I was in lookout today for a small footprint / compact / embedded database engines suitable for .NET applications (mainly web) and found the following candidates. This is just a list compiled from the Internet.

1. Microsoft Access (JET Engine) - Very Popular from Windows 3.1 days due to the fact it is out-of-box in most versions of Windows OS.
2. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express - The plus here is that it is easy to upgrade to full-fledged SQL Server as Express edition uses the same file format and is binary compatible. Also ships with a free management tool "SQL Server Management Studio"
3. Microsoft SQL Server 3.5 Compact - Can be embedded easily with less than 2MB in distribution size. Works with Windows Mobile as well.
4. SQLite - A free / no license extremely lightweight Database engine which is less than 250KB in distribution size. There is no server process that needs to be started, stopped, or configured here. A detailed article here.
5. VistaDB - Quite popular, 3rd party, commercial Database Engine that can be easily embedded. Written in NET Managed Code.

In the above list, other than VistaDB all the other are free (as in free beer) to deploy/distribute.

Over the years, I have tried with different operating systems (Windows 3.1, 98, 2000, XP, Vista), newer & faster CPUs, different hardware brands (WinTV, Pinnacle, Aver), newer interfaces (PCI, USB) but I was never successful in getting a stable working setup of TV playing in a PC. At one point, it looked like I was having a curse against getting a TV Tuner working on my PC. In all cases my hardware exceeded the manufacturer's minimum required specification. So in the last two years, I have put TV Tuner in my list of technology "hypes" whose time haven't arrived yet.

With this background I tried again and I bought a Pinnacle Hybrid TV Tuner Kit (USB) for Vista during my Singapore trip. The minimum specification said Vista Home Premium/Ultimate (32bit) and it was Certified for Vista, this meant they have drivers for Vista. When I came back to my office, I tried to install it in my Windows Vista x64 Enterprise OS machine with 8GB RAM. I got the beta driver for Vista x64 from Pinnacle Support site, the card got installed but there was no Media Application to play the TV signal.

Windows Vista Enterprise x64 to Ultimate x64
After some search, I realized that I needed either Vista Home Premium or Ultimate because only those two Vista Editions include Windows Media Center that was needed to play the TV signal from Pinnacle tuner. I thought this should be simple, since Vista allows easy upgrade between editions, but it turns out officially you cannot upgrade Vista Enterprise to anything else. I found a hack here to do it, by tricking the setup to treat Enterprise as Business edition. Instead, I decided to reinstall Windows Vista. I did that and got Windows Vista x64 Ultimate working.

Pinnacle x64 Driver from Windows Update
When I now connected the TV Tuner USB Device, Windows Update detected the device, installed the correct driver for Pinnacle PCTV 330e and got initialised. I followed the instructions given in Pinnacle manual, connected the IR Blaster (this sticks in front of your set-top box and replays the IR instructions of set-top box remote) to IR Receiver and then the IR Receiver to a free USB port.
(IR Receiver / Remote sensor receives the signal from the Media Center remote control and relays it to the Media Center PC. When you plug the IR blaster/ control cable into the remote sensor and the set-top box, then the remote sensor also relays the signal from the PC to the set-top box)

Windows Media Center shows only TV Tuner as Signal source
I connected the Tata Sky DTH satellite set-top box's composite video/audio (RCA jack) output to Pinnacle Tuner. I ran Windows Media Center software, unfortunately it detected only the TV Tuner as an input source and refused to recognize the Satellite (Composite) as an available input source. Taking the suggestion from documentation for setting a set-top box from Microsoft site I ensured the IR blaster was connected. Still it didn't detect my composite video signal. For a strange reasoning best known only to Microsoft, Media Center doesn't enable input sources other than TV Tuner unless it detects the IR blaster. But in my case even with IR Blaster installed correctly, it didn't show up.

I tried the TV Tuner in two other Vista 32bit (x86) machines:

• Dell Vostro with 4GB RAM where I had the same problem of not being able to select composite signal source (Dell support said they don't support Media Center with Vostro series)
• Lenovo Desktop (with 1GB RAM) where it worked perfectly. Windows Media Center on first start, automatically detected the IR Blaster (allowed me to even control the Tata Sky set-top box successfully) and let me select composite as signal source.

It looks like Windows Media Center/Pinnacle Hybrid tuner doesn't support more than 1GB RAM for Satellite input. Strange!

I wrote to Pinnacle Support asking them on how to get the product working with Vista x64 Media Center. They said this is a MCE question so you should write to Microsoft. Filling a case with Microsoft PSS which they refused to take it as it is a how-to question and also it is a device capability issue. Writing back to Pinnacle, they promptly replied that the product is not supported in Vista x64 - "The tuner kit for Windows Media Center will only work on a 32 bit version. There is no update for a 64 bit version yet. We are sorry for any inconvenience the product has brought your".  This was surprising as Windows Update has a driver for the product and Pinnacle themselves have a beta driver.

So it was time to ditch Windows Media Center and do it on our own. After some research I found out Nero has a TV Tuner Player software - I am big fan and loyal user of Nero for years. I downloaded the trial of Nero 8 and after few configuration steps I got the device working.

Nero 8.0 configuration with Satellite Signal and Pinnacle Hybrid Tuner
The step to configure involves the following four steps:

Step 1: Launch Nero MediaHome software and then the "TV Wizard"

Step 2: "Pinnacle 330e/880e Device" as Video Device (you will see two entries, the other one is for TV Tuner Signal) and "Composite" as Video Input

Step 3: Launch Nero Home, select Video in Video and TV applet

Step 4: Scroll down and select Composite as the video to play

Finally, you will see this player with signal from Tata Sky working fine:

Note: If you are planning a TV Tuner card for Vista x64, before you buy it please visit the Microsoft HCL site to ensure you buy a hardware that is certified for x64.

My everyday work laptop is a lightweight Sony Vaio TX57GN around 1.25Kg, having a Core Solo CPU, 1.5GB RAM, 4200RPM HDD, Vista its speed is sub-optimal and I can only use it for email and browsing. Even then I am not complaining and actually I love it especially on my travels. This changes when I have to do demos (customer presentations or Microsoft events) I got to run multiple virtual machines and at that time CPU muscle, RAM and Speed are crucial. So few months back I decided to buy a second laptop for demos alone and eventually settled down on Dell Vostro 1400. That was the time (August '07) Dell had introduced Vostro series in USA, the price of USD 1740 (with taxes) for the configuration was attractive so I immediately purchased it and got it through one of my colleagues coming to India.

Dell Vostro 1400 configuration

• Vostro 1400, Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, 1.6GHz, 800Mhz FSB 2M L2 Cache
• 14.1 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD
• 4GB, DDR2, 667MHz
• Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset
• Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
• 160GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
• Windows Vista Business    
• 24X COMBO CD-RW/DVD for Vostro
• Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g
• Warranty Support, 2 Year Extended

The laptop scores good on Vista Benchmarks and performs well with multiple VPCs and Vista Aero interface. Dell shipped the laptop (strangely) with Vista 32Bit OS, so it showed only 3.5GB of RAM. This week I decided to upgrade the machine to Vista x64, so I got it formatted and installed Vista Ultimate x64. Now the laptop shows 4GB RAM, but most of the devices (as expected) were not installed with drivers. Luckily Wi-Fi worked and after running Windows Update which download 150MB of 42+ updates and a reboot, most of the devices including Graphics card got installed. The Ethernet card proved tricky with no drivers available either from Microsoft's Windows Update or from Dell support site. Dell doesn't provide drivers for Windows x64 OS for any of the devices in their Vostro series Laptop. After some searching I found the driver from Broadcom's support site for the LAN card and now everything is working fine.

Download Vista x64 Ethernet Driver for Dell Vostro 1400 laptop from here.

This is a complete time pass post with no serious value , anyway here it is.

My mother keeps telling us all the time to close with lids non-empty bowls. Last night in our bathroom we had left a bowl with Ginger Oil left overnight without covering. In the morning when brushing I saw something suspicious - a cockroach dead and it was almost indistinguishable from the herbs in the oil, we could easily have mistakenly used it.

Sometimes you are stuck by not able to delete the file because some application unknown to you is holding the file lock. This freeware (Unlocker) helps you in those scenarios. I haven't tried it yet, use it at your own risk !

What looked impressive for me is the GUI listing of all applications having locks over files in a folder.

தமிழில் வெளிவந்த நகைச்சுவை நாடங்களில் மிகவும் பிரபலமாக கருதப்படுவது அய்யா... அம்மா... அம்மம்மா...

என் சிறு வயதில் சென்னை தொலைக்காட்சியில் முதல் தடவையாக பார்த்ததில் இருந்து என்னை மிகவும் கவார்ந்த மற்றும் ஒலிநாடாவில் (Audio Cassette) பலப்பல முறை நான் கேட்ட நாடங்கமும் இது தான். ‘கிரேசி’ மோகன் எழுதி காத்தாடி ராமமூர்த்தி நடித்த இந்த நாடங்கம், இதற்குப்பின் தமிழில் வெளிவந்த அனைத்து நகைச்சுவைப் படைப்புகளிலும் (சினிமா, நாடகம், கதை) தனது தாக்கத்தை பதித்துள்ளது. பிற்காலத்தில் ‘கிரேசி’ மோகன் எழுதிய பல பிரபலமாக நாடங்களில் அவரையும் அறியாமல் சிலயிடங்களில் இதன் துனுக்குகளை நாம் கேட்கலாம்.

ஒலிநாடாவில் மட்டுமே வெளிவந்த இந்த படைப்பு இப்பொழுது ஓளிதட்டு (VCD) வடிவில் வந்துள்ளது. போன வாரம் Landmark கடையில் பார்த்தவுடன் இதை வாங்கியதில் (ரூ 199) எனக்கு மகிழ்ச்சி. ஒரு சிறு ஏமாற்றம் இது சென்னை தொலைக்காட்சியில் வெளிவந்த காத்தாடி ராமமூர்த்தியுடன் டெல்லி கணேஷ் மற்றும் பலர் நடித்த மூலப்பிரதி அல்ல சமீபத்தில் பதிவு செய்யப்பட்டது,  

இருந்தாலும் இந்த நாடங்கத்தை இதுவரைப் பார்க்காதவார்கள் உடனே இந்த ஓளிதட்டை வாங்கிப் பார்க்கலாம்.

The other day I was in Landmark (Nungambakkam High Road Branch) and saw the largest collection of Original Tamil DVDs and VCDs from Moserbaer and other manufacturers. It was several hundreds of movies spanning last several decades of Tamil movie including those released in last few years. Before this the largest such collection of original Tamil movies I have seen only in Singapore Serangoon Road (where VCDs are priced at SGD 10 and DVDs at SGD 20). In Landmark that day for instance I bought காக்க காக்க DVD at Rs.49 and வீரா, குரு சிஷ்யன் DVD combo at Rs.65.

After several decades, Tamil Film Producers & copyright owners seems to have come to their senses. Instead of fighting piracy they seem to have realized making their recent and old assets widely available as Discs in affordable rates will bring a new revenue stream for them. Just like T-Series in early 80's brought out affordable Cassettes and pioneered in India the original music market, Moser Baer seems to have now done the trick for VCDs and DVDs by bringing out original discs at Rs.39 and Rs.49/-

Ten days back when I reached Singapore from Los Angeles by Singapore Airlines (my favourite next to Jet Airways) I realized my checked-in bags haven't reached Singapore. I had through checked in the bags with United from Seattle, and though in LA there was over 3 hours time before the Singapore flight the bags didn't make it. It was not only my bags, but that of 10-12 other passengers. The saving grace was when I went to the Lost and Found counter of Singapore Airlines (SG), they already had a printout ready with information tracing my bag, where it was and when it will come to Singapore. So the bag technically didn't go missing, but didn't make it in the flight I came.

SG teller at the Lost and Found, gave me a printout acknowledging the incident, SG$120 to cover one day of my incidentals, a toiletry bag with a spare T-shirt all without asking - the way it should be done. I was promised the bags will be coming in the next flight from LA, they will call and leave the bags with my hotel; and the next day morning when I get up the bags will be in my hotel. So it was there next day. I really felt I was handled with respect, professionalism and the incident was resolved quick and well by Singapore Airlines.