Choto Cheeta Online

Greedier vBulletin – New vBulletin v4.0 licensing forces customers to pay more but get less

Choto Cheeta — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:57:40 +0000

Every alternate day we see some big market player getting sued by another smaller one over the word monopoly. Most of the time, while reading about it, many may have wondered, what’s so bad about it ?

Here is a really good example of why we should not have monopoly.

Take this example of vBulletin. One of the largest selling software product (internet web site script).

No doubt, they are the best when it comes to making a forum. Plug n play, everything is managed by database and really having a wide range of add-ons and modifications. Those who works and uses forum / online discussion boards, they know, it is the ultimate word when it comes to making a flexible forum.

Their licensing used to be very simple, either you buy once or you hire it for a certain time. Pay USD 100 per year to get unlimited updates and support or pay USD 160 to buy the script for life time without any support or upgrade after a year.

They never used to be cheap but they were clear about what you were getting after paying what. A potential customer knew that if he/she buy it, then after an year he or she wont receive any update or support, he/she would be on his/her own. Where as a customer who hire it, would need to pay USD 100 per year to continue enjoying the service. What ever the case was, in either way as a customer you knew its about 1 year and a certain (in this case, USD 100) amount and one could plan according to that.

Most of the web masters preferred the hiring way. As it ensured continuous update, which is necessary in terms of security of the script. Hence there are thousands of such customers of vBulletin who are running their software as a hired script.

But look what greed has forced vBulletin to do. With their 4.0 version, they made a complete mess of the licensing system.

They removed the leased license option totally
USD 195 for purchase the software
Software wont include support, which is now USD 80 per year.

What they are doing is, they are forcing all those leased (hired version) owners to buy the new version of this software. Because if they (the customers) don’t, after their term gets over, the software expires and they (the customers) end up with the down web site.

Lets compare the old structure and the new one.

All customers has to pay USD 195 to start with to get the software in indefinite updates till the next major version upgrade. It doesn’t include any support, hence one has to pay another USD 80 per year for the support option. So in total its USD 275 for the 1st year and USD 80 per year from next year onwards given that if you need support.

Can you spot the catch here ?

As a customer, you don’t know when the next major upgrade is coming and what would be its price !! Just like what has happened with all these hired / leased license owners.

No related posts.

Catch the Kolkata (Calcutta) Durga Puja 2009 at DoorerSathi.com

Choto Cheeta — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:43:49 +0000

The waiting is about to be over as the City of joy (Kolkata / Calcutta) prepares for the biggest event of an year. The excitement is rising as the shopping malls and markets buzzing with holiday shoppers. Artists are now under over time to complete their work as the Durga Puja is just around the corner.

Like every year, Team Doorer Sathi would travel and work round the clock to capture and upload the photos of Durga Pooja 2009 !!

So lets catch Durga Pooja 2009 via eyes of DoorerSathi.com, a picture album which would get regular updates of the puja and related topics (Durga Idol / Pandals / Decorations) as the event progresses !!,

Incidentally, one may check out previous year pictures / photos at Doorer Sathi.com. Durga Puja 2008, Durga Puja 2007, Durga Puja 2006, Kali Puja 2007, Kali Puja 2006.

Update :- Sep 13, 2009

Wet weather caused by a depression at Bay of Bengal increases the work load of the artists. Its a race against time to complete the idols on time.

Update :- Sep 23, 2009 (Panchami)

A glimpse of Salt Lake BJ block puja. Prize from Star Annada.

Update :- Sep 24, 2009 (Sosthi)

Pandal decoration of Md. (muhammad) Ali Park on the eve of sosti.

The 2009 Durga Puja pandal of Santosh Mitra Square.

For live update, stay tuned @ DoorerSathi.com

Mild / small earthquake hits Kolkata / West Bengal / Eastern India / ANDAMAN ISLANDS / Japan coast – TSUMANI warning has been issued

Choto Cheeta — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:16:17 +0000

It seems a mild / small earthquake has just hit Kolkata / West Bengal / eastern India / ANDAMAN ISLANDS / Japan coast.

Time was around 0130 hours of 11th August. It was mild and lasted for few (3-5 sec) seconds.

There are no news yet on any news channel or web site. So I am still waiting for an official word from the gov.

Update :-

Initial reports suggest that the epicenter is at Andaman and the bad news is, it is a 7.7 which has hit them directly.

Update :-

There was another at the same time, located near cost of JAPAN also. CNN has just broke the story.

(CNN) — A strong earthquake struck off the south coast of Japan on Sunday night local time, “jolting Tokyo and wide areas of eastern Japan,” the country’s Kyodo news agency reported.

Update :-

Warning guys..

(CNN) — A tsunami watch has been issued after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean near India’s Adaman Islands, authorities said.

The watch covers India, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and Bangladesh, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

TSUNAMI warning has been issued and if any one is reading this and is in any of the effected area, then please contact local authority for appropriate action and seek advise on what to do.

Update :-

If a TSUNAMI is generated then mainland India / Bangladesh / Myanmar / Thiland / Indonesia has less than 3 hours where as folks over there in Andaman have lees than an hour before they get hit by a tidal wave !!!

“It is not known that a tsunami was generated. This watch is based only on the earthquake evaluation. Authorities in the region should take appropriate action in response to this possibility.”

The estimated tsunami travel time would be an hour or less to the coasts of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, according to a bulletin issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency.

A tsunami would reach the coastlines of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia within one to three hours.

Lets pray that this stays as a warning and never becomes reality !!! We all know what TSUMANI in India ocean can do.

Update :-

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issues a TSUNAMI watch for Indian ocean.

Update :-

Some good news from JAPAN, as Japan Meteorological Agency calls off the TSUNAMI warning from the cost of JAPAN.

Update :-

Good news for South East Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia) also as just like Japan Meteorological Agency, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has also called off the TSUNAMI watch, which was issued for Indian Ocean.

(CNN) — The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has canceled a tsunami watch issued for five countries following a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean.

You may digg the story to spread the word

Paypal down ?? / Error 500 (Internal Server error) on log-in process

Choto Cheeta — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:41:00 +0000

It seems Paypal World wide is having an issue with its login process.

When ever I try to login to paypal, it is returning an error 500, meaning, something went wrong at their end under the server which handles user login request.

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@paypal.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Although, paypal is one of the most secure web site in the world wide web, but still, as so many credit or debit cards / online bank accounts are involved, it always brings a scare off attack on the service to obtain those financial data.

Update :-

paypal has withdrawn their main page and have put up a notice about a site problem.

We’re sprucing things up right now, but we should be done by 1:00 AM PDT.

Want the details? Checkout the PayPal Announcement Board.

However, the said announcement board is yet to have any notice about the on going problem.

Welcome to the PayPal Announcement Board!

In the event we are experiencing any site issues, we will provide additional information as soon as it becomes available.

Thank you for your patience.

PayPal

Update :-

Paypal Announcement board is now having some information for general users,

****Login/Payment Issues****

We are aware that you currently may be unable to log into your PayPal account or to complete a payment. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing. Please note that we are working to resolve these issues as soon as possible and will provide further updates as they become available.

Thank you for your patience.

PayPal

Update :-

Reports from few more blogger suggest that the service is working at some part or rather they have fixed the issue as many are able to log-in and use the service.

You may DIGG the story to spread the news

Windows 7 goes RTM (Release to Manufacturing)

Choto Cheeta — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:48:07 +0000

Microsoft has achieved a milestone today for Windows 7 by pushing it to RTM stage. The company has already started to ship the products to the OEM partners and by October 22, we would be able to find the OS at our nearest store.

Microsoft would continue to distribute the RC (Release Candidate) via the official download location and users can continue to obtain the product key for free. The download would be available till August 20, where as Microsoft would continue to provide RC keys till March 2010.

An important thing is noticeable in this announcement that although the retail copy is going to be out by October 2009 but the RC product (CD) key distribution would continue till March 2010. Meaning, indirectly acting as a demo version of the OS.

Mean while, reports suggest that crackers / pirates have already cracked and validated a pirated RTM copy of Windows 7, even before it can come out to the public.

Windows Live Movie Maker trial extender

Choto Cheeta — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:57:19 +0000

Those who have Windows Live Movie Maker installed, must note that present version of the product has expired on Jun 30, 2009. If you try to run the program, it would give you an error informing about the reason and would shut off.

“This trial version of Windows Live Movie Maker Beta has expired. Would you like to see if there is a new version available?”

Microsoft has issued an (2.8MB) update to counter the issue. The update is meant to extend the trial period till December 30, 2009.

The update is available for download free.

RIP MJ – News of Michael Jacson’s death almost took out Internet

Choto Cheeta — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:12:51 +0000

All it took is a news, one single news to take out Internet, well almost.

The internet bench-markers like Google / Twitter / CNN / Sky / Yahoo / WiKi / BBC, almost all major news related web sites have reported to either temporarily close off their services or have suffered down time due to the visitor explosion.

Not only web service providers, but ISP are also suffering for a sudden rise of users around the world. Many major ISP networks are reported running slow due to the pressure.

You may read in details in CNN / SkyNetwork / DailyMail

Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 (version 9.0.459) has been relased

Choto Cheeta — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:11:24 +0000

Kaspersky LABs have just released their new product line up.

The 2010 (v9.0.459) version of Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky AntiVirus. This time around, there is a separate version for low end hardware based NetBook or ultra portables which is called Kaspersky Internet Security for Ultra portables.

One may download a free 30 days trial and present Kaspersky users can upgrade to 2010 product line up with their existing product key.

Download -> KIS 2010 / KAV 2010 / KIS up 2010

Please note, Ultra portable versions are hardware bounded so it would only run with a certain pre-specified configuration. Do read the system requirements of the Ultra Portable versions.

CCleaner 2.20.920 released (May 28, 2009)

Choto Cheeta — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:37:17 +0000

CCleaner has a new update on its company web site. The version comes with following changes,

- Added support for Google Chrome recently closed tabs.
- Disabled removal of most recent System restore point.
- Fixed bug with Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View settings.
- Improved uninstaller support for Windows 7.
- Enhanced right-click menu options for Cleaner screen tree.
- Added extra information under title for Options and Tools screens.
- Added right-click menu to Registry screen tree.
- Added support to multi-select items in Include, Exclude and System Restore screens.
- Added language support for Estonian and Farsi.
- Internal 64-bit improvements.
- Minor bug fixes.

Downlaod CClenaer

IE8 final released, now available for Download

Windows Virtual PC 2007 (Windows XP Mode) and MED-V -> A quick over view

Choto Cheeta — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:31:09 +0000

Microsoft is aiming to bring virtualization under mainstream computing via couple of its up coming products.

Windows Virtual PC along with Windows XP mode and MED-V (Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization) are among those products by which Microsoft is aiming to provide both home and business users the ability to utilize the power of virtualization.

The main force behind this move is a basic question which comes up every time when we get a new operating system. That is, application compatibility. Users find it difficult to afford the cost to upgrade / update their existing applications to make them compatible with the new OS hence adoption of a new OS becomes problematic.

Previously, we have seen that since Windows 2000, Microsoft is running their Windows Downgrade Rights programs to allow users to obtain and downgrade to a previous version of OS. However, with up-coming Windows 7 we can all rest assure about the application compatibility issue.

Windows Virtual PC

A product, specially design for Windows 7 to provide integrated virtualization support.

It is available for download as an add on for Windows 7, and beta testers / RC users can start using it straightway.

What is it exactly ?

Those who are familiar with Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 can understand and adopt soon enough, but those who are not, for them, in simple words, its like a computer running inside another.

Below is a screenshot of the process,

On the picture above, you can see, a computer is running Windows 7 RC 7100 as its physical OS, where as inside Windows 7, with help of Windows Virtual PC, Windows XP SP3 has been installed as guest OS. Both the OS can now run simultaneously, Windows 7 as native physical OS, where as Windows XP via virtualization under Windows Virtual PC.

What’s new in Windows Virtual PC ?

Application Virtualization

The running process is very similar to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, however something new to this software would be the application virtualization. You can launch an application, which is installed side of the virtual machine without starting the virtual machine itself, compare to other virtualization platform, where you need to run the Guest OS to use any application installed in it.

Hardware support

One more important feature and major development from VPC 2007 is support to access all major physical hardware under virtual environment. With Windows Virtual PC, an user can now access almost all possible USB devices and can use them, even if the host OS (Win7) is missing appropriate drivers of them.

You can now either seamlessly access the connected USB device (storage, printer, modem, etc) in both guest and host OS via Windows VPC or you can redirect the access only to the virtual environment by providing access of that USB device only to the virtual OS.

Seamless resource sharing and shell integration

Unlike previews versions, in Windows VPC, every guest OS has full and seamless access to all hard / usb drives, printers and other available hardware resource available to your host OS.

Windows XP mode

A ready to be used, pre-configured Windows XP SP3 virtual installation given to Windows 7 users. This pre-configured Guest OS reduces the license fee which may would have to pay with previews versions of MS VPC.

Its bit early to say as which SKU’s or versions of Windows 7 RTM would contain this feature however, higher versions like Ultimate and business is certain to contain this update / feature as default.

As for RC users, the Windows XP mode beta is available for download as an Windows 7 optional update.

Things to note before trying

Although, both x86 and x64 platforms are support for host os, however, only x86 guest os can run under Windows VPC.

One must have a processor supporting hardware virtualization to use Windows Virtual PC. Thing to remember is, Microsoft VPC 2007 could actually run with a processor without hardware virtualization. Intel VT and AMD-V are 2 populer hardware virtualization product.

More RAM, at-least 1.25 GB to run Windows XP mode where as 2 GB is recommenced !!

At-least 15 GBs of hard disk space, where as minimum of 2 GB free space in your OS drive !!

So gear up and try out the new technology, if having supported hardware ofcource !!