Mixture 1

Just thought, so started again.. a mixture of some things i wanna tell...

->ARR music for Vince Vaughn hollywood film - Couples Retreat.. Hope it goes well too.. http://www.musicaloud.com/2009/09/25/couples-retreat-music-review/
->ARR music for Blue - good music, slow poison .. i guess the movie should be a usual high budget Hindi crap.. http://www.musicaloud.com/2009/09/10/blue-music-review/
->ARR music for The Passage - in torrent now, will hear today.. review says good..
http://www.musicaloud.com/2009/09/16/passage-music-review/
->Unnai Pol oruvan, i liked almost all the songs as the film..

->Playing Batman Arkhum Asylum, its very tempting.. but struggling with the piracy bug they put in it.

->Started using Trillian, i am using it for having gmail, yahoo, twitter and facebook at the same time.. i feel it good.. http://www.trillian.im/
->I am in twitter, http://twitter.com/boo3dmax ,following some 13 with 8 followers.. its different, and it good to see wat johnmayer is doing right now, though its none of my business..
->This one is really good if you had organized music and want to see the lyrics instantly from internet without any pain.. i like this very much for my itunes.. http://www.crintsoft.com/minilyrics.htm
->Again started using some tools - movie label2010, password memory2009, personal finance pro.. all are in torrent and helpful for me..

this might seem like a hurry post.. it isn't, its something like going to office/exam hall at the last moment.. wow i posted finally.. congrats boo!!

Finding ME with GPS

Finding Me – Not psychologically but geographically.. Yes with the help of GPS receiver that I installed in my PSP. A short description on this product.

I always like to use my PSP for some other purposes, other than gaming. Found out that it can be used as navigation device. As it has display, a small GPS receiver and software with maps loaded in the memory, helps to see the maps and track where we are and where we are heading.
I ordered this device – GPS Receiver official from Sony and hence cost little more, but very reliable. I saw some other cheap GPS receivers for PSP, but they required extra wires, which need be genuine, it seems. Also I realized from some forums, about the compatibly issues with other receivers. So finally decide for sony product which doesn’t need wires. I ordered from Play Asia, Hong Kong in this link.

It got shipped within few days by postal, as if you wish to track it by DHL or BlueDart, you can but paying price more than the product. It is relatively small compared to the device and it mounts on the top of the PSP perfectly. That’s it, its installed.

Now the Software for using this: You need two software, PSP mapping software and software for your PC to download maps. There are plenty of softwares for your version of PSP, luckily the software I downloaded first, worked for me. FYI my PSP firmware is 3.51 m33-6. I am using MapThis! Software in PSP for GPS Navigation and using GMDL0.5.04b software for downloading necessary maps (from Google Maps, Microsoft live maps, etc etc)

The Map This! Wiki Guide: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Map_This

The GMDL Guide: http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=60230

I downloaded the maps of south India and Bangalore covering my location and put it in my PSP. Then turned on my PSP, and opened Map This!, turned on my PSP. I couldn’t get any satellite if I sit inside my house. But I am able to get up to 13 satellites at the max when standing out. When I give some 3 minutes, I can get easily fixed to 4 satellites and able to get my position – longitude and latitude something like N 13` 04` 13` and E 77` 38` 17` . Now a tiny blue arrow shows my position, even if my map is somewhere, it centers it and shows my position.

So now I have the point where I am and If I move the point moves. The software just needs this, it calculates the speed, max speed, avg speed, distance travelled, trip time and different 3d views of map. I tried using it in my car, seems to be working, but couldn’t test it thoroughly as I was stuck in traffic that day. Will go home or somewhere with the map loaded just for testing this!! Here are some of the PSP screenshots of my location.

All about my PSP – Versatile portable

I bought a secondhand PSP a month above to quince my thrust on Create Zen Vision W or to prevent myself from big expenses by getting Zen Vision. I see PSP (Play Station Portable) far cheaper and worthy comparing to any portable players if you are an active PC user, I mean you have to compromise the memory size by replacing files you want to play. Here is why I put my money on PSP.

Short description:

PSP is Play Station Portable by Sony Corporation launched in 2003. It is meant for portable gaming. It has separate drive called UMD drive, where you can only put UMD discs. So Sony PSP is meant to play game/software only from UMD disks. It will be the same if there are no hackers in the world and no users like me to utilize them. By doing a 1000 INR firmware update, the PSP is hacked. Now it is ready to play anything from its memory stick.

Features:

Now coming to features, PSP is versatile. It can play games, obviously. It can play videos (mpeg-4). It can play audio (mp3/wma). It can be used to view pictures. Nothing can beat its video quality and audio quality is also fine and its obvious as it is a Sony product. It is Wifi enabled. It can also read pdfs. It can read docs. It can be used as organizer. It can be navigating device…the list goes on, until the PSP software hacks halt.

Why all these features with such a low price of 8k INR? I heard that there are still people getting original UMD disk paying 1k INR for one game UMD disks are sole proprietary of Sony Corporation. Seem they get money in them.

Drawbacks: size and size.

Yes, memory size and device size. The PSP I am using is having a memory size of 1GB only. By far I have seen PSPs having memory 4GB at the max in common. But in my 1GB memory stick I can put two movies and one compressed game and some software as well. Won't that be enough for your journey? Yes it won't if you have uncompressed game which could be 1GB, but 4GB should be more than enough to put all.

If you are okay with this memory size then comes the player size.. it is definitively bulky, but bulky enough for good video display and to sit in lap for movies in long journey.

Small comparison:

Ipod nano, wins in player size and sucks in everything. Ipod classic wins in memory size and sucks in everything. Ipod video without its wide screen first sucks and I feel it would be difficult to hold it to see an entire movie, where PSP seems better. Zen Vision, which is around thrice the price of PSP has only the media features of PSP. No portable player has gaming, wifi, applications like pdf reader, gps navigation…

I watched Michael Clayton, Bee Movie and BeeGees live last during my last time journey. I played NFS Most Wanted from UMD disk in between each movie. I saw neither my watch nor the mile boards of my home town with a sleepy head.

Conclusion :

Only music – Ipod
Only Video – ZEN Vision
Only Game – PSP
Atleast any two of the above – PSP. Am for all the three… In the next post am gonna write abt the navigation feature of my PSP…

Post from Office 2007

I was about to write post, so opened Office 2007 and when I clicked new, I wondered seeing it having 'New Blog Post'. So trying that now. It asks for username and password by providing the famous blog sites, obviously Blogger is one of them. So picked it and gave username and password and it asks for Image Server. As I am not about to upload photo in this post I skipped and got this nice page in office 2007. Lets see how this works.

This has things like Publish (obviously) and 'publish as draft' too. The 'Manage Accounts' option is for switching between your blogs. Cool! If it works… lets see…Will continue using Office 2007 if this works…

Edit: It works absolutely fine, but i believe i can't put labels for post from World.. But this feature of MS Word 2007 is really Cool...

Vista -> XP Downgrade

Hi, Its been a long time to be here, believe me i was some what busy in CODING, really office work... Fine so many things happened in between this gap.. One of them i spent my night formating my PC and installing XP and Vista successively during my VO (Virtual Office). This is because i felt my PC to be bit slow and wanted to use Vista extensively (not only becoz of its features and awesome graphics but also i got a solid good crack). But after an extensive use of Vista for 4 or 5 days, i decided to be apart from that. Here are some of the problems which my PC and i faced in Vista (though some of them i did already which i installed the day the torrents had fresh vista).

• I am having Pinnacle TV Tuner card, which is not at all detected by Vista, even with the vista driver i am able to make it unrecognizable and even listed channels in Vista Media Center. But when i tried to see the video it will show you the perfect 'Checking for Solutions' screen giving some error. Pinnacle software is far more worse. But i wonder about this as i was able to make the card work when i installed Vista the previous time.
• I am having Asus P5B motherboard with inbuilt sound card of 7.1 channel, but again this one has problem in Vista. Though this card is recognizable, the 4.1 speaker of mine is only able to play sound in two speakers. I tried all the combinations settings like 4.1, 5.1 and 7.1 channel with and without sub woofer. Only few produce sound but only in my front two speakers.
• If you are iTunes user, then i feel Vista will give you pain sometimes. I had this problem thrice, When you open iTunes, sometimes it will keep on loading the library and results in hanging and after the restart you will see the iTunes having a blank library. All your rating and playlists are gone!!
• And at last a big tragedy happened, i did almost all the updates for Vista including Ultimate Extras... After that to my surprise, my Benq DVD writer driver is not at all accessable, its driver is gone into flames!! I am not all able to read anything from my dvd.. That really tested my patience for working in Vista.

Due to these problems i decided to switch back to XP. Luckily i had installed XP along with Vista only for playing games as anyone knows playing heavy games in Vista is foolish having XP with you. So installed everything back in XP from Azureus to iTunes and now using XP and keeping Vista idle in my second drive. So at least for anyone having Pinncle Tv Tuner, Benq dvd writer, Asus Mobo with 4.1 speaker XP is the tension free zone.

Office 2007 to Office 97-2003 file conversion

It happened to my friend long back when cracked Microsoft Office 2007 had been successfully installed. Now it happened also to me. Nothing serious, I liked the style Office 2007 gives and enjoyed creating a excel document which I needed to show in my office in xlsx format mistakenly and ended in trouble when I had to open it in my office with older Office version. After little bit googling this one I found out. Just a small exe provided by Microsoft which will convert Office 2007 word, excel and powerpoint files to Office 2003 format.
Here is the link for that.

New Maruti 800 / Suzuki Cervo

Suzuki is planning to replace the long lasting master kid "Maruti 800" with the Japanese Suzuki Cervo which is the latest small car recently launched in Japan, the Cervo is a compact five door mini, that looks to put the other kids on the block into the shade. This sleek cute car offers 54bhp 660cc engine that boasts to offer peppy performance with great fuel economy.

Suzuki believes that they can price the car in the same amount given by Tata, they can do this by deleting some of the stuff available in the car, or by using a cheaper material to make it cost less, but, we doubt that Suzuki will use such cheap material so long as price is considered. There is going to be a lot of competition between these two in the below 800cc category. The name Cervo has been a history for jap Suzuki cars mainly used in the Japanese version of alto.

Exteriors

From the outside the Cervo looks like the Honda Fit, but this one looks like its smaller bro. As there is no sight of Tatas 1 lakh car, comparism between these two are not possible , rumors have been spread that Tatas car would be based on the Indiva Concept. Coming back to the Cervo the lines and cuts of the car are neat and classy and the clean blacky covering at the end of the windows are cleverly made so as not to see too many holes.

The headlights seem too agressive and getting ready to vrroomm and seems confident, well we can hope it really does. The Small mini SUV looks at the back, with an arching roofline, wedgy stance, slanted headlights and stubby bonnet makes out a new shape of itself and bound to be a great car if its priced is good and if its at 1L, it will be crazy selling.

Interiors

The interiors of this car somewhat looks like that of the much popular Swift. The rectangular air vents in the center and the circle open closed ones on the sides dont look even and looks a bit uneven. the colors of the controls do look lights up the dash. The boot is very small, but for daily shopping and office stuffs its just OK.

Seats at the back can seat only two and the third one can cramp up the place. A lot of storage areas are available to keep stuff in the front and find little at the back. Power Windows are airbags are available in the international markets but we doubt that it will come to India at that cost atleast airbags as an option would be better to make the car safe. In the outside markets this car is equipped with front semi-bucket seats, 4-speed auto gearbox a K6A DOHC engine with VVT, bluetooth capability.

Verdict

Cars like these will be a success in India if they are priced well with high profile, the sporty and agressive exteriors and the classy and swifty interiors are bound to make the young gens and the ladies to force their cash out, the Suzuki's bet of combining performance with FE, this car will be a hit in Indian roads.

got this info from my new big buddy - Gopi, Got My Car Stereo becoz of him.. Will be back with a post about it soon...

Crazy Little Character..

Saw this one from my friend's link...
Just copy the character anywhere, and start typing.... its crazy...
Read this to get the idea...

‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉

‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮Get Crazy!!

Make Any Movie as Family Movie

So guys, after long time..so a BIG HI to everyone, fine straight to the topic: “Necessity is the Mother of invention”, in this case its Discovery. Yep here is my necessity:

A Software which should skip some selected "time span" from the movies while playing. I don’t want to edit or delete the scenes as it will take lot of time and will reduce the quality of the rip too. And it would be good, if i could just select the portion of the movie (as in adobe premiere ) and tell it to hide, like tat and i can save this settings for this movies as some file (as .srt or .sub file for subtitles) so that i can see the movie censored without affecting the quality of the movie rip.

Ok now the necessity of this necessity : most of the splendid non-indian movies has some pornographic content, mostly unnecessary examples : from godfather, schindler's list, last king of Scotland, the departed, Black book and the list goes on.. which we have to enjoy with our family..

So I posted in many forums to get a solution for this but in vein, and at last with some googling and lil bit of luck which I usually have ;) I got the solution. It is AviSynth. So those who have knowledge on this already with so much relax u can just skip this post, others continue..

I just did this few minutes before, so haven’t tested it extensively. But it seems working, so am just giving you hint:
Download the avisynth software from here.And just install as you like. Now just open a notepad and write this command:

AviSource("C:\Downloads\BBC Supernatural Science - Physical Feats.avi")
Trim(0,100-1) ++ Trim(200+1,0)
Trim(0,500-1) ++ Trim(800+1,0)
Trim(0,1000-1) ++ Trim(2000+1,0)

(OR)

DirectShowSource("C:\Downloads\BBC Supernatural Science - Physical Feats.avi ,fps=24,audio=true)
Trim(0,100-1) ++ Trim(200+1,0)
Trim(0,500-1) ++ Trim(800+1,0)
Trim(0,1000-1) ++ Trim(2000+1,0)

and just save the notepad file with .avs extension. Here the AviSource() or DirectShowSource() are used to open only avi and (avi and mpeg) movies respectively. The Trim command removes the frames provided. In the above example, I have trimmed three portions – frames from 100 to 200 ; 500 to 800 and 1000 to 2000. so this movie will be played without these clippings.

So to run the movies, you just have to open the .avs file in the media player and thats it. If you want to get the frame information, just use this light weight tool which is actually used for encoding purposes – VirtualDub. Just open the movie in this tool and it will display the frame numbers and the timings. So take this frame number and put it in the above code and Enjoy Movies With Your Family!!

Note: The above code trims off the unwanted scenes, you have to decide which one is unwanted ;) hope u understand!!

Be back with something else…Comments and rating always invited. ;)

Direct x 10 Cards ready for Crysis

Recent SMS from Akshay:
Direct x 10 cards have been released in India. Price range is in 7.5k, 10k, 16k, 20k and 42k. Seems around 10% increase in performance over the predecessor.

Last week in Boo World
This is one more column, am gonna write..Confused about the tilte - Nothing its just the உள்டா of ‘சென்ற வர உலகம்’ which runs in suntv..Dont worry am having (1/100)% knowledge about the world affairs – yep I am confident Harrison Ford is the president of USA..So don’t want to go to real world..
This one is about things that are thrown in or out of my 1400gms brain – now I remember, how I remember this number – its somewhere in the excellent film I watched last week = The Pursuit of Happyness’. So I think you got what this post is about..Still want to continue.. good..

($) I got this somewhere – nice particle simulation..Check this out..
http://www.seb.cc/particles/

($) Don’t Try this at Theatre : Veerasamy.. yes even at home, continuously.. As all software engineers even I like to see cap10 movies and these kinda movies..so tried a little bit of this circus film performed by Big Bear. But as proverb goes - அளவுக்கு மிஞ்சினால் அமிர்தமும் நஞ்சு, you can watch this film with you conscious for some fifteen minutes continuously not more than that.. Putting in a single sentence – worst story, worst screenplay, worst dialogue, worst music, whatever worst in film making by T Rajender; purely for low low-class senseless crude movie. So to be safe, avoid it.. Its not as easy and funny as u think..

($) Wanna keep video as ur wallpaper background? There were certain tools for XP, but Vista has its own thing. Yeh I installed Vista ultimate in my PC. Vista Ultimate is the highest that vista offers. Depending upon the version you are having you will be given extra features – this Vista ultimate has Windows media center and things like that. I got in net as extra feature for Ultimate – Vista DreamScene, which will put all your wmv and mpeg videos as your wallpaper. It is not working for .avi files neither divx not xvid.. Check out this for more info:
http://windowsultimate.com/blogs/announcements/archive/2007/02/14/windows-dreamscene-technical-preview-is-live.aspx

($) Thanks to torrent, this is the first time when I have seen almost 80% of Oscar nominated movies.. So very curious about the Oscars. Good to see Departed, Little miss sunshine, The Queen getting Oscars. The films I hated most in Oscars are Babel, Pan's Labyrinth and Happy Feet. I am really disappointed that my all time favourite Pixar productions didn’t get Oscars for “The Cars” instead the “Happy Feet” which I really hate very much.

($) Now-a-days I think my itunes gets angry on me becoz of the repetitive music of Dixie Chicks. Yeh saw their documentary film – ‘Shut up and Sing’ and the 5 grammy awards in their hand and their catchy country songs. So they become one of my favorite band. Will be back with a debut post on them.. Meet you soon..

Explore Google Earth 4, to explore..
{Tech}

The latest version of Google Earth has quite a few very interesting features such as the ability for 3D models to have textures and a new user interface. Also, it is now possible to see animations on Google Earth to show geographic changes during different seasons and stuff.
You can take some time to wonder on this.. Here's an excerpt from google page:

Seeing 3D terrain and buildings is one of the coolest features of Google Earth. We’ve added higher-quality terrain data for many mountainous regions, as well as support for "textured" 3D buildings-meaning bricks look like real bricks, glass looks like real glass, and overall, the world looks more like the real world. It's just one more step on the path of creating a life-like 3D model of the whole planet.

Millions of Google Earth users add and share geographic information every day using .KML, the Google Earth file format. In Google Earth 4 we've expanded that capability. Now you can view travel photos, hiking trails uploaded from your GPS, overlays of your own imagery, or large geographic data sets. You can even times-tamp the data to create animations of how the world changes over time. Explore Google Earth Showcase for some popular examples.

Download it here ..

Is Vista Ultimate, The Ultimate?
{Tech}

Windows Vista has been released for a month now to business, and is going to be released to the general public in a month (January 30). For those who haven't been following Vista's development, it is worth noting that even though Vista comes 5 years after XP, it is a rushed product. Originally set to be a relatively small update to XP, to be released in 2003, it was re-envisioned as a major release, with revolutionary technologies such as WinFS (a new file system), Palladium (security system), Avalon (graphics system) and Indigo (communications system). We don't see such a big breakthrough as it happened from Windows to XP in this XP to Vista.
It doesn't really matter if Vista is a success or not, Microsoft cannot wait another five years to release another Windows. And that is why Microsoft is planning a "Vista R2", codename 'Fiji'. From what little information is available we know that this will be a minor release sometime in 2008. Want to see the features of this damn thing?

Windows Fiji

• The UI will be updated with things that were originally promised for Vista, along with a more powerful sidebar, which will be more than just a dock for widgets (a.k.a. gadgets)
  
• .Net Framework will be updated to 3.5 (or maybe even 4)
  
• WinFS will be applied over NTFS to give us Virtual Folders (or maybe just Saved Searches)
• All bundled application will be updated to newer versions
  
• Tighter integration with Windows Live. Probably through 'Codename Nemo', a media center application that is integrated with Messenger, Spaces, and probably lots of other Windows Live Services.
  
• We might see Monaco, a music authoring tool, similar to Apple's Garageband.
  
• Default playback of HD-DVD (maybe even Blu-ray), Vista currently identifies these disks but cannot play them without an external decoder.
  
• A more advanced Speech Recognition
  
• NGSCB will be implemented to make the system more secure.
  
• New themes, icons, wallpapers, games, and minor tweaks to almost everything.
  

Although Fiji doesn't sound too exciting yet, new features are bound to be added. Still, it might just be a way to keep us quiet while they work on Vienna.
Windows Vienna (formerly Blackcomb) will be a huge departure from current incarnations of Windows, Similar to the transition from OS8-9 to OSX. It will break compatibility with all applications, but the newer, more flexible, richer and secure platform will be incentive enough for applications to be re-written for Vienna.

Windows Vienna

• The current interface will be completely stripped, no more explorer shells, and taskbars. No start menu. Probably no toolbars, or menus (which already started with Vista)..
  
• Speech Recognition will become a major input device (though it will not replace the keyboard and mouse) and will be supported by most third party applications.
  
• Many projects from Microsoft's R&D will come into play, especially from their VIBE research center. A pie-menu is rumored to be used.
  
• A new version of NTFS wrapped in a more powerful WinFS. No more drives, or files/folders location to worry about. File Management will be done through applications, which will automatically index and sort the files they support.
  
• Even bundled applications will evolve a lot (jus compare WMP6 with WMP11).
  
• Search will part a huge part in Vienna (like it does in the control panel of Vienna)
  
• Applications with non-managed code will run in a sandbox mode (like IE7 does in Vista), so that security exploits in a single application doesn't affect the entire OS.
  

Facts are hard to come by about Windows Vienna but it has 15 years of R&D to borrow from, and one thing is for certain, Vienna won't be just an operating system, but a new generation in computing. So don't get amazed on Vista!!

DVD Version 2

--BLU-RAY & HD-DVD--

I was randomly looking over the pages of PC World - September 2006 edition, where at the first time I saw names like high definition DVDs, Blu-ray, HD DVD. And started looking over it.. After the launch of mid 90's only now DVDs have become popular and cheapest in India. Now everyone is getting DVD writers for mere 2K bucks and it has become the essential part of a PC. I got one not a year before.

It seems there is the next version of DVD and is out already and there are two flavors of them which has heavy competition. Yes, there's a new standards war in town: HD-DVD versus Blu-ray. Both promise true high-resolution video and more features than the current generation of DVDs, but because the formats are incompatible, hardware manufacturers, and we are in a situation to take decision to go on which side.

HD-DVD by Toshiba was first to market, and Blu-ray movies by Sony are available now but not extensively. The DVD switch will also affect PCs: several manufacturers will start shipping systems with Blu-ray drives, which will work via third-party software, over the summer, and Microsoft and Intel are supporting the HD-DVD drives. Blu-ray discs are more expensive, but hold more data, while HD-DVD is comparatively cheaper holding less data. This is the capacity chart for them:

Capacity
Blu-Ray		HD DVD
ROM single layer: ROM dual layer: RW single layer: RW dual layer: Highest test: Theoretical limit:	23.3 / 25GB 46.6 / 50GB 23.3 / 25 / 27GB 46.6 / 50 / 54GB 100GB 200GB	Single layer: Dual layer: - - Highest test: Theoretical limit:	15GB 30GB - - 45GB 60GB

(Taken from engadget)

Since manufacturers of blue laser diodes are still unable to improve yield rates, the shortage may result in pushing back the competition between Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD optical disc drives in the market to the first quarter of 2007. So it should take some 2015 for us to put hands in them!!

Planned PC Config.

A week before i was walking with some 300 bucks in my pocket, though it happens rarely - which makes me look around to make affordable things as essential things for me..My dad often advices me to be careful in distinguishing between 'just affordable' and 'essential' things. Luckily i am one among people for whom essential things are affordable. People used to love unessential things coz it is affordable, that day likewise i bought 'PC World' magazine for 60 bucks, could be 2 days lunch..though the magazine is available in online, reading of hardcopies are always preferred. Main reason i bought the book is - i am planning to assemble a PC, surely not now..waiting for Quads from AMD and Intel..yes, to go to Dual..Just Kidding..

I have been closely watching than ever before on the price slashes and the war between Intel and AMD.. I would prefer to put some 50K bucks to get a handsome pc.
The best Configuration for now seems to favor Intel Core 2..Here is the configuration I am thinking of..

Samsung 740 17" TFT monitor =10000
segate 250 gb Baracudda = 4000
ups m+tech 600 VA = 1800
tv tuner = 1500
mouse+keyboard(Microsoft) = 1000
Zebronics Antibiotic cabinet = 2000
1GB Tracend RAM = 4000
lite on shw-1635S dual dvd writer = 2200
total: 26500

So the balance is for Processor and Mobo..i am not planning for the Game card when I am going to assemble.. Now available things are:

intel core 2 duo e6300 = 9000
asus p5b deluxe = 10000

So the total comes 45500 for a pc. I decided to wait for the Intel mobo to come to the market, so that the processor and other mobo prices may decrease..so wats ur opinion..