St0rY oF uNpReDiCtAbLe LiFe II

I’m always into samurai and shinobi (ninja) type of anime. I even watch Himawari even tough the anime somehow more into comedy type (means less action) but what the heck…as long there’s a shinobi in it! Just to name a few, among the title that I’ve watched that includes either samurai or shinobi elements in it are Samurai X, Samurai 7, Samurai Champloo, Peacemaker Kurogane, Basilisk, and Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto. Recently I had managed to get my hands on another anime that involves a samurai element in it; Shigurui.

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I’m always searching for media player that will let me watch my video files hassle free; meaning that I don’t have to worry about codec installation/setup and having different player for different file types. Before this, whether on Windows or Ubuntu, I often end up needing a different media player due to some problems that occurred. Mainly the problem consist of a bloated codec and its’ compatibility with my media player. At that time I used K-Lite Codec Pack as my main codec pack. Time passed by and I realized that I must change to other codec pack to rectify my problem; and doing some search on the net I’ve encountered with CCCP. It solve most of my problem thank GOD, but I realize how do I install CCCP in my Ubuntu machine?

Don’t get me wrong, the codec that I’ve downloaded from Ubuntu’s repositories provide me with no major problem at all but still I feel that it can become much better. Then through some of my acquaintances, I tried VLC media player. But it seems some of my *.mkv files will not play properly using this player. Some times the screen goes blank or when viewing videos with external subtitle files, there’s some kind of green line been drawn at the bottom of the screen. My searching at the net again had resulted in the discovery of another media player that share some of the greatness of VLC media player, SMPlayer. Read More

Okay, imagine a situation like this; you downloaded a files, in the end you notice that the file is corrupted and you have to redownload the files again. But there are certain scenarios that even though it’s corrupted, it’s still can be executed. For example video files. But due to the file corrupt problem, there are some glitches in the video. In some cases, it’s nice to know whether our downloaded files contains error or not as soon as possible. There are many ways or tools to use to check the files integrity. This kind of tools or techniques involved the usage of cryptographic hash functions (eg: SHA1, md5) and redundancy check functions (among others). Among the most popular method been used is Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC).

All right, we’ll look into a practical part and for that purpose I’ll use “[Shinsen-Subs]_Le_Chevalier_D’Eon_-_01_[6BD7BF33].avi” filename as an example. On a side notes, the example file is a video files (an anime to be exact) and as most fansubbers, they tend to include the CRC value at the end of their releases file name (the CRC value of that file is ‘6BD7BF33′). So basically, to check the file integrity, we will compute the CRC value of the file and compare it with the given CRC value. If it’s the same, safe to say that there are nothing wrong with the file and vice versa. For a little of howto demonstration, I will classify it into two different platform; Linux and Windows. Read More

I don’t quite remember where I get this comic strip, but it’s sure make me wonder of the difference between fortunate and unfortunate peoples (in a funny way that is). Significant or not, it’s a good lesson to be taken during this fasting season. To whom it may concern, enjoy your Ramadhan!

Yesterday, I had attended a seminar based on the topic “Developing the Network Content Industry“. The seminar was organized by Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC) in a hotel at Alor Star, Kedah. Well, the seminar is part of capacity building initiatives to develop the networked content industry which has been identified as one of the six growth areas under the MyICMS 886 implementation plan. To sum up the agenda of the seminar, there are 4 sessions as stated below;

• Session 1
  More like an introduction section of the whole topics like the definition of content, the functionality of MCMC and other governing bodies, etc. Topics covered in this session is as below;
  1. “Current Initiatives to Build the Landscape” by Mr. Roslan Mohamad, Director of Content Development Department of MCMC
  2. “Bringing Malaysian Content to the Global Threshold” by Mr. Kamil Ahmad Othman, VP of Creative Development of MDeC
• Session 2
  Consist of talks given by the possible distributor or buyer of our content creations.
  1. “Nurturing Mobile Millionaires” by Mr. Rostam Abd Hashim, Head of Maxis Developers Program.
  2. “Selling Content to Broadcasters” by Astro representative. Read More