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Archive for November, 2005:


Hooplah about the Sony DRM EULA

Published by in security on November 11th, 2005

UPDATE (Nov/17/05): It seems Sony is in a bigger mess than I thought – I recently read that they actually ripped code for their DRM software from Jon ‘DVD’ Johansen’s Fair Play code which I understand is under LGPL. Obviously, this is a copyright violation. Oh well, they seem to be getting into a deeper mess with each day. Original Article:It is human nature – controversies are what we thrive on. As much as we like to hear about heroes, it is villians who make our day. This time, Sony-BMG faces the wrath of the righteous. The story so far: 1. Sony has been shipping DRM protected CDs for a while now 2. Mark Russovich discovers, almost by accident, that Sony installs a program in your computer that actually installs some hidden files and also ensures that those files are cloaked (in other words, a normal user will never be able to see these files, unless he knows exactly how). In short, Sony installs a driver that hides any files that begin with the special letters ‘$sys$’ 3. To Make it worse, Sony does not provide a clean uninstaller – to uninstall, one has to go through cumbersome filling up

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Who makes money when consumers demand ‘Free! Free!’ (as in beer, not freedom) ?

Published by in general technology, voip on November 10th, 2005

VoIP is one kid who just does not give up. For those of us in the VoIP industry, you would have experience the ‘irrational exuberance’ between 1999-2001 and the huge bubble burst right after. Well, with the market up again, VoIP is back with vengeance. I read the other day that Microsoft acquired media-streams to strengthen its foray into VoIP. Google started late with google talk and Yahoo with its yahoo! messenger with VoIP support. And ofcourse there is Skype and many others. VoIP to customers imply 2 main things: Better Services Cheaper than traditional telephones It is important to understand which part is more important to which target segment. If you are selling to corporations, ‘Better Services’ may be key because corporates don’t mind a penny here and there for core communication cost. Therefore, for enterprise sales, VoIP is attractive even if it is just slightly cheaper or the same cost as traditional PSTN lines. When it comes to end consumer scale, whether you like it or not, ‘cheaper’ is a great motivation, unless your ‘Better Service’ brings in something so revolutionary that people are willing to spend more (for example, mobility – cell phones did that). Incidentally, even

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Managing Your Peers

Published by in corporate, Sunil Veluvali on November 10th, 2005

Managing Your Peers There will come a moment in your career when you will face the stark reality that you have to manage some of your closest colleagues. Further, if you are a top engineer, it is highly likely that the guys/gals you will manage are superstars too. Things change when this event happens. It happened to me. I went from being a prolific programmer to becoming an Engineering Director at a fast paced VoIP software company. Here are a few tips that will help you through this transition: Don’t compete: Resist the urge to code with your engineers. You might have all the technical answers but always remind yourself that you need to transition your engineering role to someone more competent. Use every opportunity to showcase your team. Face your shortcomings: Being a good engineer does not automatically make you a good manager. You have to work at it. Understand your personality. Have an honest discussion with your spouse or close friend about how you react in a variety of situations. Be positive: Be very optimistic about the things your team is working on. Don’t drain people by complaining or gossiping. Yes, it is hard not to share all

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Customer Etiquette in the US – Onsite Meetings

Published by in corporate on November 9th, 2005

In the past, I worked for a company where we would supplement US customers with highly skilled domain experts in Telecom Software, based in Asia (thereby reducing costs and retaining high quality). This was not a case of ‘low skilled outsourcing’. Rather, each ‘domain expert’ was an established expert in their own technology space and demanded a lot of respect. However, I noticed that there were cultural and behavioural differences (expected) between the two countries and many engineers, however excellent technically, often missed these soft differences. So I wrote up a ‘Customer Etiquette’ guide that is based on my experience with customers (people say I do it well, what do I know !): Etiquette for Onsite Meetings Dress Smart – irrespective of whether you are an engineer or a salesman. Jeans are the prerogative of the customer, not yours, as a vendor. A tie is not needed – semi-formal clothing is the norm in the US – though the choice is yours Dress according to what makes the audience comfortable. If you are presenting to a C level executive team, a tie cannot harm. On the other hand, if it’s an engineering discussion with architects, lose the tie, engineers prefer

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All my excitement about AJAX

Published by in world 2.0 on November 9th, 2005

An excerpt from a mail I sent out to some colleagues: “Fuelled by revolutionary apps like google gmail, suggest etc.Microsoft is investing their own millions in AJAX enabling their webapps (including Hotmail)(stands for Async. Javascript + XML) http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php I personally think this is exactly what we need as a step fwd inmaking internet based apps as powerful as desktop apps. simple summary: AJAX allows the pages rendered by a webbrowser to ‘asynchronously’ interact with the user – makes a world of difference. You can get real time updates for any server side event, just like a desktop app does. Now imagine this: (okay, many people have imagined this before, just that before AJAX came around, I was not convinced) Assume that the Internet is all-pervasive and that broadband speeds are not an issue. How important then, is what is located on your desktop ? Besides private files, assuming that speed is not an issue, do you really care, if security is addressed appropriately ? Once you assume that the Internet becomes the host for your ‘Operating’ System – the entire concept becomes virtual. You don’t need XP, you don’t need Linux. You only need a ‘UI’ that looks like something

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© Arjun Roychowdhury. My personal opinions only.