Got placed in CTS

Allen's Axiom: When all else fails, follow instructions.

All formalities of campus placement ended for me today!! I got placed in Cognizant Technology Solutions :-) Hurray!!!!!!

Placement Preps

Murphy's Law of Copiers: The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance

Around 5 days since my last post. Wonder what's going on? Placement preparation (nyah... am jus wondering where to begin with. till yesterday, i've been collecting all resources that are required)!!! Last year, the placement statistics report a number that is abnormally high over the average! More than 1000 students got placed within two months placements had begun. The campus recruitment 2005-2006 at College of Engineering, Guindy is about commence from the first week of June, 2005. Magazine and Journal articles reports a high requirement of human resources in the Manufacturing and Software fields especially in Tamil Nadu. This is absolutely due to the boon in the IT Sector plus the adoption of BPO and Global Deployment policies adopted by many software consulting firms. Well, first things first... Let us see how the numbers scroll during this year. Hope for the best!

BitTorrent - Get the files bit by bit!

Baggage Corollary: If you go on a trip taking two bags with you, one containing everything you need for the trip and the other containing absolutely nothing, the second bag will be completely filled with junk acquired on the trip when you return.

One of my great interests is File Sharing Technologies. Recent open-source projects have got more benefits into this area. One of such a benefit being faced by the consumer (end-user) and small to medium business firms is the emergence of BitTorrent - The most effective open-source file sharing technology in use today (brought to us by programmer, Bram Cohen).

A Torrent in Internet Terminology is just a file that contains the following details:

1. The name of file that is shared and its attributes such as size, type, etc.

2. A tracker address (refers to the server that holds and tracks the torrent file)

The tracker(server) would possess information about the torrent file and computer IP addresses associated with whoever possesses the file that is to be shared. Now, the computers holding the shared file can be classified into two categories - Seeders and Leechers. The former is one which holds the entire copy of the file and the latter refers to computers possessing a partial copy of the shared file i.e. leechers will turn into seeders when they attain the complete copy of the file. The BitTorrent technology works with the help of a BitTorrent clients. These are applications having the ability of establishing connections between various peers (seeders and leechers) and they play a vital role in delivering the shared file to your computer. Popular BitTorrent clients are Azureus, BitComet and ABC.

The main advantage of the BitTorrent Network compared to other file-sharing programs such as Kaaza/P2P is that the load on the server is greatly reduced in BT. Each seeder shares the file with leechers and each leecher shares the file with other leechers simultaneously as they are downloading. Hence the server (tracker) just acts as a logging machine and helps in co-ordination between seeder-leecher and leecher-leecher connections. Though this seem to help while sharing huge files (like an ISO of a CD-ROM or even a movie), it is not so in the case of small files.

The BitTorrent way of sharing files would take more time for establishing connection between various computers than it would take for downloading a small file that is shared. If you have the mind to apply Einstein's theory of relativity into this scenario, you will notice that the time taken for establishing connections inside the torrent network is much less compared to the time taken for downloading a huge file and eventually BitTorrent is more efficient and productive means for sharing large files.

Sharing large files?? That means we could share movies online?? Yes, Exactly. And that's the catch. People have started using this technology widely for sharing copyrighted contents such as movies, applications and even TV Shows over the internet. The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has already caught a sight of this and has taken very effective measures to stop this - but all of it turned to be in vain.

So, how did the MPAA try to stop this? If we take a deeper look into the BitTorrent technology it can be recognized that the BT network can go down in two cases: 1. If there is no seeder available to share the complete version of the file (this is more of an attitude problem rather than a technical one) and 2. If the tracker of the torrent file goes down. The latter is really a technical one - if the tracker site goes down, the BitTorrent client doesn't get an idea on where to look for the file and keeps failing it its attempts to leech the file. The MPAA attacked on this concept and was successful in capturing some major torrent trackers such as SuprNova.Org and LokiTorrent.Com. This led the sharing community to wander searching for torrents over the internet. Even if people were able to find torrents, their trackers were unfortunately found to be dead. However, this did not break the growth of BitTorrent and instead - it fueled to its development.

Imagine you bought a stationery item and found it to be defective. What you would do? Either you will go in for a replacement or buy a new one or postpone your work relating to that. Postponement is something most people will not wish to do. Replacement is something which would take time since you've got to prove the defect to the manufacturer. Buying a new one works especially when you don't have to invest any amount on it. This is what exactly happened when a defect was found in the torrent hosting sites. Lokitorrent though attacked legally by MPAA tried to stay running by collecting money from users in form of donations. But the legal sums involved were so expensive and the site-administrator couldn't afford that much and the site went down. This led to the emergence of more and more torrent sites as well as torrent searching sites. MiniNova, ISOhunt, TorrentBox, TorrentReactor... the list is endless. The MPAA has now realised that actions taken on individual sites are not effective and this issue can be only be solved a wholesome legal battle.

Adding spice to the above issues, developers of BitTorrent clients thought what the future of the BT Technology would be incase if all the trackers were virtually shut down! The solution to this big problem was made simple. The idea of this was brought to light by developers of eXeem (an innovative file-sharing system based on BT technology supported by SuprNova.org). However, eXeem is reported to contain a spyware called Cydoor which is also recognized as a degradable factor in the earlier versions of Kaaza. Canceling out the bugs and issues found in eXeem, the latest version of Azureus already integrates a de-centralized tracker which means all computers taking part in effective transfer of the shared file will themselves act as trackers. Hence, even if the main tracker server goes down, the de-centralized tracker system will take care of consequent problems and treat it in an efficient and effective way to tackle it.

Thus we can see, apart from the legal thresholds faced by the BitTorrent Technology, it has a real great future ahead!

Links to information relating to BitTorrent:

1. How Stuff Works - http://computer.howstuffworks.com/bittorrent.htm

2. Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

3. Official Website - http://www.bittorrent.com

4. Azureus - http://azureus.sourceforge.net

5. BitComet - http://www.bitcomet.com

Thanks for viewing. I'll be back to my usual life-driven blogs with my next post :-)

File sharing - What has it got for us now?

Key to Status: S = D/K. S is the status of a person in an organization, D is the number of doors he must open to perform his job, and K is the number of keys he carries. A higher number denotes higher status. Thus the janitor needs to open 20 doors and has 20 keys (S = 1), a secretary has to open two doors with one key (S = 2), but the president never has to carry any keys since there is always someone around to open doors for him (with K = 0 and a high D, his S reaches infinity).

We all know about file-sharing. In fact, it has been in practice right from the days storage devices hit the market. Everyone wanted to share files just as everyone shared useful information, breaking news and more desirably - gossips. The trend of sharing knowledge had been in place right since human beings started communicating with each other, and researches confirm this tendency also exists with other species too. This trend slowly began to creep into all inventions of humanity.

For instance, when tape recorders were invented, audio cassettes were shared. When VCRs and VCD Players were invented, video cassettes and CDs were shared. And now with the invention of CD and DVD writers - any kind of valid data can be shared. Everything works fine as long as what we copy and share, abide by the laws (which most often does not). File-sharing cannot be abolished completely. In many cases, file-sharing has been playing a key role in improving and maximizing the productivity of great industries. Just imagine if we had to key in a 100 pages of our assignment and had no means to transfer it to our workplace! It is definitely not feasible if we use a desktop computer - we cannot carry it over from place to place with those bulky equipments and complicated circuit of wiring.

All this being the case, the ultimate invention of "internet" could no longer hold back itself from this technology being "integrated" into it. In other words, "file-sharing" has become a word by itself, referring to files being shared over the internet. The wikipedia definition goes something like this...

"File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, and also over smaller networks..."

The advent of innovative secure and anonymous protocols such as UDP - User Datagram Protocol, I2P - An anonymous networking protocol along with our usual TCP - Transmission Control Protocol and P2P - Peer to Peer Protocol, provides totally enhanced and improved ways of sharing files over the internet. Sharing files over the internet, considering the amount of files being shared and the no. of users using this technology - being vast is not easy to be traced. Unless continuous monitoring is done on a particular IP address, it cannot be proved that computer holding that particular IP has shared a file. Nevertheless, this cannot be the case if the IP uses protocols like I2P and Free Haven which are totally stealth protocols.

Leaving apart these so-so complicated jargons, there is one single technology that could integrate itself with all these protocols - the Bit Torrent.

On my next post, you will find:

1. What is Bit Torrent and Where to find more information about it?

2. The terminologies used in it

3. The problems faced by the MPAA and consequently the Bit Torrent Network and

4. How does Bit Torrent manages to overcome all the worries imposed over it

Signing off for now,

Overcrowded Cineplexes!!

Douglas's Law of Practical Aeronautics: When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly.

It has been three days since my exams were over and yet I'm to find the tickets for the right movie to watch. This weekend was something special. All the members of my family are here @ home, and the plan was to get together, go to a movie and enjoy it. Two days back, I tried to book-in tickets for "Chandramukhi" @ Sathyam Cineplex but in vain. The movie tickets were all booked even till the late night show on Tuesday. Yesterday, one of my classmates (Ashwin) and I planned to go and watch XXX^2 - which again turned out to be in vain. Besides we went to get the tickets for the "Current Show" well before one hour the movie was played, the halls were full even before that. Infact, there were no tickets available for any of the shows yesterday.

The complex (Sathyam Cineplex) which already dominates a wonderful outlook, seemed as though a concert was about to to be held and people were rushing to see it. The result - I had no choice left other than to book tickets for MX for the family to watch this evening. Taking a second glance at the movie, I realised there was no story at all in it. The jokes were good but the overall content could've been made more natural to be viewed again. Anyhow, it was a usual family enjoyment...

We laughed looking at each others faces and for being one among the crowd. The objective of this weekend was accomplished but my journey to get the tickets for the perfect movie is about to continue over to the coming week!

And about my new DVD writer, it is performing really well. Today I made a backup of all my tamil MP3 Songs and some stuff I've downloaded from the internet. It costed me two DVDs but defintely worth it - freed up 3 GB space in one of my partitions :-)

It was made to burn...

Murphy's Law of Availability: Brains X Beauty X Availability = Constant

It was a funny moment yesterday, I went to Richie Street to buy a DVD Writer as my father gave me permission and $$$ to get it. It took me about 10 mins to decide upon what brand to buy. Just before stepping out of my house, I read the reviews about various brands of DVD writers in the internet. After reading a detailed review of Samsung TS-H552B DVD Writer (http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/163), I made up my mind to buy that model. One thing which I was concerned about is the questionable DVD writing quality mentioned in the "Negatives" section of the review conclusion. In the computer pheripherals shop, I was shown models of Sony and Gigabite which was readily available in the display. The Samsung model was in the stock room and it took about 5 mins for the shop keeper to bring it from there to the shop. Again, I went through the specifications given on the outer carton of each of the model.

Among the rest, Samsung had some special features:

1. 5x Double Layer Recording compared to 4x writing speed of Sony and Gigabyte

2. Speed Adjustment Technology

3. Silent Pulse Width Modulation Technology

4. Tilt Actuator Compensation Technology and

5. Double Optimum Power Calibration Technology.

The average Seek Time was about 130 ms for a standard DVD-ROM and 110 ms for a CD-ROM. This was far more better compared to the reported seek times of the other two models. All the three writers had Nero 6 bundled with it. Further the Samsung Model is more recent to the review I saw in the internet. This model is TS-H552U. I made up my mind and bought it. It costed around Rs. 4200/-.

Installing the DVD Drive in my new cabinet was not a problem at all. I made it as the Secondary Slave leaving the Primary for optimum HDD data transfer. The drive was detected properly and surprisingly XP did not give me any trouble at all. I made a complete copy of my E-Book Library in a DVD-R (3.42 GB). As I stored the E-Books in a compressed folder, it took 12 mins for caching the files and to complete the DVD write task compared to the regular 6 mins. Everything went smooth except for the DVD Video playback.

The DVD Playback was soo stucky and it seemed as though my processor couldn't take it any longer. This was due to my PIII 600 MHz system which was way too old when compared to the minimum system requirements reported to watch a DVD movie. Though everything apart from it was fine, I still had a feeling that I could just tweak something to solve the problem.

After coming back from my regular work (dinner, watching LOTR - The Two Towers using my Pioneer DVD Player), I started computing with the ultimate goal of solving the "Stucky DVD Playback Problem". It was already 12:30 AM by then. So, as a pre-initiating step, I removed all the Video Codecs that were used to playback the DVD in my system (MPEG2 Decoder, Nero DVD Decoder and Stinky's MPEG2 Decoder) and then went to sleep.

This morning, I restarted my PC and as expected the DVD video was unplayable with Windows' mplayer2.exe. Somehow, Nero ShowTime was still able play the DVD with that "Stucky" feature. And to my surprise, Windows Media Player 10 was also able to play the DVD (way too stretched in size, but viola! - no sticky feature). This confirmed me that the problem was neither with the DVD-Writer nor with the way too old configuration of my PC but with the video codec not being able to process/decode at an optimal rate (atleast not to my system's config). The end-result has been narrowed - I just need to install a DVD Decoder Codec that takes very less CPU/memory to do post processing. I tried installing Stinky's MPEG2 Decoder plugin again. Stinky's was all St(i/u)(n/c)ky. I removed it. Next I tried with DScaler MPEG Filter plugin. Yesss! It worked. WMP10 had no troubles playing the DVD at correct screen ratio.

No wonder, the problem took me almost half a day to resolve it. But, I learnt really a lot about what messed-up video codecs could do and best part of it is to share this with people like you who read my blog :-)

Yippeee!!! The stage is set!!

Eve's Discovery: At a bargain sale, the only suit or dress that you like best and that fits is the one not on sale.

Whew!! After quite a loooong time, here I am - all set to start the blogging spree! :-)