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Download the Introductory WhitePaper and Presentation
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What is a Peer to Peer software?
True Peer to Peer softwares are those softwares that do not use any central server for their operation. Server based systems cannot scale to Global scale with billions of users but true peer to peer softwares can. All Mermaid softwares have been created with lots of users in mind. Since there is no central server there is no downtime for the softwares. If you are your friend are up that’s all that’s required.
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What is mermaid about?
Mermaid is the name of a suite of peer-to-peer applications. The products are pure peer-to-peer, and do not require any major infrastructure to scale to millions of people.
What that means, is that you can create your own network, which will be identified with your network-id and password, and over that network, you can broadcast movies, webcam feeds, audio feeds, news, files to all the people connected to your network.
What's more, is that you can put your own ads to be shown on your network(s).
How many people? Well let’s just say the more the merrier, and if you have a million people on your network, it’ll be much better.
No, you won’t need a heavy-tank computer or a gazzilion-terabytes/second network to stream to millions of people. The collective power of all the computers connected to your network will be harnessed. You can easily make do with an average PC and an average network. Check the requirements below.
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What do I need to install the software(s)?
If you are using XP, you need to download .NET 3. First download and install that. It’ll take something like 10-15 minutes. If you are using Vista you don't need to install that. Once you're done with that, install the mermaid softwares. One more thing. While installing on XP you should be logged in as Administrator. And on Vista you can right click the installer and click ‘Run As Administrator’
That's it my friend, you're good to go.
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What operating systems are supported?
As of now 32bit & 64 bit versions of Windows XP SP2, and 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows Vista are supported. We're working on Linux and Mac versions, and we've ordered 1200 beer cars for the job. We'll get it out in sometime.
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Are Mermaid softwares trial or feature limited versions? When will they expire?
Yes, they do. They expire when we run out of beer, or our CTO quits smoking and is no longer a hyper-workaholic sadist. Other than that, well… it’s FREE and DOES NOT EXPIRE EVER.
What’s more, you can download and distribute the software to anyone, anywhere without any burp from our side.
You may even sell it for a couple of million dollars, but please make a video of it, and send it over, so that we can have a good laugh over beer.
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Yo yo yo ! Wat’s this IPv6 business ?
The software works like a charm on office LANs, and campus and other networks. But you want your network to be globally available right,
or you need to connect to a mermaid
broadcast from across the world? Good, so you need to get IPv6.
There are two ways to do this.
1st Way) [Preferred] Call your ISP, and say you need ‘a globally routable I-P-V-6 address’. If they don’t, tell them you’re switching ISP coz they’re so lazy that they can’t click a button on their screens.
2nd Way) [If your ISP is too lazy or
doesn't even know what IPV6 is] You will
need to download a FREE 2.5MB software
and install it to get a Globally
Routable IPV6 Address. The step by step
instructions to do so are here. That’s pretty much it…
If you still face problems give a shout
on the forums
here.
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Ammmm, Dood… What’s this network id, network password, user id thingy?
Ok, ok… Listen up… here’s how it works. Every software we have, work on a user-created p2p network. To
create a network, you need to supply a unique network-id and password. Yeah you can use any name, except for “Cindy Crawford’s network”. Why? Coz we love Cindy Crawford. Period.
Once the network is created, people can join your network using that network id/password combination, or using an invitation string. Read more about invitations below.
Checkout the video
here.
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Hey! What about the user-id?
it’s your social – security no + your date of birth + the sum of the letters in your name…. Hehehehe… Kidding man... A user-id is something which identifies YOU on a network. Your name’s fine…. but try making it unique like John_312319991_188288277.
Checkout the video
here.
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What are invitations? How do I use them?
For personal reasons, you need to maintain the privacy of your network and don't want to share the network-id and password with people. In that case, you should goto the menu and click ‘Invitations->Generate Invitation URL’. The software will then generate the invitation url. You can watch how to do it on the videos page
here. Invitations are like ‘mermaidsomething://AQWEkjkjkqwjejqw’ kind of strings which indentify your network. You can copy and paste it on websites or send over email to your friends. They can click on the invitation url and connect to your network.
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What are user ads?
Your Ads. It’s your network man, obviously you can host your own ads.
If you spend so much time starting your own tv channel or movie station we figured you should have some way of making some revenues. Advertising was one way. This is what we call as ‘User Ads’. The main advertisement banner in the softwares is our banner which allows us to buy beers every evening. But the smaller advertisement beside it can be configured by the person broadcasting the audio/videos.
To do that he has to create an html file e.g. myad.html (with his own advertisement script aka banner TAG) and goto the software installation directory which should ideally be c:\program files\metaaso solutions\ and put his myad.html in the UserAds subdirectory. Then in the software directory there is a file called ‘userads.xml’ which is an xml file and has a fixed format. He should edit that file and create an entry (and perhaps removing the other two default entries). And that’s it. You don’t even have to restart the software. It will start getting served after a few minutes.
Watch the video here.
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I can’t connect to a network which is outside my home/office network or people can’t connect to my network from outside my home/office network.
If you are using Mermaid with your
friends on the Internet
make sure you BOTH have globally routable IPv6
address's [See the answer to the question
on IPV6 a few paragraphs above this].
Otherwise EITHER or
BOTH of you might have firewall issues.
To isolate the diagnosis to see if thats
the problem. Switch off your firewall
and restart the Mermaid software and see
if it works. If that solved the problem
you will have to 'Let Mermaid through
your firewall' Depending on the firewall
there will be a mechanism to let
programs through. You will have to
configure that. Ask your question on
Mermaid forums if you still face
problems
here.
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Oh man… Ads on the panel… sheesh, c’mon, that’s so 1978.
WE NEED BEERS. Period. If you can send us a 12 pack everyday we’ll THINK about giving you a version with no ads. Oh and btw, you need to click the ads every time your boss starts yelling at you. Otherwise it sells your computer on EBay and ships a gallon of beer over to us. Hehehe, Just kidding yo.
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What are Ad-Overlays?
In products like Mermaid (Movie, Multisource, Webcam) which have broadcaster & receivers.
In the broadcaster you can configure the images which get merged with the
broadcast video and are shown on the receivers.
To do that you have to goto the program folder where the broadcaster got installed.
Typically c:\program files\MetaASO Solutions\Mermaid\
Edit the file called 'advertisements.xml' in notepad/wordpad appropriately.
That's all that's needed to get you going.
Watch the video here.
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What kind of computer and internet do I need to make the best use of Mermaid Softwares?
We would really like to tell you that you
don't even need a computer or any internet
for that matter, and that Mermaid would work
over thought waves somewhat like Telepathy.
But the truth of the matter is that P2P
softwares are very resource hungry so you do
need a good computer and a good internet
connection. Most Mermaid softwares would
barely work with a minimum of 256kbps
connection and any computer. But Some
Mermaid softwares are Multimedia broadcast
applications and they are very resource
hungry. You will not be able to broadcast to
the world if you don't give to 5-6 people
what you receive from one. Please click here
to see what computer configuration and
internet would push the limits to maximum Mermaid
utilization.
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Still have unanswered questions?
Give a shout on Mermaid Forums
here.
or
Email us using details on our 'contact us' page
here.
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