Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

Swara in Indonesia

2011-12-02T19:32:00.001-08:00

Note: This article draws on several comparisons between India and Indonesia in terms of connectivity and culture. As more replications of the Swara technology happen across the developing world, I hope to draw a baseline that is shared by many countries.

Ever since the CGNet Swara pilot in Chhattisgarh (India) went viral, we've been looking to replicate the Swara platform and citizen journalism model in other parts of the world. So when Sam De Silva of Internews contacted me about setting up an installation in Indonesia, I jumped at the opportunity.

Day 1: Friday, Dec 2, 2011
For the first time in my travels, I find myself in a country that looks and feels almost exactly like India.
Exiting the airport, I'm accosted by a short young man with shiny black hair tied in a neat ponytail. "Sim Card?", he asks eagerly, holding out 5 packaged Indosat SIM cards. Wikipedia will later tell me that Indosat is the 2nd most popular service provider in Indonesia after Telkomsel, with north of 40 million subscribers as of Q4, 2010. Telkomsel, which is primarily state owned has over 90 million subscribers.
I dont buy any, since I'm hoping to get the best deal out of the tariff plan jungle that I'm sure exists in Indonesia as it does in most other countries in this region and my friend with the SIM cards doesn't seem keen on a long involved conversation. The SIM card costs only Rp. 50,000 and in Indonesia, that is clearly not a price worthy of a drawn out sales process.

The big difference from India though is the simplicity of SIM card purchase. India over the last couple of years has started tightening its mobile phone and SIM card tracking systems, ostensibly in the name of national security, to the point where its no longer possible to purchase a SIM card in India without a local reference, who will need to provide a documentary proof of residence and a photograph besides.

Indonesia clearly is a freer market. You can buy a SIM card much as you would buy a pack of cigarettes. It would be interesting to see how this impacts usage. Based on the simplicity of purchase, I would expect most people here to carry dual SIM phones and leverage the best tariff plan on a call by call basis. This is something I hope to check on while I am here.

Jakarta is a warm humid city that seems to stay up all night. Even at midnight, I saw people hanging about on street corners. Street food also appears to be popular and vendors also seem to stay up all night.
On first impressions, Indonesian culture appears to be fundamentally community oriented, very much like India.
Groups of three or more appear to be more common than loners or couples.
As distinct from the western world, where individual physical space is highly valued, I see people standing closer to each other, even when they clearly are not part of the same group. Phones appear to be used for talking more than texting or "app-ing". These are all encouraging signs for me, since I am here to set up a voice based system.
Interestingly, Swara means voice in Bahasa Indonesia, just as it does in most Indian languages. I am hoping it will catch on just as quickly here.

Day 2: Saturday, Dec 3, 2011
I finally meet up with Sam for breakfast and we spend some time planning out our work here. Our partners in this experiment are Air Putih and RuaiTV. Over the last week I have spent time online with the AirPutih team to get a local installation of Swara running and we now have a Swara installation that speaks Bahasa Indonesia. Later today, we will meet the AirPutih team and head with them to Pontianak, in West Kalimantan, where RuaiTV has a facility. The Swara installation is targeted at this region.

Sam and I talk about deployment strategies. Lately I have been thinking about a hyperlocal deployment model, which would involve having ultra-cheap, possibly portable IVR installations hosted by community members, that will act as local audio bulletin boards. The best posts from these local installations can be extracted from a central management hub and processed to create high quality audio content that can be used for different applications, such as radio and/or television programming.
The key requirements for a hyperlocal deployment model would be :

The components used would need to be cheap and locally available.
The process of setting up and managing a local unit would need to be well documented
A strong core community of citizen journalists and moderators needs to be built around each unit

If this can be done, the potential for this type of service is almost unlimited. (More about hyperlocal deployments later in the post)

Later we head to the Air Putih office, where Agus (Bobo) Triwanto and Agung R are waiting for us.
Over strong black coffee and smokes, we get to know each other.
Air Putih is a fascinating organization that focuses on disaster management and open source technology. They are best known for their work using V-SAT links to rebuild network infrastructure in the tsunami affected areas of Indonesia.
They are currently working on a project to migrate the Indonesian government IT systems to open source software and also researching software usage patterns and motivations in Indonesia.
Bobo confirms my hunch that most of Indonesia's online population uses datacards or mobile phones to connect to the internet. Fixed lines are apparently difficult to get, given the administrative red tape. I also learn that while most of western Indonesia (including Jakarta) is reasonably well connected, the eastern half has very limited connectivity.

We also discuss the state of media in Indonesia. Like most of the world, Indonesia's commercial media is also focussed on news that generates ad revenue. There is also substantial political involvement in the media industry. The net result is that community relevant news doesn't leave the local area and getting real relevant information from the ground is very difficult.
While Indonesia allows news to be broadcast on community radio, the range for transmitters is limited to 2 kilometres and community radio stations cannot generate revenue from advertising.

On the way to the airport we stop at a mall for a pair of feature phones. Relatively low cost local phone manufacturers are popular in the Indonesian cellphone market and the use of multi-card hybrid phones is clearly prevalent. Sam picks up two MOVI phones for under a 100 dollars, one that supports two SIM cards and one that actually has a portable TV built into it (including a neat foldaway antenna). Both phones support email, Facebook and Twitter through Java.

Harry Surjadi is waiting for us at the airport. Mas Harry, a veteran journalist with over 20 years of experience is a Knight International Journalism Fellow and has been working to promote community journalism in Indonesia in collaboration with RuaiTV, who will host the Swara server in Pontianak. RuaiTV already has an installation of FrontlineSMS at their office, and Harry has put together a community of over a 100 citizen journalists and over 250 FrontlineSMS subscribers across West Kalimantan. He will be our point of contact with RuaiTV and will also help to train the users and moderators of the Swara installation at RuaiTV.

I learn from Mas Harry that indigenous communities in Indonesia face many of the same problems that exist in India. I hear of people dispossessed of their land by palm oil companies. Palm oil is a major cash crop and the state has allocated large tracts of land originally belonging to indigenous people to oil palm plantation owners. I also hear of people displaced without compensation by mining companies in West Kalimantan and Papua.
From what Mas Harry tells me, Indonesia sounds like the perfect place to replicate Swara in, since like India, Indonesia also has a strong oral culture and several indigenous communities speaking traditional languages.

We arrive in Pontianak three hours later. Pontianak, named after a "vampire ghoul" according to Wikipedia, is a relatively small city. Our hotel is next to a mall though and we kit ourselves up with SIM cards to use for our setup at RuaiTV.
Buying a SIM card in Pontianak is just as painless as buying one in Jakarta, though network strengths of different operators vary.
We pick up a SIMPati (Telkomsel) card for the installation and I get an XL card for myself. I discover that the informal market in "fancy" numbers that exists in India has been institutionalized in Indonesia and "prettier" numbers are more expensive. The one we pick for the installation is about 3 times the price of a "regular" number.

Day 3: Sunday, Dec 4, 2011
We arrive at RuaiTV fresh and early and are greeted by Mas Pancha, who is in charge of maintaining all of RuaiTV's technology. The setup takes less than half a day and we are soon ready to test. I quickly discover that as in most parts of the developing world, connectivity and electricity are both erratic in Pontianak. We ensure that the system is properly hooked up to a UPS, to avoid potential data corruptions resulting from hard power downs.
Bobo and Agung from AirPutih quickly develop a familiarity with the system that gives me a lot of confidence in their ability to support it into the future.
Mas Harry suggests linking up the web end of the platform to RuaiTV's Wordpress site, and I spend the rest of the day and some of the night getting the integration working. With the addition of the MP3-jPlayer plugin to the Wordpress site and a simple Python script to add posts to Wordpress using the XML RPC API we are all set to publish to the website directly.

Day 4: Monday, Dec 5, 2011
The plan for the day is to train the RuaiTV staff on how to use and manage the system. We start at 10 with the usual introductions and then I go over the need for citizen media, using the standard Swara approach where we compare community media/platforms to a circle, where everyone is at the same level and equally equipped to communicate with everyone else on the platform.

The team tells me that a "Ruai" in Kalimantan is the same thing as a "Chaupal" in India or a "Chaikhana" in Afghanistan. Clearly, the concept of a community meeting place to trade ideas, opinions and stories is a cross cultural one.

I then go on to talk about how commercial media is structured like a triangle, with a few people at the top determining what is "news-worthy" content for the entire community.

In this model journalists are sent, typically from a corporate, urban environment to report about communities in less developed areas. These journalists are typically pressured for time and handicapped by the fact that they are alien to the community, often to the point of not even speaking the local language. With these conditions, it is no surprise that commercial media frequently reports a version of events that is relevant only to the elite, cosmopolitan section of the community.
I point out my own situation in Indonesia, where by virtue of not speaking the language and meeting primarily, educated, urban Indonesians, I will likely leave the country with a less than accurate picture of the ground reality unless I spend time with the communities I want to understand and really get into their world.
We also talk about the challenges faced by professional journalists employed by smaller media organizations, where in addition to collecting news the journalist is also responsible for generating revenue through advertizing. In that situation, impartial reporting is almost an impossibility, since the journalist has no incentive to report news that may be contrary to the interests of advertisers who are in all probability providing a bigger percentage of the reporters income than the media organization itself. This idea quickly catches on and the team comes up with several anecdotes of similar occurrences in their own experience.
Next we talk about what happens to communities when they are left isolated and without a voice. I share the example of development affected indigenous communities in Central India and talk about the work we have done with CGNet Swara.
Bobo then demonstrates the use of the IVR channel. We realize that the Indosat backup card on the system doesn't transfer DTMF tones correctly and everyone switches to using the SIMPati number. After the few expected false starts with the IVR, the team quickly starts adding content to the system.
Once we have a message from each of the participants, we then go on to talk about moderation.
The RuaiTV folks are well versed with editing software, so getting them used to Audacity doesnt take much time. Soon, we have our first released audio report on the RuaiTV website.

Day 5: Tuesday, Dec 6, 2011
With the system set up and the first round of moderators trained, it's time to open the floodgates and introduce the platform to citizen journalists in the region. Mas Harry has called in some of his top CJs from his experiment with FrontlineSMS. We start the session in much the same way as the one for the RuaiTV folks, except that we spend a lot more time talking about the importance of community media.
We also talk about hyperlocal vs centralized deployments again. I am trying to get more and more people from the community to volunteer to host basic IVR systems, that will be exposed to relatively small, known groups of people. Having flirted with several ideas on how to make a community news platform sustainable, my current favorite theory is that the only way to make the audio portal paradigm stick is to make the technology simple enough for someone with basic computing skills to manage and then replicate in small community supported units. These units can then be linked up to form a larger network.
This is in contrast to the centralized model, where all users access a single number/website.
In a centralized model, scaling up is more difficult for two reasons:
1. The call volume is higher as a result of concentration at a single point, meaning a higher overhead on managing content quality
2. Since multiple callers are more likely to call simultaneously in a centralized deployment, the cost of installation rises proportionally to the number of lines supported.

Particularly in India and other countries where long distance calls are still charged at a premium rate, this translates to even higher costs of running. Several approaches are being tried by different parties already to find a way to sustain a centralized model, such as subsidized calls, but the success has been limited at best.
In the long term, I suspect that the hyperlocal model will prevail, since it allows more cross fertilization of content as well as the opportunity for function specific centralized portals to pick up relevant content from multiple channels simultaneously.
For example, a news centric portal might look for community generated news, while a governance centric portal may look specifically for grievances.

A few of the participants show an interest in deploying a local instance, but clearly the cost of buying the GSM interface (roughly USD 120) is still a stumbling block for most implementers.
The AirPutih team and I discussed this earlier and came up with the idea of using an Android phone or even a simple datacard as the interface. At least one model of datacard sold in India (the Tata Photon, Huawei EC1260) can make voice calls and I am keen on finding others that can be used for the same purpose. If we can make a datacard work as the voice interface, that will drastically reduce the cost of deployment, boosting the chances for a hyperlocal model to take off.

With Bobo and Mas Harry providing expert translation, the CJs quickly catch on to the idea of using the IVR. Of course, their initial enthusiasm will need to be reinforced with regular follow ups, but as a training exercise, the session is a success.

We end the day with a taste of the local brew and as a rare treat Mas Ivie, the head of RuaiTV, cooks us a snake, adding an extreme touch to my Indonesian experience.

Day 7: Thursday, Dec 8, 2011
Wednesday was planned as a buffer day and having finished the training and installation on schedule, I have a chance to visit the equator monument before we head back to Jakarta.

Thursday is a big day. We're meeting representatives from community radio and other social technology organizations to demonstrate and train on the Swara platform. I have my laptop installation handy and we use Agung's SIM card in a Matrix SETU ATA 211G as the interface.
The participants are all information activists in their own right and they have no trouble seeing the huge potential of a voice based technology as an information exchange tool.
This group is also very tech savvy and by the end of the day they're already competent on the use of the IVR system as well as the concepts of moderation.

Day 8: Friday, Dec 9, 2011
Today is my last day in Indonesia and we're continuing the workshop from yesterday. Now that the group has had a chance to use the system and understand at least in concept how its set up, most of them are confident that they would be able to set up the platform with some assistance. The natural next line of discussion is deployment strategy. One of the participants is the head of a village and I start by suggesting that someone of his stature could install the system in their own house as a hyperlocal instance and add on users at his own pace. In such a system, all users would be known to the community which would automatically reduce the amount of spam on the system.
The group agrees with this and several more ideas for a deployment plan are discussed.
We wind up the day with several of the participants installing the Swara software on their laptops to start experimenting with it. The enthusiasm is infectious and I use the time to move our code to GitHub and set up a community forum to support the new implementers.
Later that evening I part ways with the AirPutih team, who have in a very short time become good friends. We will sync up again in the new year to collaborate on feature development and on building out the Swara community in Indonesia.

I return to India the next day, with a newfound confidence that we will be able to grow Swara into a global community.

CGNet Swara is a Finalist at Ashoka Changemakers...we need VOTES

2011-11-09T19:30:00.001-08:00

It's my pleasure to announce that we have made it to the finals at the Ashoka Changemakers CItizen Media Competition. We now need votes to win the final stage.

The voting methods are a little complicated and if you run into issues, please do write back to me or call me at +919811142825 and I will assist you with the process
There are two ways to vote:

With your email:
1. Go to http://embed.changemakers.com/citizenmedia# and click the CGNet Swara photo on the top right corner (its the one with a citizen journalist interviewing two children)
2. On the CGNet Swara page, click the white link that says "Vote"
3. Provide your email address and location
4. Click "Submit" and wait till the site acknowledges your vote. This may take a few seconds and multiple clicks usually cause the application to have errors
5. Go to your email and confirm your vote (THIS IS IMPORTANT)In case this gives you an error "Unspecified error occurred" or similar and you have not received an email address, you can also vote from the Facebook app:

Using Facebook:
1. Log in to Facebook
2. Go to http://apps.facebook.com/changemakers/?ref=ts
3. Click the "Vote" icon
4. Click the checkbox next to CGNet Swara

If you have already registered an account with Changemakers in the past, this will direct you to log in to the Changemakers site.

Thanks again for your support and patience. A few links below, in case you would like to know more about our work:

For the audio-visually inclined, a short film (1 min) describing what we do: CGNet Swara Elevator Pitch Video (Low Res), CGNet Swara Elevator Pitch Video (Hi Res)
For those who prefer to read: The CGNet Swara Site , Our News Page
For the powerpoint types: Voices Across the Digital Divide (a.k.a. there's plenty of room at the bottom)

Our Ashoka Competition Entry
About the competition

CGNet+Swara:+Voice+Portal+for+Community+Media+in+India

2011-09-15T04:33:00.000-07:00

CGNet+Swara:+Voice+Portal+for+Community+Media+in+India

KVM and VirtualBox Conflict for 64 bit Guests

2011-07-08T23:53:00.000-07:00

Just discovered while writing an article for a Linux mag that KVM and VBox conflict with each other over CPUs...such bickering...tch tch ...
When I try to fire up a KVM machine with VirtualBox Running I get this in dmesg:

[ 297.460218] br0: port 2(vnet0) entering disabled state
[ 300.371215] kvm: enabling virtualization on CPU1 failed
[ 300.371225] kvm: enabling virtualization on CPU2 failed
[ 300.371235] kvm: enabling virtualization on CPU3 failed
[ 300.371245] kvm: enabling virtualization on CPU4 failed
[ 300.371255] kvm: enabling virtualization on CPU5 failed
[ 300.371267] kvm: enabling virtualization on CPU0 failed

And when I try to run a Vbox VM with a KVM running in the background, it complains that AMD-v is disabled and 64 bit guests wont work...
Not sure if it applies to 32 bit VMs as well...anyone know?

Pipe dreams for Mobile's future in India

2011-07-04T00:34:00.000-07:00

Out of 811 million mobile consumers in India only 40 million are using mobile internet. By contrast 771 million users are limited in their use of mobile phones to audio and SMS. There needs to be more focus on developing platforms that can be leveraged by this user base. These applications include voice based content platforms like CGNet Swara, mobile banking systems based on shortcakes, such as EKO and other such innovative ideas..
Currently commercial investment seems to be focused on the mobile internet userbase. There is a need for social and commercial enterprises that cater to users across service providers and agnostic of them.
Just as what sites and applications you access on your phone doesn’t depend on your service provider, similarly voice and text services need to be provider agnostic.
There needs to be more commercial focus on what is needed as distinct from what's convenient.
There appears to be a substantial focus in the mobile space, at least in India, on developing technology to make more effective selling platforms.
Perhaps the question needs to be changed from “How do we make a platform to sell things easily to people?” to “How do we make it easier to sell things to people on the platforms they already have?”

How To Migrate from VirtualBox to KVM on Ubuntu 11.04 (NattyNarwhal)

2011-06-08T02:13:00.000-07:00

I needed to migrate my development VM (running Fedora 14) from VirtualBox running on my Mac to my Ubuntu Server (11.04, NattyNarwhal). Don't ask why...I'm a masochist.

As with all things virtual, this usually means shaving a few yaks.

Yak 1 (baby yak):
Install VirtualBox on the Ubuntu server, so that you can use VboxManage

apt-get install VirtualBox : FAIL!

For some reason the VirtualBox package on Ubuntu is named something else. An apt-cache search tells me what I'm missing:

apt-get install virtualbox-ose

Success!!! Takes about 40 mins on my pathetic BSNL broadband connection, but eventually, I have VirtualBox installed

Yak 2 (second baby yak)
Convert the .vdi image used by VirtualBox to the qcow format that KVM prefers

So I copy over my 5.6 GB .vdi file (takes me a while to locate it on my Mac) to the Ubuntu box. Simple scp command that I refuse to provide...just because I'm feeling nasty. If you don't know how, use a USB stick.

First, I convert my .vdi file to a raw image:

VBoxManage clonehd --format RAW mydiskname.vdi mydiskname.img

Then I convert the .img file to a .qcow file:

qemu-img convert -f raw mydiskimage.img -O qcow2 mydiskimage.qcow

Success!!! Now I have a qcow image. I quickly test this image by running:

kvm -m 1024 -usbdevice tablet -hda mydiskimage.qcow -vnc :1

Since I am running a headless server, I need the VNC argument.

I use Chicken on the VNC (cotvnc from Sourceforge) to connect to my server and voila!! my VM is running.

Yak 3 (Momma Yak)
Getting my KVM virtual machine to connect to my network in bridged mode (i.e. like its an independent machine on the network, not some second class NAT-ted citizen)

First I need to set up my bridge. A little googling tells me to change my /etc/network/interfaces file from being like so:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1

to being like so:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet manual

auto br0
iface br0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.100
        network 192.168.0.0
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1
        bridge_ports eth0
        bridge_fd 9
        bridge_hello 2
        bridge_maxage 12
        bridge_stp off

(thanks mr falko and howtoforge)

Next I restart my network (of course this promptly kicks me off my SSH session).

/etc/init.d/networking restart

Yak 4 (Big daddy Yak)
So now I have my br0 bridge configured. Next I need to figure out how to make KVM use it. Unfortunately all googling reveals that I need to use the virt-manager to make this happen because enough people have almost killed themselves trying to fight KVM on the command line.

virt-manager is apparently a GUI app. So I spend a few minutes cursing the world for making me install X, until I find this by some Anonymous angel in some comment on howtoforge:

"you CAN run virt-manager on a headless server.
On my Mac, I ran "xhost +my.server.ip". Then "ssh -X my.server.ip". Once there, "sudo apt-get install virt-manager". This will install a bunch of stuff, including GTK libs and some supporting X apps, but it DOESNT actually require X, a Window Manager, or all the other X bloat you don't need if you aren't using the local monitor.

Then make sure the DISPLAY variable is set: "echo $DISPLAY". If not, set it: "export DISPLAY='my.mac.ip:0' ". Then by just typing "sudo virt-manager" on the server (via the ssh session), virt-manager will RUN on the headless server, but DISPLAY on your Mac.

This assumes you have X11 installed on the Mac. If not, install it from the Leopard DVD."

So I download virt-manager:

apt-get install virt-manager

Despite its best intentions it can't avoid downloading some bloat. Once its up and running I follow Mr. Anonymous' instructions and try to get it launched. It works the first time, but then it just keeps giving me the infamous "cannot open display error".
So I spend a couple of hours trying to fix that. Ultimately I resort to the:

ssh -X user@myserverip xterm

In the xterm:

sudo virt-manager

This launches the program. I choose to use an existing image for a new VM and choose the qcow I created while dealing with Yak1.

However, when I try to boot it, it gives me a "Not a bootable device" error. Meet Granddaddy Yak!

Yak 5 (Granddaddy Yak)

Apparently, (According to Dev's blog, found only in Google's cache, bless their heart):

It appears that virt-manager does not read the hard drive image format of a pre-existing image when creating a new virtual machine and instead chooses the “raw” format. Since virt-manager seems to store it’s setting internally, you cannot just edit the /usr/libvirt/qemu/VMNameHere.xml file.
You must export the libvirt vm settings to xml, fix the hard drive image formatting, and import the vm settings back into libvirt.

Get vm name:

virsh -c qemu:///session list –all

Export vm settings:

virsh -c qemu:///session dumpxml VMName > /tmp/VMName.xml

Update the hard drive format in the xml file:

From

<devices>

<emulator>/usr/bin/kvm</emulator>

<disk type=â��fileâ�� device=â��diskâ��>

<driver name=â��qemuâ�� type=â��rawâ��/>

<source file=â��/storage/node1.qcowâ��/>

<target dev=â��hdaâ�� bus=â��ideâ��/>

</disk>

To

<devices>

<emulator>/usr/bin/kvm</emulator>

<disk type=â��fileâ�� device=â��diskâ��>

<driver name=â��qemuâ�� type=â��qcow2â��/>

<source file=â��/storage/node1.qcowâ��/>

<target dev=â��hdaâ�� bus=â��ideâ��/>

</disk>

Remove old vm settings in virt-manager:

Open virt-manager and delete the problem vm but make sure to leave the hard drive image

Import in the fixed xml file:

virsh -c qemu:///session define /tmp/VMName.xml

The vm will automatically appear in virt-manager.

The vm should boot fine now.

Thanks Dev! It works now. The floor is thick with Yak wool, I've exhausted an amount of coffee that my mother would have considered appropriate for consumption over a few months and my mouth tastes of burnt tobacco, but my Virtual Machine is migrated from VirtualBox to KVM.

Parting shot: Still easier than installing VMware ESX on an AMD Phenom X6 1090T...with a NIC not on the VMware HCL. Viva Le Open Source

CGNet Swara shortlisted for IAN Bootcamp...WE NEED YOUR VOTE NOW!

2011-05-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm thrilled to announce that CGNet Swara has been shortlisted for the Indian Angels Network Bootcamp event in June.

CGNet Swara is an independent mobile community journalism and social media platform.
Our pilot in the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh is currently receiving over 100 calls a day and we are creating a significant social impact!

Check the pilot out for yourself at http://cgnetswara.org or leave a missed call at 080 4113 7280. The service will call you back!

The event will provide us a unique opportunity to showcase the work we have done so far as well as our future plans with some of the country's top investors. This is our chance to take Swara to the next level as a sustainable, scalable social enterprise!

We are one of 15 startups selected for this round. 6 startups will finally be selected for the event based on popularity (read VOTES).

The top 6 entries will then be invited to the Delhi Boot-Camp and given an opportunity to pitch to IAN Members and the top 2 from that session will get -

Opportunity to participate at Grand Finale of IAN Boot-Camp at Delhi on June 5th and get the funding that you were seeking!

Highly subsidized personal Business Plan making service from MyBplan.in

Incubation support from IAN Incubator : India's largest virtual incubator

Technology Solutions and Mentoring from our partners

This is YOUR chance to contribute. Voting is a simple 4 step process:

Step 1 - Login to Facebook

Step 2 - 'Like' the Boot-camp Facebook Page where the shortlist is announced : http://goo.gl/kVHZ7. This is necessary as Facebook doesn't allow to 'Like' a photo directly.

Step 3 - ‘Like’ CGNet Swara photo in the Delhi Boot-camp Shortlisted Ideas album http://on.fb.me/jqSRCE

Step 4 - Spread the word

Your support is crucial to our success!

Home VDI 101

2011-03-13T21:42:00.001-07:00

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T...6 X 3.2 GHz cores+8 GB of RAM...gives me a Win 7 VDI Desktop for everyone in the family...plus room for guests

Has anyone used Yugma?

2011-03-01T21:07:00.001-08:00

https://extras.skype.com/1003/view

Want to test this out...anyone for takers?

CGNet Swara

2011-01-16T22:02:00.000-08:00

Setting up a dev VM for Swara using Fusion, Fedora, Asterisk, Loudblog and SJPhone...config info coming soon

CGNet Swara: http://cgnetswara.org

How to associate a vmknic to an iSCSI HBA in VMware ESXi 4.0

2010-10-12T14:26:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly, Googling this doesn't get very far. Not anymore!

Got a VMWare VMA going on my environment and ran the following:

[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 1.1.1.1 --username root --password xxxx swiscsi nic list

Error: Missing required parameter -d|--adapter
Usage: esxcli swiscsi nic list [cmd options]
Cmd options:
-d|--adapter= The software iSCSI adapter name. (required)

Err! It talks back! So I give it an adapter name (picked that off the Storage configuration page on the ESX host)

[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 10.0.0.44 --username root --password xxxx swiscsi nic list -d vmhba32

vmk0
pNic name: vmnic0
ipv4 address: 10.0.0.44
ipv4 net mask: 255.255.248.0
ipv6 addresses:
mac address: 00:25:64:fd:e6:ea
mtu: 1500
toe: false
tso: true
tcp checksum: false
vlan: true
vlanId: 0
ethernet speed: 1000
packets received: 1536649186
packets sent: 1556689019
NIC driver: bnx2
driver version: 2.0.7d-2vmw
firmware version: 5.2.2 NCSI 2.0.8

Now I'm going to split these guys up!

[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 10.0.0.44 --username root --password xxxx swiscsi nic remove -n vmk0 -d vmhba32

Did I succeed?

[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 10.0.0.44 --username root --password xxxx swiscsi nic list -d vmhba32
No nics found for this adapter.

Yes, they are now divorced

[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 10.0.0.44 --username root --password xxxx swiscsi nic list -d vmhba32
No nics found for this adapter.

Lets see what else we have here

[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 10.0.0.44 --username root --password xxxx swiscsi
Usage: esxcli swiscsi {app} {cmd} [cmd options]

App:
nic Operations that can be performed on iSCSI NICs
session Operations that can be performed on iSCSI sessions
vmknic Operations that can be performed on iSCSI vmknics
vmnic Operations that can be performed on iSCSI vmnics
[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 10.0.0.44 --username root --password P@ssword1 swiscsi vmknic
Usage: esxcli swiscsi vmknic {cmd} [cmd options]

Cmd:
list List logical network portals(vmknic).

Lets see what gets listed on the vmknic side:

[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 10.0.0.44 --username root --password xxxx swiscsi vmknic list -d vmhba32
vmk0
vmknic name: vmk0
mac address: 00:25:64:fd:e6:ea
mac address settable: NO

vmk1
vmknic name: vmk1
mac address: 00:50:56:74:ea:3a
mac address settable: NO

Lets figure out which vmk is what

And now we marry the vmknic to the hba, say what you will now or forever hold your peace:

[vi-admin@localhost ~]$ esxcli --server 10.0.0.44 --username root --password xxxx swiscsi nic add -n vmk0 -d vmhba32

Happy day! My vmknic is now married to the HBA!

Login VSI Outlook Hangs

2010-10-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Heresay from Jesleen Jose in QA:
Turning on Windows 7 Search and installing Office 2007 SP2 seems to stop Login VSI from hanging during workload tests involving Outlook.

HOWTO use vGhettoLinkedClones.pl to create Linked Clones

2010-08-11T16:22:00.001-07:00

1. Download the VMWare VMA OVF from http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/automationtools/vima
2. Deploy the VMWare VMA OVF on an ESX Server
3. Boot up the VMA, and choose to configure Network and DNS with DHCP
4. Provide a password for the vi-admin user
5. Download the vGhettoLinkedClones.pl from http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/vGhettoLinkedClone.pl
6. SCP the script to viadmin:~ on the VMA. The VMA does not have wget or yum or up2date, so you will need to download to a different machine and scp it into the VMA
7. Once it is copied, log in to the VMA as vi-admin and run "chmod a+x vGhettoLinkedClone.pl"
8. You can now clone by running:
./vGhettoLinkedClone.pl --server VIRTUALCENTERIP --username VCUSERNAME --password VCPASSWORD --datastore DESTDATASTORE --vmhost ESXHOST --vmname SRCVMNAME --vmname_destination LINKEDCLONENAME --snapname SNAPNAME

Droid: Take 1

2010-05-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

So I upgraded my Blackberry 8830 World Edition to a MotoDroid this week.
Still evaluating the Droid...sexy as it is, I'm still on the fence about utility.

Take so far:

Cool, Cute and Useful Stuff (the R2D2 list):
1. Google Goggles: Scan biz cards..works most of the time...if your biz card is readable...and logos...not so hot on faces and random objects...it thought my watch looked like a toilet seat
2. Speakers: having never owned a phone that plays music before, I suspect I just love the speakers because I cant tell great from average.
3. Camera: 5 MP...full motion video, decent shake correction and autofocus...managed a good video of a stick fight...
4. OS: Android is fun to use...its smooth, its fast and it has a Linux-y feel to it...very slick Linux too..

Hearts in the right place (probably), but needs more work (the WallE list):
1. Email: Native client crashes repeatedly trying to connect to a pop3 account...thank god for K-9...decent replacement...does an outlook think of polling every 5 mins..usable...but nothing compared to the blackberry
2. Calendaring: Clunky Clunky Clunky....HAVE to use google calendar...Fie google!! now thats being evil!!!
3. Autocomplete: Irritating and useful by turns...probably cause im not used to it after the bb

Getting Age of mythology to work on VMware Workstation 7

2010-03-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

Repost from VMWare Communities:

Ocozette say:

"Oops, my previous post was incorectly dysplayed.

To play with Age of Mythology under vmware (tested successfully under my vmware workstation 7), you must create a file named
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\gfxconfig\0x15AD_vmware.gfx"

For dummies do :

Start, run and type cmd.exe
Type cd C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\gfxconfig"
Type <> (all text betwenn <<>> must be typed) and confirm yes create.
Enter the following text in notepad, save and qui notepad
Now age of mythology is working !

Notice, I used latest addition, if you doesn't have latest vmware tools, you must get the driver date and replace day, month and year (9/21/2009 in my case). To get them do :"right click" on desktop, tab parammetter, click on advanced, click on second tab, click on property, click on driver and you will get the correct month/day/year

In this this file you must put the following lines:
[config]
Vendor=VMware
defaultdevice=CyberBladeXP.gfx

[knownGoodDriver]
Month=9
Day=21
Year=2009
Product=0
Version=0
SubVersion=0
Build=0

[device]
0x405=CyberBladeXP,CyberBladeXP.gfx "

Arjun add:
In addition to saving "0x15AD_vmware.gfx" in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\gfxconfig\", you also need to save it in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\gfxconfig2\"

So you will end up with:
1. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\gfxconfig\0x15AD_vmware.gfx"
2. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Mythology\gfxconfig2\0x15AD_vmware.gfx"

both with the same content

Then...it work!!!

Multiple Network Connections and CIFS

2010-02-18T20:04:00.000-08:00

When you have multiple network connections on the same host, with different IP addresses on different subnets, CIFS doesn't like it and you may get errors saying "Network may not be started" or "No provider accepted the network name"
When this happens, after this happens...nothing is quite the same.
So, simply do the following to restore order:

In the Network Connections page, in the "Advanced" menu, select "Advanced Settings"
In the "Advanced Settings" Dialog, select the network connection that is on the same network as your CIFS share and use the arrows on the right of the box to bring it to the top of the list
Select the other networks and uncheck "File and Print Sharing" for all of them
Save the settings and reboot the machine

When the machine comes back up, you should be able to access CIFS shares again

Win 7 on VMs

2010-02-17T22:31:00.001-08:00

So someone tells me Win7 on a VM is happier in HyperV than VMware...did M$ actually put sh** in there to make it better on HyperV or am i just a conspiracy buff?

Technology that works for ME!

2010-02-02T09:28:00.001-08:00

The regular refrain around the office is "In my next job, computers will solve problems for me!" (thank you Hoskeri)
So it's always nice to find tech that works for techies! Here's a list of the stuff I've noticed making a BIG difference in my life:

1. Skype: VOIP rocks! Its cheap (or free), it usually works and if it doesnt work, everyone understands that it's VOIP, its free and its ok for it to be a little scratchy. I actually have cousins who I've met only via skype video and it was a pretty close experience. We could all see each other and have an absolutely inane conversation about what who was eating, while looking at it, without worrying about a phone or internet bill. Add the experience of being able to Google Earth over to see the house they live in and the experience is complete.

2. Google Earth: There are now parts of the Earth that I am satisfied to have seen only on Google Earth. The Googleplex is one of these places. I dont ever need to go there now. I've seen the best possible view for the least cost. And the stuff that I'm not finished looking at on Google Earth yet, GE will give me directions to them just fine :)

3. Virgin America's In Flight Internet: Now I can be on call even when I fly...mixed feelings about that...I used to sleep on planes....grumble...NAH! It rocks to be online at 32000 feet.

4. Gmail: Friend, Philosopher...online storage!

5. Blackberry : Existence System! Nuff said!

I'm talking to my grandmother on skype and gmail, while typing office emails and seeing where I am on Google Earth....in a plane!
Life is beautiful!

Getting Intel 82576 Gigabit Ethernet Drivers to work with ESX 3i

2010-01-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

Got the right drivers (.o or .ko files) from Intel's site

Got the ESX 3i installation ISO from VMWare's site

I prefered to use a USB installation and so took a USB, which someone had made bootable (http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm)

Copied the contents of the ESXi ISO into the USB driv

Switched the OEM.tgz with the one I found here: http://www.r00td0wn.net/oem-gen.tgz

Booted up with the USB and installed the hypervisor

Booted up with an Ubuntu live CD

Copied the OEM.tgz to the Hypervisor1 partition

On my Ubuntu livecd boot, the Hypervisor1 partition shows up as /dev/sda5 and my USB drive is /dev/sdc

mkdir tmp tmp2

mount /dev/sda5 tmp

mount /dev/sdc1 tmp2

cp tmp2/oem-gen.tgz tmp/oem.tgz

Rebooted the system

Success!!! Both my Intel 82576 NICs now show up

Next I need to automate this process by burning that oem.tgz into the Installer directly following these steps: http://varazir.mine.nu/esxi

But that's a job for another day! If someone follows this and finds it helpful, a nice payback would be a link to an automated installer with the 82576 drivers installed. I'll post a link here if I get one done

Links that helped

http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/customize_oem_tgz.php

http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_USB_install.php

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

http://the-jer.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E4FBBD09FA146AF!289.entry

How to set up performance monitoring for multiple systems in Windows using AD, Perfmon and DNS

2009-12-23T15:07:00.001-08:00

Preparing the Image for performance monitoring

Ensure that the firewall is turned off or a port has been opened for Perf Wiz
Ensure that the computer from which the Performance Monitor is collected is joined to the domain.

Setting up the Performance monitoring logs

Download Perf Wiz from the following location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=31FCCD98-C3A1-4644-9622-FAA046D69214&displaylang=en
Run Perf Wiz. In the Performance Monitor Wizard put the following details:
1. Monitoring Computer Name : The name of the computer where the performance logs are collected.
2. Performance Monitoring Logs: Create a new log.
3. Profiles: Select from the list a performance monitor log profile. Select Advanced Configuration.
4. Target Computer Name: Put in the Net BIOS name e.g. "\\ComputerName"
5. Configuration: Put in the Log name and size. You can also change the location for logs
6. Set the file Sample interval. The shorter the interval the larger the log file will be.
7. Select thecounters you want to capture
8. Try to start the log. If the Services MMC opens up, change the Logon Settings for the "Performance Logs and Alerts" service to an Administrator on your remote system (preferably a Domain Admin). Start the service

Checking the contents of your log

Open Perfmon
Go to Performance Logs and Alerts on the left side tab:
Select Counter logs
Select the log that you just created and start it.
If you see errors, open the Event Viewer and check the Application log for errors.
You log file will be in the path you specified. You should be able to monitor it there and seeit growing.
To see the log data, in Perfmon, select the disk icon on the ribbon
Change the datasource from Current values to log file and add your log
Remove all counters from the viewer and add the counters that you want to see

HOWTO: Set up the Dell DVD Store e-commerce Application for performance tests

2009-10-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

Download the rPath LAMP Appliance and import it into VMWare ESX

Attach a 50 GB VMDK to the appliance and boot it up

Once the appliance is booted up, log in with the credentials "admin/password"

Set the new password to

Log into the Appliance from a web browser at https://:8003

Leave the default backup settings and click save

Add a user "web" with password ""

From the console, change the password of the web user

passwd web
Set password as

From the console, change the password of the root user

passwd root
Set password as

mysqladmin -u root password

mysql -u root –p

mysql>grant all privileges on DS2.* to web@localhost
identified by ''

mysql>grant all privileges on DS2.* to web@'%' identified by '';

wget http://linux.dell.com/dvdstore/ds2.tar.gz

wget http://linux.dell.com/dvdstore/ds2_mysql.tar.gz

fdisk /dev/sdb
n
p
1

w

mke2fs -j /dev/sdb1
mkdir tmp
mount /dev/sdb1 tmp/
cp -ar /srv/mysql/* tmp/
umount tmp/
mount /dev/sdb1 /srv/mysql/
mv ds2* /srv/mysql/
cd /srv/mysql/
tar xvzf ds2.tar.gz
tar xvzf ds2_mysql.tar.gz
cd ds2
cd data_files/
cd cust/

vim ds2_create_cust_med.sh

Change the values from 1M to 10M, 2M to 20 M and so forth. This will create a database ~5GB in size

Save the file as “ds2_create_cust_med_10x.sh”

sh ds2_create_cust_med_10x.sh
cd ..
cd orders/
sh ds2_create_orders_med.sh
./ds2_create_inv 100000 > ../prod/inv.csv
cat ../prod/inv.csv
Confirm that inv.csv contains data lines
cd ../prod/
./ds2_create_prod 100000 > prod.csv
cat prod.csv

Confirm that prod.csv contains data lines

Run ps aux | grep ds2 and confirm that the Customer creation processes have completed

Confirm that the following files contain data lines

/srv/mysql/ds2/data_files/cust/us_cust.csv
/srv/mysql/ds2/data_files/cust/row_cust.csv

Run the following commands:

cd /srv/mysql/ds2/mysqlds2
vim mysqlds2_create_all.sh
: %s/password=web/password=/g
sh mysqlds2_create_all.sh

Wait until the DB finishes creating

Get the mysqli.so, mysqli.a and mysqli.ini files for php5 (x86_64 version if using 64 bit appliance) from the rpath repositories

• 64Bit repo
 https://update.zenoss.com/conary/files?t=php5-mysqli;v=/conary.rpath.com%40rpl%3A1/1203081084.380%3A5.2.5-6-1;f=1%23x86_64

Put mysqli.ini in /etc/php.d

Put mysqli.a and mysql.o in /usr/lib64/php5/

Edit /etc/php.ini:

; Default host for mysql_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
mysqli.default_host = localhost
; Default user for mysql_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
mysqli.default_user = web
; Default password for mysqli_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
; Note that this is generally a *bad* idea to store passwords in this file.
; *Any* user with PHP access can run 'echo get_cfg_var("mysqli.default_pw")
; and reveal this password! And of course, any users with read access to this
; file will be able to reveal the password as well.
mysqli.default_pw =

Run the following:

cp -ar /srv/mysql/ds2/mysqlds2/web/php5 /srv/www/html/
mv /srv/www/html/php5 /srv/www/html/ds2
/etc/init.d/httpd restart

Go to http:///ds2

Confirm that you can log in with "user1/password"

Copy the ds2.tar.gz file to a windows machine

Extract the ds2.tar.gz file and open a command prompt into the d2\drivers directory.

You can run the ds2webdriver program to send http requests to the LAMP server.

The performance can be gauged by connecting to the DS2 performance counters with Windows Perfmon.

You can use the attached Perfmon consoles to track the OPM and MaxRT counters.

my experiences with a private cloud

2009-09-20T10:55:00.001-07:00