One of the things that always zaps people at my talks about mobile computing is my demonstration of running full-length videos (movies, TV episodes, etc.) on my Palm TX PDA, without skipping, without stuttering audio, in a limited RAM environment, on a slow processor.

And the most common question I get after my talks -”Can you give me a copy of that application you are running?”

This question invariably blows me away, because people always assume that they have to pirate software to get good stuff.

The application I run on my PDA is an opensourced application called “The Complete Personal Media Player”, aka TCPMP. It can play virtually any video format you can throw at it, including MPEG, DivX, AVI, ASF, OGG, etc. You can get it from here. (Note that I am, at this time, using a beta version, that you can download from here).

It can also play just about music file format you can throw at it

TCPMP is designed to run on PalmOS, PocketPC and Windows. The source code is available, in case anyone wants to try his/her hand at porting it to another platform – and I am keen to see someone port this to the Simputer. (Anyone interested? I can make resources available)

I usually carry 3-4 movies (or Startrek episodes) on my PDA, which comes in very useful when stuck at airports, being driven across town by car, circling Mumbai airport for an hour or more waiting for the congestion to ease, or during boring talks. I just need to plug in earphones, fire up TCPMP, select the movie I am interested in, and I am on. And I can stop and continue at any time.

This afternoon I completed the formalities related to booking of the venue for FOSS.IN/2006.

FOSS.IN/2006 will be held on November 24/25/26 (Friday-Sunday) at the National Science Symposium Centre of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

This year’s event will be formatted very differently, taking the best from the old Linux Bangalore and last year’s FOSS.IN events, and adding new aspects to it, to ensure that it has more and lasting impact on the growth of Free & Open Source Software in India.

Some of these aspects are being nailed down in the background, and I will be discussing them on FOSS.IN mailing list over the coming days.

But for now, you have dates and a place, so start preparing. The Call for Participation will be out in a couple of days as well.

Excellent read – a post by RKVS Raman.

I highly recommend that anyone interested in FOSS reads this.

Do you see yourself there?

…Gaurav walking through the door, holding two 14″ pepperoni pizzas from Dominos.

Burp!

The Internet is broken again. Until they fix it, please read this, then visit here.

If the quantity of sulphuric acid produced is an indicator of the health of a nation’s economy, then acts like these are an indicator of the cluelessness of it’s government.

BTW – I hear that critics of the government terrorists are using telephones these days…. hey, what happened to my dial tone?????

Update: For us non-Windows guys, there is, of course, TOR.

Update: A little bird whispered to me this evening that the Internet will be unbroken by Thursday. Apparently some big, hush hush, ultra secret operation. I wonder how effective it will be – isn’t the first rule of stealth ops “Thou shall not draw attention to yourself or your actions”?

More Updates: Government to sue ISPs for blocking sites?

He’s lean, mean, got fabulous memory, two brains, deep pockets, a black cloak and can reach out and touch you without wires.

And he weighs in at 1.5 kilos.

He is Vader – my new IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad X60s.

Sporting 2 GB of RAM, 100 GB of SATA hard disk goodness, 802.11a/b/g wireless connectivity, a docking station with a dual layer DVD writer, 12″ display, SEVEN USB2 ports, a built-in SD card reader and Core Duo L2400 processor, Vader is the fastest and most maxed out notebook I have ever had, and also the lightest. And runs for almost 7 hours on battery.

That makes it about 10 years that I have been using Thinkpads exclusively, and I have yet to regret it.

In February of this year, I had mentioned that I would be looking out for new opportunities.

It is time to update my friends on the results of this quest.

As I had mentioned, I had two primary areas of interest – Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Mobile Computing.

I finally ended up doing both.

In early June, I joined Geodesic Information Systems Limited as Senior Vice President (Product Technology and Strategy). Geodesic is active in the Communication and Collaboration Technologies field, with focus on the mobile computing sector, with operations in India, the USA, UK and Sweden. It recently also acquired PicoPeta, the creators of the Simputer.

My responsibilities include strategizing new products and recommending new enabling technologies, apart from continuing the promotion of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Mobile Computing Technologies.

Though officially working out of the Bangalore office, I have been spending more time in Mumbai than Bangalore over the past month, and have been meeting tons of new people. And having a ball! Though Geodesic is seven years old (and is a public company), it has the kind of atmosphere I just love – a very startup feel. Jeans and T-Shirts are the norm (I almost got chucked out for wearing a tie the first time I went to office! . And exciting products – both released and upcoming. More about that when I get a chance.

And the best part is – the company supports my FOSS and FOSS community promotion whole heartedly. So yes – FOSS.IN will happen this year. More on that in a seperate post.

I am *really* excited about how my life is shaping up, and look forward to all the challenges coming my way!

If, like me, you are hopping mad about the most recent petrol price hike here in India, then I urge you to go see this lecture (Flash required) by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. You can also download his slides (PPT, 9MB).

Go on, watch it. And think about it – Brazil has already done this (and as an aside, they also dumped much of their proprietary software for FOSS), and if they can, why can’t we?

I am currently in Mumbai on work, and on Saturday land up at Pune, where I will be participating at BarCamp Pune – making it the fourth barcamp I will have attended in a row.

Barcamp Pune will be interesting for me, because it will give me a chance to check out the geek and techie community in that place. Pune is supposed to be competition for Bangalore in the field, so the barcamp is a great opportunity to meet many of them.

I hope to be able to give two talks at this event – “Mobile Computing – Thinking Beyond the PC”, and “FOSS Business Models”. And I can see a number of interesting talks already lined up on the wiki, so if you are in Pune on this Saturday, do drop in and join us! It promises to be fun!

I will be back in Bangalore on Sunday, where I have a gruelling Infinity Radio schedule waiting for me.

“They say a restless body can hide a peaceful soul.
A voyager, and a settler, they both have a distant goal.
If I explore the heavens, or if I search inside.
Well, it really doesn’t matter as long as I can tell myself
I’ve always tried.”

Like a roller in the ocean, life is motion
Move on
Like a wind that’s always blowing, life is flowing
Move on
Like the sunrise in the morning, life is dawning
Move on
How I treasure every minute
Being part of it, being in it
With the urge to move on

–”Move On” by ABBA

p.s. Yes Spo0ny – more quotes from a pop band from the 70s.

Ain’t life cool?