what is G World ?

G World, is my personal website but now it is meant for everyone. The idea of having a website was mooted by me, as I wanted a website only for my personal use. I used to surf websites, to look for online dictionaries for enhancing my English vocabulary. If I was not able to understand a meaning of any word, I referred to an online dictionary or dictionaries. To remember all of them, I had to bookmark them. Similarly, during my leisure/relaxation time, I was interested in hearing streaming music, as it provided me a variety and entertainment.

After spending time in searching and then bookmarking them too, it was not an easy proposition. After all, how many stations, of  interest, can one save as bookmarks?  Similarly I was interested in online news.. You may wonder, why everything online ? Because, over internet we have several options, and variety. But I had a different thing going in my mind, whatever I had bookmarked on my computer, I wanted them to access on some other computer(s) ! I could save the bookmarks on my laptop too, but that is easiest thing to do, but it binds me to my laptop. Wherever I go, I had to take my laptop. It is not so good thing to carry a laptop everywhere. I, then came up with an idea, why not put all the links of the bookmarked items, on a single page. I created one page on Front page and typed all the links in there. It was a simplest page. All I could do was, access that page from my email, download it wherever I m and access my links. But that was not interesting to me. I thought why not put this page on a website. Then I can access that link and do my work. I did the same. The next day, I could access my page over internet, and do my work from anywhere. Anything related with my work, could be accessed through a simple HTML page on web. But being from a technical background, I observed that the HTML site which I created was too simple, and to me it was not at all evoking any interest. I wanted to add color to it.

Over next phase,  I came out with a better looking page, with music links, newslinks, dictionaries and miscellaneous links. Now, the site was online for others too. But it was not so interesting. Was too much simple. Mind it, I am not a software professional, but after googling and some R&D, I created a webplayer, wherein on the back end, I linked the streaming music hyperlink from respective sources. The player was now working but it had no controls (play pause, stop , volume buttons). It was a site having independent streaming music players, coming out as pop ups, but looked very simple to me. One of the advantages of my streaming music players was, it worked even on a small dialup connections, which means, it was good for people having slower internet access. It was well suited for Dial ups, rather than conventional broadbands which can play MP3 format. I kept in my mind, that the people having slower connections, especially in developing countries, should be able to listen to my streaming music as they cannot hear a streaming music of 128 kbps.

Previous Designs of my Website - Homepage

I then thought of putting all the links in a single page. One could listen to the music or look for selective links. But the site had limitations, in terms of its designing and compatibility. It was not at all compatible with Firefox as well as Windows Vista, hence none could listen songs with Vista as its operating system and also Win XP users having Firefox as their browser instead of default Internet Explorer. So in the next phase, I added another player for the same music category, this time it was compatible with Firefox on Win XP as well as on Vista, irrespective of any browser. Now people could listen songs with their Firefox browsers or Internet Explorer on Win XP and Vista too. For the convenience of people, after adding controls on the streaming players, which was more or less made for Windows OS, people had an options to choose, according their browser and OS. After few weeks, I added controls in the player, which was only compatible with Win 2K, 2003 and Win XP.

Few months later, I registered my site, from free domain to registered domain. I had heard that many streaming radio stations are not compatible on Apple machines, having Safari browser. After doing a lot of search on web, I learnt about Silverlight technology. It promised of cross domain interface, which means it could work on various OS, including Apple Mac. After doing research on it, I came out with my version of Silverlight Streaming radio players, which now made possible for people having Apple Mac machines to hear my streaming radio stations. When someone clicks a music channel, he has 3 players as an option. According to the layman’s understanding, a person, can hear music in any of the player, whichever suits him or her. Silverlight based players (source JW) are compatible with all browsers – Internet Explorer 6 and above, Firefox 2 and above,  Opera and Safari 3 on Mac. So if everything fails, Silverlight should work. I would like people having Safari browser on Apple Mac to check for themselves.

Current website design

People can access my website at  www.gsworldonline.com and can leave me online feedbacks or can comment on my blog. I would also like people to suggest me. What more should add as a utility. On my website, you will find lots of streaming stations, giving you crystal clear sound, which are not bandwidth intensive and consume low bandwidth.

I have also added, online news which is primarily meant for Indians living abroad as well as Indians wanting to access news online.

It has my own, photography section, which showcases some of the pics shot by me, category wise and you may also find, my video section, having adobe players from JW. There is lot more to explore, why don’t you check out, yourself !!!

Silverlight

What is Silverlight ? Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications like animation, vector graphics and audio-video playback. Silverlight competes with products such as Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, Adobe Shockwave, and JavaFX.

Silverlight is also used for streaming audio and video applications, but being a new platform, the Industry is slowly catching up with this new generation platform. Its is a next generation programmable platform from Microsoft. It is written in combination of C++ and C#. For More information, visit Silverlight’s official website.

Adobe Flash Player

Adobe Flash Player is the high-performance, lightweight, highly expressive client runtime that delivers powerful and consistent user experiences across major operating systems, browsers, mobile phones, and devices. Commonly it has vast applications in Audios and Videos. It allows you to enjoy the most expressive, engaging experiences on the Web that combine interactive, rich content with video, graphics and animation. For further information, visit its official website:  Adobe Flash Player.

Online Music, videos, are basically streaming multimedia experiences over Internet. The files are hosted somewhere in the servers and we are able to access or play those files over Internet, thereby it does not require us to download the audio or video, and we just hear or watch, remotely on our computer, or 3G or WIfi enabled mobile phones.

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player (WMP) is a digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices. Windows Media Player handles streaming music and videos, perfectly. For further information, please visit, Windows Media Player .