Aug 31st, 2008 by kannanmr. Wii doesn’t have in-built media client or DMA capabilities, but there is a workaround… 
If you don’t have Xbox360/PS3 or a dedicated DMA device, you can try out streaming from your PC to your TV via Wii using a program called Wiisic [Doesn't mean you cannot do this with Xbox360/PS3 in place]
Note that, you need to have Wii Internet Channel installed in your Wii. If you are trying to use your US-bought Wii outside US, with out a US credit card,try to use this trick.
How to setup Wiisic:
- Download latest version of WiiSic [Direct link to 0.815 / Home page
- Make sure you have a compatible JRE. All JRE1.5+ versions downloaded from Sun website are ok. Microsoft's JVM may not execute this JAR. At least, it didn't work for me under Vista.
- Double click on Wiisic.jar. You should see the launch dialog shown below [for v0.815]. If it gives an error, make sure you are using the proper Sun JRE (not Microsoft’s).
- Now you need to configure the settings. Choose the folder containing your media files first. Make sure you choose your network card from the drop down list in (3). Also. change the port to something like 8081. If you have a 16:9 supporting TV, choose the 16:9 proper player in (2). Following screen shown the settings I used in my computer.
- Now switch on your Wii. Open the Wii Internet channel. Type the IP that is shown under (4) in Opera’s address bar. Wiisic should load now and start playing the stuff you chose under (1) above.
This has to proved to be the most effective inside-LAN-streaming-solution for me, till now. Let me know if you come across any other solutions.
Posted in: Computers, Gaming Consoles, HowTo, Personal, Software, Tips, Videos.
Tagged: Media Server · Photos · Streaming · Videos · Wii
Aug 8th, 2008 by kannanmr. 
There is no denying that the corporate work culture has a big impact on our off-office life. For example, if you are a SW development manager by profession, you automatically tend to map many of the things learnt in the office on to normal house activities – ‘Lets put a detailed requirements list for the the new entertainment unit we are going to buy this weekend”, “Hmm…this seems too risky. We need to think of the mitigation plans now before going on with this!”. If your partner is not from IT background, God help you!
How many times have we checked ourselves after looking at the blank / quizzical stares from others?! It has happened more than once in my case! Today, during lunch time, I decided to watch out for Intel lingo that people use. Kinda funny to notice so many of the corporate terms becoming a part of our day-to-day vocabulary.
Continue reading “Intel-speak during out-of-office hours” »
Posted in: Office, Personal, Tidbits.
Tagged: Corporate Talk · Expression used inside Intel · Humor · intel · Intel specific terms · Lingo · Office
Aug 5th, 2008 by kannanmr. Though Nintendo hasn’t officially launched Wii yet in India, the number of Wiis in India *is* increasing. 3 of my friends, who returned from US last week, bought Wii I don’t know how they got hold of one, as it is in extremely high demand over there now!
One of the initial problems you’d face trying to setup the Wii in India is the power converter. You *cannot* plugin Wii directly in to one of our power sockets, it will just burn! Unless you want to do the burn-in (!?) test with your Wii, I suggest you go out and buy a 220-110v power adapter (stepdown). It is available in many wattages, for Wii a 50W or 100W should suffice.
The only other thing you’d find a bit problematic is buying Wii points. Mine is a US Wii, so whenever I try buying Wii points online, it asks for a credit card along with the US address / Zip code blah blah…this one can be real irritating! Don’t lose heart though. There is a simple/effective method (Based on this post). The trick is to find a region which accepts Indian credit cards with out asking too many questions The region found by the original poster is Brazil.
How to buy Wii points from India (Thanks to StringFellow):
- Change your Wii country to Brazil. You will find this option in Wii Settings section. Wii will now ask you to confirm the user agreement for the new region. Do press ACCEPT here, else you will get an error later when accessing the Woo shop.
- Go to Wii Shop. If you already have “My Nintendo” account at Nintendo.com linked to your Wii shop account, Wii will warn you that the link will be broken. Don’t worry about this message. You can set this up again later.
- Once in, click on the “Add Wii points”. Enter your CC number, name, expiry date and CVV. In the next screen enter any random Brazilian postal code. I used Brazilian Discovery Channel postal code. You can find more of these postal codes in Google.
That’s all, it should work! I bought USD30 worth of Wii points and it worked flawlessly. Once you have the points, you can reset your Wii country to USA (if yours is a US Wii like mine) and reconnect the Wii Shop login with your Nintendo.com login.
What to do with the Wii points?
You can buy Wii Channels, Virtual Console games or WiiWare games online from the Wii shop, using the Wii points. I strongly suggest you buy Wii Internet (Opera) channel. It costs only 500points (USD5.0) and it is worth it. Quickly checking the Orkut, sitting in the couch is bliss, I tell you
Posted in: Computers, Gaming Consoles, HowTo, Software, Technology, Tips.
Tagged: india · Internet · Opera · Wii · Wii in India · Wii Points
Aug 4th, 2008 by kannanmr. I logged in to my blog account 2 days back, after a verrry long time (I blame my project move in the professional world). I was surprised to find out so many things have happened in the WordPress world. A new version has been released, many more vulnerabilities have been found and fixed…WAIT…a NEW version?? NOOOO! It feels like I just updated to a new version…is there a new one already!???
WordPress is churning out new versions faster than my C2Duo / Vista machine can boot 
Don’t believe me? Look at these dates:
| WordPress version | Release date |
| 1.5 (Strayhorn) | mid-Feb 2005 |
| 2.0 (duke) | Dec 2005 |
| 2.1 (Ella) | 22 Jan 2007 |
| 2.2 (Getz) | 16 May 2007 |
| 2.3 (Dexter) | 24 Sep 2007 |
| 2.5 (Brecker) | 29 Mar 2008 |
| 2.6 (Tyner) | 15 Jul 2008 |
Continue reading “No..not another WordPress version!!” »
Posted in: Code, Computers, Software, Wordpress.
Tagged: Irritiation · Security · Upgrade · Version · Wordpress
May 28th, 2008 by kannanmr. Its been a while since I posted. What have I been doing? Apart from the occasional tennis sessions in Wii, I am kinda stuck in the work (if you thought it sounded like "stuck in the rut", you have a warped mind! ). Its already 12 in the night here, me feeling very sleepy. But wanted to finish up this toon below. I guess it is a reflection of my current mind state.
I read Matthew Reilly’s "Seven Ancient Wonders" last weekend. Book is on my favorite topic – Egypt!! Unfortunately this one reads like a kid’s book. The ease with which the main character of the book solves/crosses all those complex pyramidal snares/traps is ridiculous, to say the least. Anyway, I learnt something about the early water traps and Reilly’s description of Hanging gardens of Babylon was highly imaginative; I’d rate this book 2/5 – you can read it probably once, over flight or when waiting for your wife to finish her shopping I have started on his "Ice Station" next, lets see how it reads.
Last weekend, I also spent lots of time watching the entire 16 season of Survivors : Fans vs Favorites. I have never seen Survivors before, though I knew what the concept was. But, at no point of time I expected it to be so well made and so captivating! I thoroughly enjoyed the isolated environment, the idea of tribes/tribal council and the human dynamics that played out for survival. Wow…an amazing reality show. I personally liked Ozzie a lot in the show, very unfortunate Parvati fooled him in to quitting. I cannot wait for the next season to start!!
In the Wii front, today I got my Carnival games collection. My first impression: I don’t like many of the games included, hopefully multi-player will prove otherwise. Enough of my whining now…time for bed!
Posted in: Books, Console games, Gaming Consoles, Office, Personal, Reviews, Software, Videos.
Tagged: humour · IT industry · Matthew Reilly · Ozzie · Software Engineer · Survivors · Wii
May 16th, 2008 by kannanmr. I have been watching way too many movies past 2 weeks, cannot even remember many of their names now. Last weekend I planned to go to Salem, but ended up in Fry’s (Wilsonville). I bought a Wii there and am thoroughly enjoying the games in it, but more about that in a different post. Amidst all these I am trying to finish up my office work too. See how hard working, I am? 
.
In this post, I want to talk about the movie Untraceable. I just finished watching it. My initial impression – "Great, that was interesting!". But now, after some 10 minutes, I realize all the holes and stupidity in that movie. But before I get to that, let me tell you what this movie is about.
![[Movie] Untraceable](http://kannan.jumbledthoughts.com/wp-content/upload/2008/05/untraceable.jpg "[Movie] Untraceable (Jumbled Thoughts)")
******** Warning: Spoilers ahead ***********
Continue reading “[Movie] Untraceable” »
Posted in: Movies, Personal, Reviews, Videos.
Tagged: Botnet · English-Movies · Hacker · Movie Reviews · Movies · Review · Security · Untraceable
May 10th, 2008 by kannanmr. It has been a pretty tight week so far. Luckily my hotel is closer to my office, at least I don’t have to worry about getting lost. Talking about getting lost, people here use GPS heavily. The cab driver, when I came from the airport to the hotel, didn’t know where Holiday Inn was in Hillsboro. He asked me the address, entered that in to his Nuvi..bingo…he took the shortest possible route to my hotel. Pretty impressive!
Unfortunately, Hertz guys didn’t give me a GPS unit. Instead, they gave me 836 WMDs. Don’t believe me? Look at the picture of my car.
I am planning to make a fortune selling these to North Korea.
BTW, this is the route I take daily to my office. It looks far, but is actually only ~3 miles.
Since the group I have come here to meet/work with is one of those *pure* Research groups in Intel, every body here holds on an average 15 patents. Kinda overwhelming! But, it is quite fun to see all those great guys I have only heard of. Knut Grimsrud, the person sitting in my opposite cube is the director of Intel Storage Architecture group — he looks so laid back and cool that you won’t believe he holds such a high and important position! He has written one of the best sellers in Amazon on SATA. He is also one of the Intel fellows, which is a very high position in Intel’s technical ladder. In Intel, if you want to grow technically, you become a Principle Engineer, a Sr. PE, a Fellow and then a senior Fellow in that order. Pretty impressive accomplishment, but still I saw Knut to be a down-to-earth guy; Couldn’t stop thinking about some of the so-called TLs in Intel India.
Posted in: Personal.
Tagged: Experience · Google-Maps · Hertz · intel · Knut Grimsrud · Portland · Travel · WMD
May 2nd, 2008 by kannanmr. I will be visiting Portland (Oregon) for 5 weeks, starting WW19. This being a very short trip, I can’t hope to explore OR fully. Anyway, I did a quick search to get a list of must-see spots. Filtering the “normal” stuff apart, I am planning to at least cover the following places: Do let me know if you have any suggestions or I am missing something interesting.
The Oregon Symphony is one of Portland’s great cultural attractions, performing over 120 concerts annually at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall from September through June.
The Portland Saturday Market
To see Portland in it’s artsy element, visitors should experience this large open-air arts and crafts market, offering tons of music, art of all kinds, and great food. The Portland Saturday Market is open Saturdays and Sundays, March through December.
Sternwheeler Riverboat Tours
The Sternwheeler Riverboat Tours offer fun, relaxing cruises through either the scenic Columbia River Gorge (June through September) or the beautiful Williamette River (October through June) on an authentic triple-decker sternwheeler.
Heceta Head
Heceta Head is home to many points of interest, most notably the Heceta Head Lighthouse, which is one of the most photographed beacons in the US.
And of course, my favorite:
This amusement park is near Portland. I am not sure if this is the best one around, but am sure I will make it to at least one amusement park, even if I had to miss all the other places .
Posted in: Personal.
Tagged: india · Must see places · Oregon · Portland · Travel · Weekend trip
Apr 30th, 2008 by kannanmr. I just added one more year to my age yesterday. Thanks to my wife, the day was special. But, It is scary actually, thinking about how my graduation 8 years back feels as if it happened only yesterday! Time *is* flying. Looking back, I have had my share of moments – moments I feel proud of, moments I’d cherish & moments I’d rather forget (but can’t!). My professional front has been one hell of a roller coaster ride too. My love for computers is the only thing that has survived these years. Passion for them has gone down drastically, though.
Can I code day and night for 4 days, like how I used to do during college time or even in the first 2 years of my career? A big no.
Can I still read a technical book non-stop from cover to cover? NO!
Do I still have that passion to learn everything? Probably yes. But I don’t care about that anymore.
Other commitments apart, even if I had everything else setup for doing the above things, I’d not, because of the laid-back attitude I picked up over time in this industry. After some years, I guess you become numb and dumb. Numb, because you stop enjoying/appreciating all the beautiful things in the world around you, become too insensitive to non-professional things. Dumb, because the mechanical work style you are forced in to makes your brain cells commit suicide and there is no sure-fire way to bring them back.
To visualize what I am saying, look at the graph below. I plotted my competence/commitment over time (from 2000 to 2008). Click to open the original image in a new window.
Continue reading “Mid-life crisis of a software professional” »
Posted in: Computers, Office, Personal, dumb.
Tagged: Burn out · Commitment · Competence · Computer Professional · Crisis · Job · Mid-Life Crisis · Software
Apr 19th, 2008 by kannanmr. Dosbox is an open source DOS emulator available for many OS flavors. Dosbox allows you to run any old DOS game, relive some of the golden games of DOS era. It has full support for multiple video standards (VGA, CGA, Tandy,…) and sound cards (Adlib, SB, …). Amazing program! I was even able to bring up Windows 1.0 under that
Not many use this powerful emulator as a disassembler though. I have used this technique to disassemble many programs with out resorting to IDA or Sourcer.
Continue reading “HowTo: Use Dosbox as a Quick & Dirty disassembler” »
Posted in: Computers, HowTo, Software, Technology, Tips.
Tagged: Debug · Disassemble · Dosbox · Emulation · HowTo · IDA · programming · Sourcer
