World’s richest cricket body, BCCI, launches their website

Can you believe the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did not have a website till now? In Nov 2007 BCCI invited bids for building their website,

Under this ITT (invitation to tender), the wining bidder will be required to perform the functions of designing, developing, hosting and operating the bets of breed web portal,’ Secretary Niranjan Shah said in the tender notice being published in newspapers.

The bid document can be acquired at a non-refundable and non-adjustable amount of Rs.500,000 from the BCCI headquarters at the Wankhede Stadium here from Thursday.

‘The project scope includes (but is not limited to):

1. Exploiting existing content to create packages for driving subscription revenues,
2. Creating new content,
3. Hosting, production and ongoing operations of the portal,
4. Generating traffic, users and revenues to the site,
5. Maintaining the books of accounts and providing detailed information regarding all the revenues whenever requested by the BCCI management,’ says the tender notice.

The bidding price was approximately $50m for 3 years. “Experts” had estimated a revenue potential of $15m a year from the portal. One of the articles stated “None of the big boys - Reliance, Tata..were interested”. Finally Global Cricket Ventures (I could not find their URL, at least not easily) won the tender to build the website.

Looks like they have great plans and know what needs to go on website. But what about the domainname? bcci.tv !! What were they thinking? BCCI is the richest sports body in India and possibly one of the richest in the world. Could they not afford to buy bcci.com or bcci.in - both are parked domains.

I subscribed to their mailing list. It is smooth mainly because the mailing list part has been outsourced (to mailchimp.com). But were you aware BCCI is “D”ubai based ? Well that is what you see on the confirmation pages of mailing list,

The look and feel of the site is simple and clean. I think it will please the readers. The mobile part seems to be completely missing. Reports say that the site has many errors (wrong links etc). I think that was very much avoidable but you can get away in the online world by saying it is “Beta” version

Kudos to Govt

Recently British Prime Minister Gordon Brown [Video] suggested that Sachin Tendulkar might soon be honoured with knighthood, making him the first Indian player to receive the title. That very night all TV channels went gungho about calling India’s favorite cricketer “Sir Sachin Tendulkar”. One of the topics of discussion was “Should India award its civilian awards to foreigners?” It was interesting to see what a British journalist had to say. He doubted if any of our Padmashree awards would have any value in UK. At the same time he said very few Britishers cared about the “Sir” title. Most Indians were not in favor of the govt waiving the import duty on his Ferrari car, he could easily afford to pay the tax.

I guess the Indian government was caught off guard, to avoid any embarrassment they quickly awarded the prestigious Padma Vibhushan to Sachin. Good to see other deserving people from sports being recognized by the Govt (Vishwanathan Anand).

Karnataka’s favorite icon, Mr. Narayana Murthy, too was included in the list. Hmm..he should check out the Rashtrapati Bhavan when he goes to receive the award. After all, isn’t that awesome building his next home

What is 3G? Does India need it?

Current WAP speed in India is nothing great but it has improved. I understand from my friends who are experts in telecom that you cannot improve the speed performance of WAP any further on a GSM network (which is 2G). I am told only 3G can improve things. So what is 3G?

Ex-Telecom Minister Dayanadi Maran was in the verge of releasing the 3G guidelines in India but he was shown the door. After the new Telecom Minister took over there was some talk about India going with 2.5G, which enables high-speed data transfer over upgraded existing 2G networks.

The GSM and CDMA networks are classed as second generation while the defunct analogue network was the first of the mobile network generations.

3G, or third generation, is the generic term used for the next generation of mobile communications systems. The new systems will enhance the services available today and offer multimedia and internet access and the ability to view video footage.

With a 3G phone and access to the 3G network you can send and receive video calls, watch live TV, access the internet, receive emails and download music tracks, as well as the usual voice call and messaging services found on a mobile phone.

Technically, the main difference between 3G and 2G networks is how quickly data can be sent and received. 3G networks can send data up to 40 times the rates of earlier digital networks, which means that in addition to audio, graphics and text, 3G customers can also send and receive video content, in 3G coverage areas. They provide service at 5-10 Mb per second.

3G was introduced in the United States early in 2002. By late 2004, it was finally providing transmission speeds sufficient to handle full-motion video, albeit over short periods of time (15 seconds to three minutes, in most cases). The third generation technology used in the UK is called UMTS. These services operate at 2100 MHz. (2.1GHz).

Upgrading to 3G will be an expensive affair for all telcos. All telco hardware vendors would have another reason to drool in India!

While we are still not sure when India will get 3G, the technology has already moved on to “beyond 3G” or “4G”. A 4G system will be able to provide a comprehensive IP solution where voice, data and streamed multimedia can be given to users on an “Anytime, Anywhere” basis, and at higher data rates than previous generations.

For any telco to offer 3G the government has to allocate the spectrum. Allocation of spectrum is becoming a mess but ultimately it will be solved (after all it cannot be more complex than pleasing the Left in the govt!!).

I personally believe mobile users in India will have a far better experience after 3G becomes a reality.

Windows 7 MinWin - New Microsoft OS to have less system bloat?

Microsoft programmers have been building a new slimmed down Windows kernel called MinWin, which the next operating system, currently codenamed Windows 7, will be built upon. Unlike Vista’s bloated demands on your PC, MinWin operates using just 25mb of disc space. Is this finally the end of system bloat?

Eric Traut, one of the head Operating System designers at Microsoft, recently demonstrated MinWin, an internal build of Windows 7 at the University of Illinois. The main talking point of the early demo was the fact that MinWin is far less demanding on your RAM and hard drive space, thus reducing the memory footprint of the future Windows OS.

ComputerWorld report Traut as saying:

“A lot of people think of Windows as this really large, bloated operating system, and that may be a fair characterization, I have to admit.”

“[So] we created what we call MinWin. It’s still bigger than I’d like it to be, but we’ve taken a shot at really stripping out all of the layers above and making sure that we had a clean architectural layer there.”

Comparing it to the current Windows operating system really shows how much Microsoft have tried to reduce the bloat. While Vista uses 5,000 files for its 4GB core, MinWin is just 100 files and takes up only 25MB.

Obviously this will be scaled up considerably over the next three years as Windows 7 is built around the system core. MinWin will be used as the basis of all upcoming versions of Windows, and the fact that Microsoft have seemingly put so much effort in to minimising the size and scale of the stripped down version, I’m quite hopeful this mindset will be followed through to the final products.

With the increasing popularity of Linux based operating systems such as Ubuntu, it’s imperative for Microsoft to try and give consumers what they want. As far as I can tell, that is a core operating system which while offering ease of use doesn’t force people to put up with the system bloat of programs and tools they may never use. Is this too much to expect when Windows 7 gets released in 2010?

You can see a video of the MinWin kernel on the University of Illinois video download site.

GDrive is Here

Online storage companies beware: this is judgment day. It’s long been rumored that Google would eventually offer an online storage cloud for all your data, and now that fable is becoming a reality: the increase in Gmail storage for some users today was actually a precursor to the launch of Google shared storage.

The new storage service brings together your storage usage from Gmail and Picasa Web Albums, allowing you to upgrade for a fee. The fees are as follows, with payments made via Google Checkout:

-6 GB ($20.00 per year)

-25 GB ($75.00 per year)

-100 GB ($250.00 per year)

-250 GB ($500.00 per year)

Google Documents will most likely be the next Google service to become part of shared storage, while premium accounts like the one on Picasa are being replaced with this new system. It’s a move that takes the sheen off Microsoft’s SkyDrive, which is gaining coverage today. Meanwhile, we can surely expect Google to open the APIs on Google storage, making for a flexible storage solution that challenges Amazon S3, plus all the smaller startups.

May I remind you of the following GoogleZon video, created in November 2004: despite a few mistakes, its vision of a Google cloud storing your entire life is becoming more true by the day.

Interesting Facts Which You dont know

1. What programming language is GOOGLE developed in?

Ans:Google is written in Asynchronous java-script and XML, or its acronym Ajax .

2. What is the expansion of YAHOO?
Ans:Yet Another Hierarchy of Officious Oracle

3. What is the expansion of ADIDAS?

Ans:ADIDAS- All Day I Dream About Sports

4. Expansion of Star as in Star TV Network?

Ans:Satellite Television Asian Region

5. What is expansion of "ICICI?"

Ans:Industrial credit and Investments Corporation of India

6. What does "baker's dozen" signify?

Ans:A baker's dozen consists of 13 items - 1 more than the items in a normal dozen

7. The 1984-85 season. 2nd ODI between India and Pakistan at Sialkot - India 210/3 with Vengsarkar 94*. Match abandoned. Why?

Ans:That match was abandoned after people heard the news of Indira Gandhi being killed.

8. Who is the only man to have written the National Anthems for two different countries?

Ans:Rabindranath Tagore who wrote national anthem for two different countries one is our 's National anthem and another one is for Bangladesh- (Amar Sonar* *Bangla)

9. From what four word expression does the word `goodbye` derive?

Ans:Goodbye comes from the ex-pression: 'god be with you'.

10. How was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu better known?

Ans:Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu is none other Mother Teresa.

11. Name the only other country to have got independence on Aug 15th?

Ans:South Korea .

12. Why was James Bond Associated with the Number 007?

Ans:Because 007 is the ISD code for Russia (or the USSR , as it was known during the cold war)

13. Who faced the first ball in the first ever One day match?

Ans:Geoffrey Boycott

14. Which cricketer played for South Africa before it was banned from international cricket and later represented Zimbabwe ?

Ans:John Traicos

15. The faces of which four Presidents are carved at Mt.Rushmore?

Ans:George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln

16. Which is the only country that is surrounded from all sides by only one country (other than Vatican )?

Ans:Lesotho surrounded from all sides by South Africa .

17. Which is the only sport which is not allowed to play left handed?

Ans:Polo

Enable Multiple Concurrent Remote Desktop Connections or Sessions in Windows XP

Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) has Remote Desktop (RDP) service that allows the computer to be remotely connected, accessed and controlled from another computer or host. However, Windows XP machine only allows one concurrent remote desktop connection from a single user been connected to it with no multiple remote desktop sessions or connections support.

Whenever there is a remote user who user Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client to connect to a Windows XP host, the local user is disconnected with the local console screen locked, with or without his or her permission. Remote Desktop, unlike Terminal Server Services in Windows 2000, Server 2003 and Server 2008, is designed for single user use only, no matter it’s local or remote user.

Here’s a hack to unlock the single user limitation and enable multiple concurrent remote desktop connection sessions support in Windows XP Professional and Media Center Edition, using a either a patched termserv.dll or old patched cracked termserv.dll build version version 5.1.2600.2055, so that unlimited users can simultaneously connect to a computer via Remote Desktop.

1. Download a copy of patched termsrv.dll (in ZIP file) which has the Remote Desktop connection limitation deactivated for your version of Windows XP:

   Windows XP RTM, SP1 and SP2: termsrv.dll (version 5.1.2600.2055)
   Windows XP SP2: termsrv.dll (version 5.1.2600.2180)
   Windows XP SP3: termsrv.dll (version 5.1.2600.5512)

   For information, the termsrv.dll patch normally has the following HEX code bits overwritten with following value:

   00022A17: 74 75
   00022A69: 7F 90
   00022A6A: 16 90

2. Restart the computer and boot info Safe Mode by pressing F8 during initial boot up and select Safe Mode. This step is only required if you’re currently running Windows Terminal Services or Remote Desktop service, and System File Protection has to be skipped and bypassed, else it will prompt the following error message
   
   to restore the original termsrv.dll.

   

3. Go to %windir%\System32 and make a backup copy (or rename) the termsrv.dll.
4. Rename or delete the termserv.dll in the %windir%\System32\dllcache folder.
5. Copy the downloaded termsrv.dll into %windir%\System32, %windir%\ServicePackFiles\i386 (if exist) and %windir%\System32\dllcache.
6. Then download and run the ts_multiple_sessions.bat (in ZIP file) to merge the registry value into registery, or you can run Registry Editor to manually add the following registry value:

   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Terminal Server\Licensing Core]
   “EnableConcurrentSessions”=dword:00000001

   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
   “EnableConcurrentSessions”=dword:00000001

   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
   “AllowMultipleTSSessions”=dword:00000001

7. Click on Start Menu -> Run command and type gpedit.msc, follow by Enter to open up the Group Policy Editor.
8. Navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Terminal Services.
9. Enable Limit Number of Connections and set the number of connections to 3 (or more). The setting allows more than one users to use the computer and logged on at the same time.
10. Ensure the Remote Desktop is enabled in System Properties’ Remote tab by selecting the radio button for Allow users to connect remotely to this computer.
11. Enable and turn on Fast User Switching in Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Change the way users log on or off.
12. Restart the computer normally.

Note that if you cannot replace or overwrite termserv.dll with access denied or file in use error, turn off the “Termine Services” in “Services” control panel of “Administrator Tools”. Besides, each connecting physical connections must have their own user account in the target host, and must authenticate with corresponding own user name and password credential.

To uninstall and revert back to original termsrv.dll, simply delete the patched version, and rename the backup copy back to “termsrv.dll”. You probably have to do it in Safe Mode if the Terminal Services is enabled and running.

If the Windows XP computer is connected to a domain on local networks, Windows will set the value of the regkey “AllowMultipleTSSessions” to “0″ every time the computer is restarted. To ensure that multiple or unlimited Remote Desktop connection sessions is allowed in AD domain environment, the value data for “AllowMultipleTSSessions” has to be set to “1″ on each system startup. To change the value, simply rerun the ts_multiple_sessions.bat every time the computer is started. Alternatively, put the ts_multiple_sessions.bat at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup folder so that it will be automatically run on first user with administrative privileges that logs on to the desktop. Another workaround is to install additional service or define a sub-key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run registry branch that run the registry batch file automatically on boot up, and this is useful if the computer won’t be logged on by anybody, but still requires the hack to allow unlimited Remote Desktop users to work.

Another issue is that if user closes the remote connection instead of logging off, when he or she tries to log back in, an error message related to TCP/IP event ID 4226 may occur. To resolve the issue, download and apply the Windows XP TCP/IP connection limit and Event ID 4226 patch, and set the connections to at least 50.

Know About EGO

People say that men are more egoistic than women but in my life I have seen women being more egoistic than men. Really Interesting na? Keep Going.....Confidence is good for them, especially, if they want to survive in a community like mine and many other around the world. But this confidence generally leads to this “ego”.

It may be that I’m not able to comprehend their personalities or nature, may be they are like this always. It may be that I have misinterpreted their “line of defense” as their ego but what would you say if I’m not the only person who feels like this. 

I have seen guys or men with great differences come together for their work or official reasons but it’s really difficult to make women do that. This is a topic we can go on and on and still we won’t be able to draw a conclusion. People have ruined their lives because of their ego. They aren’t open to advices. If some one want share something so that the person can improve, this egoistic person reject all the things the helping person have said.