G Router – 108Mbps, 802.11g, 4-Port. A recertified version was on sale for $20 at Compusa. This router is a RangeMax router that uses multiple antennas to compensate for interference. I also intended to replace an older Netgear router and so a newer Netgear was appealing.

Connecting it up took less than 1 minute. It has a wizard that auto detects the type of network you are on. in my case it’s PPPoE. I had my ISP’s username and password handy which is all you need to get connected and to replace an existing router.

The performance improvement is amazing. Wireless signal strength on a PC with 70% went to 95%. 380Kbps downloads became easy where 90Kbps was difficult. Connectivity just does not drop any more.

I can easily say that this will be the best $20 bucks I spent this year (considering the year is still young). The bottom line is, if you have several PC’s with a wireless G card, and you suffer from poor connectivity problems consider the Netgear RangeMax series of routers.

I tried replacing a Netgear WG311v2 antenna with a high gain antenna purchased of eBay for $5. The anternna is triple the height of the standard antenna that came with the Netgear card. Overall I found a 15-20% improvement in signal strength on a PC about 40 feet away from the router in a different room.

I also was able to detect several wireless networks that I’d never seen before. Therefore range did improve and overall the connection does not drop as often.

My conclusion is that if you are considering upgrading your router due to poor connectivity issues, try replacing the antenna first. Its a cheap fix and can work very well for you.

I paid about $5 including shipping for a 9dBi Range Extender Antenna on ebay. I think the average gain for a wireless antenna as supplied by most manufacturers would be in the 2dBi-4dBi range. Just make sure your wireless card has an antenna than can be screwed off and on before you purchase a replacement antenna.

If you use a PC and want to convert any document into a PDF file, just download and install doPDF. It will appear as a printer on your PC. Print to the doPDF printer and you end up with a nice PDF.

In a bind, like I was in, this is a quick and easy lifesaver

http://www.dopdf.com/

Consider this: if you are in the business of providing web development services or in the web design business, you’re likely to have built several applications and data intensive websites over the years. Almost all of these websites/web applications can benefit from qualitative upgrades using Ajax techniques.

For a reasonable charge, boring data entry and retreival applications can be souped up using any number of easily integrated visual interface elements. You are not messing with the internals of an application, just improving the user experience so you’re unlikely to hit  major roadblocks. The resulting ’Ajaxed’ application looks and works much better, the client looks great to their management and its a win situation for everyone.

The easiest way to sell this is to invest the time in re-engineering say one web page/report (with some nice visualization effects) and letting the client see the benefit for themselves.

While the animation, the story, the emotional delivery through robots and almost everything else about this movie is outstanding, what makes this movie phenomenal is that the creators have tried to draw attention to the state of human civilization and the super-consumers who will eventually contribute to the death of this planet.

The impressive visuals of a lone robot picking up waste and creating mountains of compressed metal cubes, delivers a message that is undeniably powerful.

“Humans – consume a hell of a lot and generate a lot of waste which we really do not know what to do with (Developed nations in particular)”.

This movie has a powerful green message and should be watched by every single person on this planet.