Final hiccups solved!  Ever since I upgraded to Snow Leopard, I’ve been struggling to get my netconnect broadband modem to work as well as it previously did.  I’ve blogged about my initial hiccups, where I thought I’d found a great solution.  Well it worked, but my speeds have been abysmal.  Called Reliance service guys – they couldn’t find a fix – and asked me to locate a driver at the Apple India – and there was none of course. It’s been a few months now – small mercies that this is just my travel mate, and not my main connection.

I finally figured it out. With help from someone called Guru who suggested:

So I inserted the modem, opened the folder in finder, right-clicked on the blue Reliance Netconnect icon, got into Package Contents, clicked Resources and there it was.

Installed it. Found the Reliance Netconnect icon in my Applications folder, opened it and sure enough, found my setting was set by default to the lowly High Speed Internet and not Broadband.  Changed that to Broadband + and voila – problem solved

Here’s the fix again:

Do not try to install the mobile connect application. Insert Modem, right click icon in Finder, click Show Package Contents, go to Resources and then install the file mobile_connect_drv_app.pkg.

Thank you, Guru – whoever you are!

[picture credit]

I upgraded to Snow Leopard and went off to Khandala for the weekend, assuming everything will work quicker! Most things did, and my three year old macbook is really quick again, but I had problems with opening powerpoint and in getting connected via my Reliance Netconnect modem. Yesterday, I found that my printer was not recognized either.  Just a little search online, and I found all my problems were solved!! Sharing the links I found most useful in resolving these problems:

• Powerpoint 2004 not responding on Snow Leopard: this one is really cool and I’m amazed at how these guys figure things out! Such a simple instruction: I removed the file: PowerPoint 11 Type Library from folder: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Type Libraries
• Reliance Broadband Netconnect Modem EC 1260. Drivers for Snow Leopard from Huawei here.
• HP psc 1315 All in One printer not recognized: Custom install from the Snow Leopard CD did not solve this problem. I read through the messages here, and found this link to updated drivers for my old printer. Downloaded it, and voila – it works!

Thank you to all those who share solutions online so generously!

In the Times of India on the 17th:

There is a clear and present danger to internet in India. If the recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee were to go through, you might as well pull the shutters down on the net in the country, because the committee seeks to raise the liability of internet service providers for any third party content in a manner that it will become difficult to run the service and stay away from jail.

This isn’t an exaggeration. Over 85% of internet deals with third party content. This includes search engines, mail services, messengers, blogs, communication and community sites. If they were to be held responsible for the sites searched, mails sent, blogs filed or scraps on community sites then service providers would be hauled up by the police for acts they are not even faintly responsible for.”

I agree with the author of the article that this is one more sign of the Indian Government’s complete lack of understanding of the internet, and that they are tending to liken it to other media like TV, where content creation is in the hands of a few, and hence can be ‘controlled’.

This proposal must not be allowed to go through. I wonder what the younger members of parliament feel about all of this?

[link via Amit Agarwal]

This is great news!

The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) has collaborated with One Laptop per Child (OLPC) foundation to bring the latter’s much-hyped $100 laptop to India to promote e-learning among poor children. Under this initiative, Reliance Communications (RCom) will provide Internet connectivity, network backbone, logistics, and support to the OLPC initiative. The initiative aims at covering over 25,000 towns, and 6,00,000 villages in the country by 2008. The larger OLPC project has already provided laptops to 5 million school children across the world, and aims to cover 150 million by 2008.

OLPC and Classmates from Intel are good schemes.  I just don’t believe they are going to bridge a digital divide so easily, as they claim to achieve. In fact I’m not sure I like the term Digital Divide that much – the real divides are much deeper than just digital; they are linked to the digital divide but will not go away with an OLPC.  I’m all for ICT for development, and do believe that technologies can enable change and help people better their lives – I just hope they don’t create other divides. Where some children have them and others don’t.  Where adults intervene and wrest them away from the children.  Where more powerful caste groups get them and the lower castes are left out – I say this because I have seen this divide in village schools over and over again – where benefits (such as school uniforms, free meals) that are meant for all children, are ‘hoarded’ away by the more influential upper castes. Where a new breed of agents and middlemen come into play, creating yet another layer that divides society.  Where the entrepreneur in the Indian sees opportunities to make money out of either selling the laptop or selling time on it.

And who’s going to guide usage and mentor these children – teachers and parents in these areas are digital ignorants. Then maybe, kids are smarter and they will teach themselves. Or the OLPC will be their teacher.
Perhaps, because it’s not the government, but  The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) that is bringing the OLPC to India, I’m hopeful that at least it will be more professionally managed. At the same time, it is a private sector profit-making enterprise – I hope business does not drive their management of the project. 

A while ago, I had said Google has my past – and my future.  Here’s an awesome scenario written by Cory Doctorow on being Scroogled by an evil Google!  Thanks Peter, for this link.

[Image from the original article].

“Now you’re a person of interest, Greg. Your life is stalked. Now you live your life with someone constantly looking over your shoulder. You know the mission statement, right? ‘Organize the World’s Information.’ Everything. Give it five years, we’ll know how many turds were in the bowl before you flushed. Combine that with automated suspicion of anyone who matches a statistical picture of a bad guy and you’re—”

“Scroogled.”

“Totally.” She nodded.

Maya took both labs down the hall to the bedroom. He heard a muffled argument with her girlfriend, and she came back alone.”

Bloggy thought two. It’s not worth it, if it’s not searchable. Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel seem to feel so. Am actually feeling the contrary only because of my recent experiences with Facebook and Twitter. The other day, I was chatting with a young friend who is 18, and he told me a few things around Facebook. His dashboard and homepage is Facebook – all his social interactions happen around it, along with a few IM clients. He doesn’t really use email very much. And most pertinent to this post, was his comment that he was disturbed that his whole family including aunts and grand-aunts could ‘peep’ into his entire life. In fact, it was so funny when he related a story about how an aunt actually sent his grandma some pictures of girls who wanted to ‘marry’ him. He’s now got most of his family on ‘limited’ profile — but his friends have full access to him!

I still believe that what you write or say or show on the web is there for everyone to see, read or hear, and I like that openness and transparency of the web. Still I am enjoying the levels of privacy that Facebook offers me. When I blog, I do sometimes (not when I am feeling particularly ranty) wonder whether what I write will come back to bite me some day or how people will view me as a result of what I write. I do feel more ‘responsible’ about what views I share on my blog – perhaps this happens when you have been blogging since 2003 and when your blog becomes your single-point public profile, for the whole world to see – family, friends, clients, potential clients etc.

But on spaces like Facebook and Twitter, I feel so much more comfort – I can rant, I can be silly, throw some food at a friend, hug someone else, share when I am upset or ecstatic. I don’t ever ‘think’ too much when I am on Facebook – my mode is a more feely one. It’s more about me and who I am. And less about my thoughts on a particular subject and less of the ‘Dina’ I want to project or promote or share around what I do.

I loved this comment at Steve Rubel’s post by Ryan McKegney – it resonates:

The Indian Express reports that a couple of Israeli geeks have set up a low-cost wi-fi network in Dharamshala, spread over 70 acres, more than 7,000 ft above sea level.

“Thirty-eight-year old David’s technological expertise and perhaps
even nimble athleticism (courtesy his Mossad training) proved useful in
setting up the network in the mountainous terrain. Antennae were
erected in the most unlikely places (in one case the tower was painted
with the insignia ‘Om’ and served as the spire of a local temple), the
Linksys routers were re-engineered to make them power-efficient(most of
them run on solar energy) and the towers were made “monkey resistant” after it was found that the primates found perverse pleasure in
dangling from them.

Other “sabotage” bids were similarly thwarted. There was one
last year in the form of a Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDSA)
on the website of the Tibetan Technology Centre. Says Ginguld: “It is
difficult to pinpoint who did it but it started after an extensive
series of scans which happened somewhere in China. The same URLs were
loaded to access the database repeatedly…” In a written reply to The
Sunday Express, the Chinese Embassy said it was “unaware of any such
thing”.

Schools, hospitals and other NGOs have benefited immensely
from the service, though the network’s limited bandwidth means it is
not accessible to individuals and laptop-carrying tourists. Says Dawa
Tsering of the Tibetan Medical Institute: “Our earlier connection would
break down frequently and wouldn’t be repaired for long durations. The
connectivity now is more or less uninterrupted.” While the vision of
BPO centres coming up in the region might be a bit too romantic, the
network is being used to promote trade. Dolma Kyap of Norbulingka Art
Institute says they offer Tibetan art works like Thangka painting and
statutes for sale on the Net. But what Ginguld is particularly thrilled
by is the sight of children using the network. “Computer labs in Indian
schools have lots of computers but no internet connection, which is
akin to having a sleek car without petrol. Today when I see
10-year-olds logging on to sites like hi5, chatting with people, I
realise we are on the right path,” he says.”

Cool!

Google is not merely moving towards “owning” the internet, its also beginning to “own” me.I had a friend over this weekend, and I was setting up a blog for her on Blogger. I had to sign out of my Blogger account to set her up. During the process, I wanted to check my mail, and clicked on my Gmail tab in my browser – and I was shocked to see that it opened up her Gmail account instead. Should have expected it – its logical – but it disturbed me. It’s convenient, it’s quick – but I want the controls and the ability to decide which ones I want auto signins for and which ones not.

Say, if I have Google Reader running – and I have signed out of Gmail — if someone else tries to log into their Gmail account – they can read my mail. Or if they want to check their scraps on Orkut – they get to see mine instead. Google Maps can show pictures of your front door and look through your window
- very cool – yes – but it makes me uncomfortable too. Although I need
not worry as I live in a city where its going to be very difficult to
get everything ‘on a map’ as there is so much chaos in the planning.
They have my presence info (limited tho) through Gmail
and Gtalk, they have my social network on Orkut, they dish up ads in my Gmail which make me feel a little
uneasy about privacy. I have been doing many studies recently with youth, and when I ask them how they use the internet – the response is Googling, Orkutting (note – not search and social networking) and chatting – Gtalk hasn’t yet managed to become a verb!

In countries like India however, where for the large part, computers are shared at work and home – this could become a problem. Not everyone has the know-how or the presence of mind to set up different logins and user accounts at boot up.

Look at Google’s acquisition over the years – they are buying up the best really. And our lives are enriched and simpler as a result. I love using many of these and it makes my life better. But yesterday’s experience with setting up my friend’s blog got me thinking in the longer term – and I kept pondering over – what cost?

Eric Schmidt , Google’s CEO was quoted in FT. Do I really want my computer to tell me what I should do tomorrow, or what job I should take?

See this video, although a little dated – it looks forward to a Google world in 2014 – EPIC. Robin Good has a transcript:

“On Sunday, March 9 2014, Googlezon unleashes EPIC.

Welcome to our world.

The ‘Evolving Personalized Information Construct’ is the
system by which our sprawling, chaotic mediascape is filtered, ordered
and delivered. Everyone contributes now – from blog entries, to
phone-cam images, to video reports, to full investigations. Many people
get paid too – a tiny cut of Googlezon’s immense advertising revenue,
proportional to the popularity of their contributions.

EPIC produces a custom contents package for each user, using his choices, his consumption habits, his interests, his demographics, his social network – to shape the product. A new generation of freelance editors has sprung up, people who sell their ability to connect, filter and prioritize the contents of EPIC.

We all subscribe to many Editors; EPIC allows us to mix and match
their choices however we like. At its best, edited for the savviest
readers, EPIC is a summary of the world – deeper, broader and more
nuanced than anything ever available before.”

With the recent acquisition of Feedburner, Google just bought over access to not just us, but our readers as well. They even acquire the internet in year 2017!!

Google has my past, and it’s rapidly ‘taking over’ my future. My actions today, in the present, are building the tracks for that future. A dystopian Brave New World, or Utopia?

Should I really care? Does it bother you at all?

Here’s an excerpt from an article I did for Tehelka’s special on youth and the internet, on much urging from Shivam, who put an apt title to it – The Mirror of Change – This is Who We are Becoming.

“For those completely
immersed in virtual worlds such as Second Life, the seduction of intimacy
combined with anonymity does not mean they do not share the joys and
sorrows of their real worlds. My bet is that they do. “Pet”,
a very close friend and a colleague who worked with a team of online
volunteers when the tsunami struck in December 2004, got me looking
at Second Life with new eyes. He had been feeling trapped in his body
for a long time, and when he got onto Second Life, it helped him become
more comfortable with his feelings that he was a woman trapped in a
man’s body. The beauty is that Second Life was a tool for “Pet”to figure out who she really is and how to work it out for real. Today,
she has friends not only in Second Life, but also in her physical world
with whom she can be herself. “Pet” has shared so much of
her period of transition and angst with me, that I feel I know her intimately.
Being a geek, she also helps me with my websites. I trust her as she
trusts me. I know she is very real – there is nothing ‘virtual’
about her, even though I have never met her.

While I may never
have seen or met “Pet”, there is depth in our friendship,
and solidity. I know, for some people, that is hard to accept. I’m
often asked questions like, how can you feel connected to someone you’ve
never met? How can you trust someone you’ve never seen? These
concerns are understandable given the newness of this medium and the
flow that determines these sorts of relationships. Oh there are dangers
too – the pretence borne out of anonymity, the addictions, the
spam and scams, the paedophiles, the pornography. And still, when I
meet up with blog buddies all over the world, how can I explain the
amazing level of comfort I feel!

I single out blogs
here as throwing up a whole different social system than do virtual
worlds and social networking sites. Detractors say, online you can be
whoever you want to be and nobody cares. That may be correct, yet, if
you try and fake things too hard, you most always are found out, and
can be verbally beaten. My belief is that people tend to act more like
themselves online than they like to admit. It is much more difficult
to hide away who you are when you are blogging. I’ve found myself
revealing things on my blog about myself that I would find difficult
to talk about face-to-face. Ugly things too.

And yet, I found
myself trusting myself as I began trusting people I met through this
medium. There is a fine line between the public, private and secret
self, and the boundaries blur sometimes. At others there is a conscious
effort to keep them apart. In a physical world, our lives are compartmentalized,
you have different sets of friends for different needs, and meet in
different physical spaces as a result. My blog is one space where
I connect with friends, potential clients, strangers, acquaintances,
even spammers and trolls. It is entirely up to me what I want to share
of me and when, at my blog. And, I have found, the more I share,
the more others do. It’s just an extension of basic human needs
for connection and community.”

This issue is carrying a special on youth and the internet. I see some bloggers I know like Dilip, Rashmi, Neha, Patrix and Shivam of course, who have made some neat contributions there – and as I glanced through the articles, I felt Shivam’s done a good job of getting a mix that does not perpetuate stereotypes the media usually portrays netizens to be.

MapMyName is a project started by a couple of students, who are aiming to assess how many people use the internet all over the world. They hope to achieve this within a month by spreading the mapmyname meme. Brave attempt!!

Currently, I’m the only user from Mumbai listed on there – and I think the only one from India too.