While hosting this blog over the last few years, I’ve had short and long-term stints with a variety of web hosting providers. And I changed my Webhost just recently once again!. Selecting a Web hosting provider who suits your real needs are never an easy task. You usually don’t get a chance to try before buy – as many of them does not provide a trial-period.

Free and Forever option

If you want your blog to live ‘forever’, without requiring you to make payments etc, the best option is to go for hosted blogging services like WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, Posterous and Tumblr. The advantage with these providers are that, you don’t have to pay for the storage and maintenance of your site. Moreover if you want to use a specific top level domain as your Web address, they support them too. The disadvantage being lesser options to customize the look n Feel and functionality of your blog. Sometimes providers like WordPress deny you placing ads on such blogs to monetize your content. I started blogging at BlogSpot and Jroller. Presently I maintain a Posterous and Tumblr Log.

Shared Web Hosting

Here you will be provided a virtual workspace to deploy and manage your blog software (like WordPress, Drupal etc). To assist, you are mostly given a easy to use control panel. In this type of hosting, you are essentially sharing the computing resources with others, in a not-so-isolated fashion. The advantages are better scalability, good support and cheap rates. If you are unlucky to share the resources with a high-load blog/site, you will ultimately suffer!. Sometimes, these providers despite offering unlimited bandwidth and storage restrict you with storage-file-types(for e.g. only text/html files) and CPU utilization. If you happen to exceed these limits (e.g If you are SlashDotted or Dugg), there is no option to increase the capacity on demand. I have used BlueHost and SiteGround earlier.

Grid Hosting

This is a newer trend propagated by the enthusiasm around ‘Cloud Computing’. Most of their mechanics are similar to Shared Web Hosting, but the differentiator is “On Demand Scalability”. To make your blog highly available and scalable, the backend-databases (e.g MySQL) here are mostly deployed as hot swappable instances / clusters. The ‘elastic behavior’ of the service makes it a popular choice these days. I have used MediaTemple earlier.

Slice / VPS Hosting

This requires you to completely manage the virtual hardware infrastructure provisioned to you over Zen / VMWare etc. You are responsible for everything on this. You may have to start by setting up a firewall itself – as the provisioned image/slice is just a raw one. Some providers gives you an option to bake your favorite Linux / BSD distribution on creation. Usually such slices have limited storage and non-shared exclusive but limited RAM (e.g 256 MB). This is an excellent solution if you have good Linux/Unix experience – as there is not really a limit to what you can do with the slice (e.g Run Java Server, Proxy Service etc). Backups are provided mostly as simple scheduled clone of your virtual instance/ slice. Dynamically resizing the storage and RAM are supported mostly. You are experiencing this blog on a Slice with SliceHost!

Who are the Vendors?

Word of the mouth (or Twitter!) is a big factor in estimating the popularity of the Vendors in the above Web Hosting Categories. You may search through Twitter or Ask your friends ( or Me!) to get an opinion. There are specialized services on the Web (recommended) like WebHostingGeeks who keeps updated ranked lists of Vendors with real customer reviews and ratings. They regularly have vendors with shared hosting to those who provide a high-end dedicated server.

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1. A Question to the readers

Broadband and mobile broadband prices have been falling rapidly over the last years making these technologies affordable for the mass. The state of mainstream fixed broadband and mobile broadband is continually progressing. Mobile Broadband has started to make stirs in the mobile community as it provides seamless connectivity on-the-go.

BroadBand Experts is a UK based company who provides real expert reviews on how to choose the cheapest broadband connection for your fixed and mobile requirements. There are reviews for USB or PC-Card based mobile broadband connections and 3G based broadband connections. Interesting deals like a free Netbook along with a longtime mobile broadband connection is worth checking out. For the Fixed broadband comparisons you can select between major UK based cheap broadband providers. The website also offers a top-ranking list for mobile/fixed broadband providers.

Another interesting option over the website helps you switch your current broadband provider to another one based on a variety of criteria. If you are new to the broadband concept the website also offers detailed guide to the various broadband options.

If you are need of a broadband connection please keep in mind the following things:-

• The cheapest is not always the best
• Read the reviews of actual users over the blogs and comparison websites
• Ask your best friends; but remember that the same connection’s quality of service levels may vary in your area.

Broadband Experts – UK gives you very specific localized best offers for your broadband requirements. I would suggest you give it a whirl.

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1. Review of Reliance Broadband+ USB Modem

I am taking this opportunity to recommend the services of a Product Releases and News Items Resources Site – Gadget Advisor.

Upon some quick browse over the site, I found interesting posts on some of the Best extensions for Firefox. Though most of which were the ones  I’m already using, the Google Cache Checker Firefox extension was a new find!.

This extension helps you see if a particular web page is cached by Google in their servers or not. This might be useful to quickly lookup the Google Cache information, when you cannot find the original information that you were looking for in the actual webpage.

The promise of the site is to publish hand-picked items to be the "best of the best" resource for computer hardware, software (for e.g like the Blaze Media Pro review), gadgets, and technology news. So don’t forget to checkout this interesting new resource site yourself.

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I have moved this blog to a much faster location now!. Hopefully all the complaints I received on the website speed would just go away. Now to the question directly:-

How do I blog to Worpress using eMail with attachments?
During the process of migration , I had a requirement to make a new blog post by means of an eMail. Yes, I would like to blog to wordpress by sending an email. I tried the default option available in WordPress, but it does not seem to work with image attachments. Do you know of any method/plugin to achieve the same?. Let me know. I will give you a cookie!

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Reliance Developer Programme is having a contest to promote the development of useful mobile applications for the rural population. If you are a mobile application developer, it is now your chance to win up to Rs.13 Lacs in prize money.

The applications could be in any of the following areas:

Transportation
M- Commerce
Information
Health
Education
Governance
Location Based Services

This is really impressive and heartening to see. I have earlier covered some Microsoft India Mobile R&D initiatives to help improve the rural economy of India.

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1. How to deploy an iPhone application without an IDP Membership

You may have seen Jaiku – the nanoblogging platform which is somewhat similar to Twitter. The Twitter is very simplistic in what it does. But not so fun. It’s pretty bland to state ‘What you are doing?’ and archive it as a life stream of events. Jaiku takes off from there..

You can do all of your twittering things with Jaiku too. Plus, You have IRC style channels on various topics – you may even create one. All of my blog feeds can be aggregated over to my life stream. All Jaikus are now wrapped into a widget and is placed on to the sidebar of this blog. The SMS, eMail and IM notifications feature works pretty well. The lack of status feature is what I liked more about Jaiku – talk about some change in philosophy! ;). I prefer to use my Facebook status more – if at all. MobileJuhu is an interesting native Jaiku client for iPhone which I’m using.

Let me know if you want to join me on Jaiku  – in the comments section.

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Just got an email from Zingku stating that they have been acquired by Google. I don’t know the details of the acquisition. Zingku is a Mobile Social Networking Service. Maybe Google will have it integrated with Orkut further.

Just wonder what Google would do with their Dodgeball !

What is Zingku?

With Zingku, things you wish to promote or share, can easily be created and fetched via mobile, instant messenger, and web browser. Our service integrates your mobile phone with a personalized web site so that you can easily move (zing) things back and forth between the web and and your mobile as well as powerfully connect with friends and optionally their friends.

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1. My Android Phone – HTC G1

I first heard about Groovle at TechCrunch. Groovle is a service which can create a custom homepage exclusively for you. You can have your selected picture as the background. Groovle homepages have a google custom search box. I am sure this idea will have a lot of takers.

I may not convert to Groovle for my homepage needs, as the utilities given by Netvibes and such are much higher. I would also like to think that Groovle is not directly competing with the likes of PageFlakes and Netvibes. Groovle is just a plain simple homepage service. Nothing more nothing less. Groovle have done well to maintain the closeness to the official Google Search page. You can select the pre-built-themed homepage from different categories such as Celebrities, Nature and Sports. You can also upload a JPG, GIF or PNG file to customize the background image.

I see only one realistic threat to the business idea behind Groovle and it comes directly from Google! -  iGoogle currently only supports defaults ‘Themes’. Once they allow you to pull your PicasaWeb albums or Photo upload to create custom themes, Groovle may lose it’s charm. Groovle would be definitely better of with alternating backgrounds on the homepage.

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Online Video

User generated content is now on an all time high and online video portals like YouTube and Revvr are fast becoming default destinations for Video content. Watching these videos on your PC is just matter of visiting those sites and making selections. Adobe provides a universal platform in the form of Flash and most of the video is streamed to you in real-time.

Video on Mobile

My first tryst with Mobile Video was the clipped ones I had on my Sony Clie SJ22 , a few years back. The video content needed time consuming transcoding operations and the results were not always stunning. After all it was a meager PDA!. Then after some time, YouTube transformed the way we perceived online video. Now I would want those Videos to play over my new Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone(O2 XDA II Mini). But that platform was not enough, not even my next smartphone – the Cingular 8125 Wizard with the Windows Mobile 2005. The embedded RealPlayer tried it’s best to stream content, but always resulted in choppy video – my slow GPRS connection was also partly to blame.

Now you have the revolutionary iPhone, and it has made online video experience on the Smartphones kind of a norm. How can Microsoft and HTC resist the call. They equipped their latest offering, the HTC Touch with a neat Streaming Application which works pretty well with the PIE(Pocket Internet Explorer) and the integrated TouchFlo user interface. At the same time, Google has started transcoding most of the watched video content to be viewable on mobile devices. Now we have a mobile version of the YouTube. Wait.. It’s still not the Full YouTube!.

Avot mV brings ALL of Online Video to your Mobile

Avot Media is a company, hold your breath, launched by a bunch of Apple veterans – who were earlier leading the engineering efforts at Apple Inc. to bring you the revolutionary iPhone!. These talented guys have ventured into bringing the FULL of Online Video Content over to our Mobile Phones – with their excellent offering – Avot mV. You point your mobile device’s browser to m.avotmedia.com or Avot Mobile Site to download the free application.

My Review Platform

I tested Avot mV on my Cingular 8125. It is a HTC Wizard Class device. I was running a cooked Windows Mobile 6 OS with the TouchFlo interface. I tested Avot mV over both EDGE and WiFi. While Avot mV was being tested, I had always couple of programs like the PIE and the default phone application running.

Avot mV Advantages

• Avot mV is a carrier independent service
  • That means You never pay for carrier-selected carrier-controlled content. You have the full of free user-generated media at your command. You choose what you want to see, for free. This is not the case with competitive product offerings like RockTV. They are always friends with the Carrier, forgetting you and me!
• 4th Grader UI
  • What did I Say?!. Yes, I meant -  even a 4th grader can easily launch the Avot mV and see the thumbnails of featured videos arranged neatly in 3 columns, further tap on the one’s s/he wants. Different video  ‘Channels’ brings you categorized content. Creating a favorites list is also very straight forward as in clicking a ‘+’ symbol. All in all, Avot mV features a no nonsense interface. The UI of Avot mV is best explained as a unified video portal with content from YouTube, Google Video and many others. The Search is excellent and spans over many content portals. I also liked the search being saved for future sessions.
• Sound Technology
  • Avot mV has patented-codecs being used in it’s mobile client application. The innovations on it, helps minimize the effects of network latency and low bandwidth. Do remember, Avot mV always streams the content directly from the content sites. It works like a media optimized Flash platform for Mobile Devices. The FlashLite from Adobe is a Joke!
  • I saw Avot mV working pretty decently on my regular EDGE connection on the road and at its best over the Home WiFi.

What could be done better ?

• No work on Nokia!
  • Presently all the 70+ supported platforms are either Windows Mobile Pocket PC or SmartPhone platforms. My Nokia E61 needs Avot mV. I hope in future they will support Symbian Series 60 v3 and UIQ devices.
• Thumbnail vows
  • The three column thumbnail view does not scale well on the landscape view. It could also do well with some local caching of the home screen thumbnails.
• Browser Integration
  • Wish if I could bring up Avot mV instead of the HTC Streaming Application whenever I click on a video link. I think this won’t be a big challenge for the engineering teams at Avot than implementing the ultimate dream of playing the video inline with the mobile browser.
• Audio/Video Sync
  • I got a few audio sync problems while playing some YouTube videos over the EDGE connection. Even then the Video played well.

Conclusions

I sincerely feel, Avot mV codecs should be licensed by major Smartphone OS providers, especially Google in future, for their upcoming Google Phone. It has the potential to be the best optimized streaming media platform on the mobile. For latest developments check out the Avot Blog postings.

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1. Revived Cingular 8125 with Windows Mobile 6

I have a Cingular 8125 Windows Mobile Pocket PC phone. Ever since I started using Nokia E61 and a Nokia N72 as the Business and Personal phones respectively, the 8125 has been lying idle in the drawer. Partly, this was because it is kind of bulky to pocket and mainly as it’s Windows Mobile 5 OS sucked. The brilliant guys at XDA-Developers plucked the latest Windows Mobile 6 platform to create a kitchen ROM – which could be flashed onto any HTC Wizard. Zoki, an able ROM Chef added some more flavor of the HTC Touch’s – ‘TouchFLO‘ and ‘Cube’ interfaces onto it – to create the NBD WM6 ROM. There were many others, but I chose NBD because it is stable and feature rich.

I must say, getting my G3 Wizard (8125) on to the WM6 platform was a little bit nerve wrecking procedure – though I have done a big storage hack on my earlier O2 XDA II Mini. Too many a things had to work flawlessly, which otherwise would have rendered my 8125 nothing more than a costlier paper-weight. I still have a few more things to iron out – like downgrading the GSM Radio to 2.19. Now with the faster WM6 on it, my 8125 got a fresh breather. It feels like a new phone. Something I will be keeping till I get an N800 or an iPhone.

Here is how my Cingular 8125 too feels like now:-

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2. Reliance promoting mobile application development for rural India