Matharu’s Blog
A few years ago I saw the sci-fi films “Red Planet” and “Mission to Mars” which both came out around the same time. I have to admit to being disappointed when I saw them. Cectic has a great comic on this which kinda describes how I feel.
It may perhaps be a bit too harsh to blame the science advisers as the blasted script writers need to take most of the blame. Nevertheless, the comic is funny!
A device, whether mobile or fixed, such as a laptop, a mobile telephone, a desktop, etc which is used (as one of its functions) to receive “radio” stations from the air (using radio techniques such as VHF/FM, DAB, etc) or “streamed” such as from an Internet connection over xDSL, WiFi, etc. Such a device, using automatic user-matching preferences, or through manual intervention by the user, flags a received song/tune/audio which then actions the device to immediately (or stored later for such action) to access a relevant music download site such that the flagged song/tune/audio track can be purchased (or made available free of charge) and downloaded to the device such as to allow the user to playback the downloaded track at any suitable time.
A simple scenario. Basically, you’re listening to a traditional radio station or Internet radio station on your 3G/WiFi smartphone/MP3 player and you hear something you like. You press a button and the device goes to iTunes or other site and the track gets downloaded to your device. Instant impulse purchase! The device (or even the music store) could also determine that you like that particular type of music or that artist and it could provide recommendations for further purchase.
This is my vision of the future and it doesn’t take any leap in technology as all the buildings blocks are already there. And I’m sure that the idea isn’t that novel as it’s just a trivial and perhaps obvious example of putting such blocks together. I think Apple could put such a system together very easily using the iPhone (but perhaps with a 3G upgrade!). So the rest of you companies out there, wake up and smell the coffee…you’ve got a lot of work to do! And with GPS built-in such a device would be a real killer! Location based services are going to sky rocket but that’s the subject of a different article.
I want now!
Copyright © 2008 Kulvinder Singh Matharu - All Rights Reserved
A few weeks ago I spent a few hours waiting for my plane at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. As most of you know it’s a big modern airport. However, as far as I was concerned, for such a big and modern airport it was sadly lacking in something that I would have considered essential…proper sit-down areas where you can use a PC and log onto the Internet.
I’ll tell you what they did have:
Where were those areas where you can just buy a pre-paid card or pay by the minute like those Internet Cafés? A place to just sit down. A place to relax and look at your paperwork, etc.
The environment at the airport was just so sterile. I didn’t like it. Atlanta shouldn’t feel proud with this airport. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is possibly the worst of the modern airports I’ve been to. What a waste!
Copyright © 2008 Kulvinder Singh Matharu - All Rights Reserved
xkcd has posted another one of his genius cartoons. The Bad Astronomy and Pharyngula websites have picked this up already and I’m sure other sites have also. No more words.
For ages now I’ve been struggling with Adobe Reader (or Adobe Acrobat Reader as it used to be known) with each successive release the product became slower to run. The current Adobe Reader v8 (at least for Windows) is possibly the slowest and most bloated PDF reader I’ve come across! Initially I thought my PC was slow, but looking at the specs you’d realise that my PC ain’t no slouch!
Well, although I’d read about other PDF readers and a lot of people recommended Foxit Reader it took me a long time to actually start investigating. What a shock I had! Foxit Reader for Windows was lightening fast! I now longer dreaded opening PDF documents. Well, Adobe, I’m sorry but you can put your piece of software somewhere where the sun don’t shine, as Foxit Reader bathes in luxurious sunshine!
What I’m saying is this. If you’re using Adobe Reader then I strongly suggest that you move over to Foxit Reader. And it’s free!
Copyright © 2008 Kulvinder Singh Matharu - All Rights Reserved
I built a PC way back in April 2007 for gaming and photo editing (I know!). These are the base specs:
32-bit Windows Vista Ultimate - 680i SLI machine at 3GHz overclock (stable)
The fans are ultra quite 120mm and the systems runs very quite. It’s a really great setup especially with the two 24 inch dual displays for my photographic work and is linked up to the home network for streaming, remote control, remote backup, etc. One of the reasons that I went for the Antec P180B case (apart from it being quiet) is that I had the physical (space) option of adding another graphics card for dual-SLI support but I never got around to it!
Anyway, the time is fast approaching where I’m thinking of going over to quad-core from the current dual-core setup. I’ve just started doing some research and need to see what motherboard firmware upgrades are available for quad-core support. I know that the RAM isn’t the fastest available but if I do upgrade the RAM then I’d likely want to change the motherboard as well. Not sure if I want to go down that route.
The other consideration is that I want to concentrate now more on the photo editing side using Photoshop CS3 Extended and I’m not sure if a quad-core configuration will provide much of a performance increase for Photoshop. I’ve already maxed out the memory to 4GB in 32-bit Vista mode and I suppose that I may need to go to 64-bit Vista if additional memory is going to provide me with the best performance boost. I need some assistance here so am looking at pointers. I’ll likely post to Usenet as well but I’m always willing to hear directly from individuals so please Contact Me!
Copyright © 2008 Kulvinder Singh Matharu - All Rights Reserved
Further to the first skull post, I’ve noticed that my skull painting has become quite popular and that a lot of sites are now directly linking to the image. You can guess that a lot of these sites are teen sites, social sites and those with a Gothic theme!
I thought I’d explain a little bit more where that skull came from. I didn’t try and set out to draw a skull. I was just letting my hand migrate around the canvas. Patterns stated to emerge. The swirls. The light. The darkness. And in the middle, I saw an outline emerging. I stated thinking “skull”. From that point on my hand had something definite to go on and the skull began to take on a stronger form. What was I feeling at the time? What was I trying to say? That’s something I’m still trying to analyse.
Copyright © 2008 Kulvinder Singh Matharu - All Rights Reserved
xkcd has quite a good graphic
Thanks to ERV’s post, I was pointed to Edge which is a good place to get your mind stimulated. In particular, Life: What a Concept! appears to be one of those major events. Being a layman, I’m still trying to get my head around it all. And as with all things when a group of diverse people are interviewed, not everyone will be agree on everything being said.
Copyright © 2008 Kulvinder Singh Matharu - All Rights Reserved
The Inquirer has an interesting article on how firm Abunga.com has allowed certain books to be banned from their bookstore. The firm allows its customers to to vote against books and if enough votes are cast then the books are banned. Well, just recently, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials children books have got banned and it seems that a bunch of religious zealots were behind this. Abunga stated that they would abide by these votes even though the books are extremely popular. Well, I suppose that’s their business, but certainly my business isn’t going there for sure! Abunga obviously is aiming for a certain demography and I don’t care much for what they’re aiming at. Where does this stop? Segregated bookshops? Segregated shops? Polarisation of views? Safe havens for extremists? Just found that Pharyngula has his views on this too.
Copyright © 2008 Kulvinder Singh Matharu - All Rights Reserved