Time Pass

Hello friends. Once in a while, everybody gets bored and may want to kill the time. I found couple of websites which may be perfectly suit to that need.

1.  http://www.timepassmails.com/

This site has got a huge collection of forwarded mails, interesting mails, photos, jokes etc.  Checkout the "Humor" section to find hell lot of jokes (though some we might have read already).  There are quite a good ones.

Best part it, you can subscribe to get their post in your inbox.  Just add your email in the text box where it says "Subscribe for Daily Time pass Mails" and click subscribe.  If you are willing to share any interesting,fun or time pass emails, please forward to  forward@timepassmails.com.


2.  http://www.forwardedemails.com/

This is another site like timepassmails.com but not very large collection.  Some may be repetitive with the previous site.  But sure this too got some good collections.  In this site too, you can subscribe for their posts to be delivered at your inbox.  (http://www.forwardedemails.com/newsletter)

Enjoy and have fun :-)

Sardar's Flat Screen TV

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Animatronics

Hello friends.  Today I read a news about Endiran movie that Shankar is going to use "Animatronics" in the movie.  I have heard about Animatronics when Juriassic Park was released.  Let me spend few minutes to explain how the animatronics work.

For those who had seen Jurassic Park might have thought that those mighty dinosaurs we saw chasing scientists were done by CG (Computer Graphics).  Well, some (or most) are infact done by graphics but few scenes were shot by using Animatronics.

What is Animatronics?  Animatronics is the use of electronics and robotics in mechanised puppets to make them appear to be alive.  First they will draw the sketches of the dinosaur and then create a mold (smaller than how they want it in the screen) out of that sketch.

 

This miniature scale model called maquette.  

  

Once they are satisfied with the maquette then they will create the full size mold.  The molds are made from an epoxy that is very durable and has strong bonding characteristics.

  

Once the mold is ready, then they will start adding those hydraulics which will actually form the creature.  The frame is put together and then the mechanical systems are put in place. As each component is added, it is checked to ensure that it moves properly and doesn't interfere with other components. Most of the electronic components are then connected to the mechanical systems they will control. The controls have been tested with the mechanical systems prior to final assembly, but the systems are checked again.

  

  

  

The people that control the animatronic figure are called puppeteers, because that is all that an animatronic device is -- a sophisticated puppet. These puppeteers are skilled actors in their own right and will spend some time with the animatronic figure learning its range of movements.  The puppeteers are determining what movements make the animatronic figure look angry, surprised, hungry or any other emotions or moods that are called for in the script.

 

In a nutshell, an animatronics device is radio-controlled device like RadioControlled remote car but in big size, much more realistic, much more detailed and much more complexed.  

Ok, though the technology I put in simple words are pretty much complexed, I am sure now you have an idea about the overall picture.

Let's get into action.  Watch a video that used the above technology:

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Hindu Rituals and Routines

Good morning guys.. It's early in the morning and I was searching for some e-books.  While a book I happened to see a pdf file which my wife gave me sometime back which details about Hindu Rituals and Routines.

I like this book very much since it covers lot of routines which we do daily WITHOUT knowing the reason why we follow them.

Some of the routines like:

--Why do we ring the bell in a temple?
--Why do we worship tulasi?
--Why do we wear marks (tilak, pottu and the like) on the forehead?

Go ahead and read this informative book and get to know the rituals behind your routines.  Non-hindu readers, please excuse.

Instead of attaching the pdf file, I am providing the link to the file in scribd.com.

File link:  Hindu-Rituals-and-Routines

Note: If you want to download a copy of the file, you need to register in scribd.com (which is free.).  Go ahead and register yourself, you wont regret.  There are lot of books (legal & illegal) available and might come in handy sometimes (well, often for me :-)).

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How to download using torrents

Many of us would have heard about the torrent downloads.  Hey, how did you get this.. I downloaded it in a torrent site, this and that.  So, let's see how to download contents that are distributed via torrents.

Few words about bittorrent technology: BitTorrent is a protocol which distributes the sharing of files across all users who have downloaded or are in the process of downloading a file. Because BitTorrent breaks up and distributes files in hundreds of small chunks, you don't even need to have downloaded the whole file before you start sharing. As soon as you have even a piece of the file, you can start sharing that piece with other users. That's what makes BitTorrent so fast; your BitTorrent client starts sharing as soon as it downloads one chunk of the file (instead of waiting until the entire download has been completed).

How to find and download a file with BitTorrent

Now that you've got a better idea of the terminology and process behind BitTorrent, let's jump right into using BitTorrent.

First you need to download a BitTorrent client (the program that manages your BitTorrent downloads). I'd recommend uTorrent for Windows.

 I will give you a guide of downloading stuff using utorrent in a easy three steps:

Step 1: Increase the TCP connection limit

In Windows XP, the number of possible TCP connection attempts per second is limited to 10.  In order for you to get the best speed in torrent downloading, you ought to increase that limit.

To change or remove the limit, you can use the following program:
Event ID 4226 Patcher - A patching program for removing or changing the limit imposed on connection attempts in SP2. The patcher has the ability to restore tcpip.sys back to the original.  Download the patcher from the link and run it.  When asked, enter the new half-open connections limit to 100 (default is 10).

 Step 2: Install uTorrent application

Download the uTorrent application from here, and install it.  

 Step 3: Download the .torrent file from the site


Website which host the .torrent file for the content you want to download is called "Tracker".  Go to the torrent tracker website where the file you want to download (for e.g. www.legaltorrents.com) is and download the .torrent file.  When you downloaded the file, it will open with uTorrent application you have installed.


Select the place where you want to save the content and the download will start.  Bingo! that's it.

Configure to use free night usage provided by ISP:

In INDIA, our broadband ISPs like BSNL, Airtel offer free usage during midnight.  So we can configure our system to use that free slot to download the files we need and keep the chargeable net usage unchanged.  Let's see how we can configure our system to achieve.



Let's take an example of BSNL.  BSNL offers free net usage during 2am to 8am. Follow the steps below to configure to download the torrent during that time.  (other broadband users, change the time according to their free usage times)

--scchedule utorrent download between 2 am ~ 8am and alter utorrent settings

--open notepad and add the below line and save it as connect.bat. (replace username and pwd with your BSNL connection username and password;  In the below line, "BSNL" is the name of the PPOE connection name.. change accordingly if you have different connection name)

RASDIAL "BSNL" username  pwd 

--open notepad and add the below line and save it as disconnect.bat. (replace username and pwd with your BSNL connection username and password)



RASDIAL "BSNL" /disconnect


--use the windows Task Scheduler (Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Scheduled Tasks) to run connect.bat at 2:05am and disconnect.bat at 7:55am daily (the reason for that 5mins cap is in case BSNL is clock is running slow, we don't want to get charged for the downloads on that time period). This will connect the net at 2:05am and disconnect at 7:55am.

 For better speed results, change utorrent settings as below.



Set maximun upload rate to 80% of your upload speed (for BSNL it would be 160). Also, check the "Automatic" checkbox (screenshot is missing that)

Set net.max_halfopen to 100

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Kandasaamy : The Kappi Crusader

I found this interesting review about Kandasaamy in "pravunplugged.blogspot.com".  Go ahead and read it.  Man has got a good sense of humour.

Kandasaamy : The Kappi Crusader

Kandasaamy is an epic of the 21st century, comparable to the Mahabharatha. If the latter tells you how not to live life, the former tells you how not to make a movie. Thanfully, Susi Ganesan did not use Pillaiyar to write the script. Pillaiyar kovathula thandhatha pudungi kanna kuththi vitturupaar!

Even if the unit spent the two years of production playing dikkilona and jalabalajals, they could have come out with a nice bit movie which could have released in Parangimalai Jothi and done good business. But Kalaipuli Thanu pumped in so much money that Susi started to write a serious movie. That's when it went wrong.

Spoiler Alert : If you have already seen Sivaji, Anniyan, Gentleman and Batman Begins, there is nothing I can spoil for you. If you haven't, I still cannot spoil it as much as Susi. So summa koocha padaama padinga.

Kandasaamy has a very innovative concept of pudungifying black money from the rich and distributing it to the needy. India-laye, yaen indha world-laye indha concept-a yoschathu rendey paer dhaan - onnu GD Naidu, innonnu namma Susi Ganesan. Bodhi marathadi-la okkandha gnanam varum, but bethi-kaaga marathadi-la okkandha indha maadhri kadhai dhaan varum. A stale story can still be interesting with some slick screenplay. It could have been a fast paced 150 minute entertainer at best. But at 200 minutes, one wonders if Susi's payment was based on the length of film reel used. Like oru mozham paththu roobai or something. I am sure Thanu would have got better returns if he had bought Malli Poo! ;-)

People write their wishes on a piece of paper and tie it to a temple tree. Their wishes get fulfilled, supposedly by God himself. Anga dhaan director oru twist-a vechaar. It is actually the Kappi Crusader Kandasaamy who fulfills their wishes! There is also a CBI Aapesar Kandasaamy who raids big shots who have black money. Police Aapeesar [Prabhu] smells something fishy. There are a few villains who are after the CBI aapesar. There is one figure who is daughter of a villain and sets out for revenge, but unexpectedly falls in love. Please connect the dots and make your own ettu pulli kolam.

Vikram has tried out his luck with fancy dress after Kamal in Dasa. Grapevine has it that whenever Susi's kid would cry and not eat food, Susi would instruct the make-up man to do something new to Vikram. To kanakku kaamchufy for make-up money spent, they shot that look and put it in the movie. You would have expected better role selection from Vikram. But I don't blame him entirely. He must have fallen asleep mid-way while Susi narrated the story.

Tamil Cinema's first superhero will be remembered for long. The costume has been localized to suit the Tamil kalaacharam. Jetty goes back inside the pant fearing objection from Ramadas. The intro is one of a kind. Vikram comes flying around with the superhero jamakaalam tied behind his back. His hair looks like somebody has poured kaara kuzhambu on it. But closer inspection reveals that they are all cock (seval) feathers. While intimidating the bad guy he also does some cock-like (seval) mannerisms, along with a kokkarakko. There is a rap song for which I have not figured out the lyrics, but his hand gestures kinda sync with the very famous "Oh pillar, caterpillar" song which would be a sure hit with the girls. After 15 mins of flying around, cocking and singing, the audience wait with bated breath, for the interval.

It is said that good things come in small packages. But this one came in small dresses. Shriya. Her haircut helped show more of her back, and ofcourse there never was too much hair on the front anyways! There was only one scene where she was fully covered, but even that she tears during the scene. Brilliant characterization. Director touch pannitaar. It is well known that for her acting prowess, she needs multiple takes to show (emotions) well. Every time the director said "Cut", the costume person seems to have misunderstood and cut a portion of her dress. But yeah, we are glad about the misunderstanding.

The romance track is a comedy piece. During a raid at Aashish Vidyarthi's house, Vikram picks up a call. It is the villain's daughter Shriya who gives Vikram a website to visit if he wants to see her dance on webcast! Ippadi patta raid ellam irukkum therinja naan kooda CBI join panniruppaen, sigh. Before seeing the dance, Vikram dutifully finishes the raid which leaves Aashish Vidyarthi with a twisted face (more than the usual level). Shriya decides to make Vikram fall in love with her to take revenge! Adada, idhallavo revenge! They do not love each other for most part of the film. But they will go to each foreign location, drink coffee, sing song, dance and come back. Dei director, ivanga enna Karagaata troup-a oor oor-a poi aaditu, kaapi-thanni kudichuttu vara...appadinu logical-a questions varum. But Shriya's costumes, or the lack of it, rob the audience of the dhum opporunity.

Susi has been very particular about logic. He explains in excruciating detail how superhero stunts are performed with the help of ropes, choreographed by his friends. The friends bring a tape-recorder for BGM and even stuff for smoke effects. But when they showed a cock (seval) in their hideout which Kandasamy looks at to learn the mannerisms...shabba...sekaru sethutaan. Shakunthala Devi puzzles-la kooda ivalo logic thevai padaathu. They've tried out something like Batman, but ended up with a Pokiriman.

There are three villains. Aashish Vidyarthi plays PPP, and does justice to the character name by keeping his face constipated. Then there is a don called Mexican Pichumani [played by magician Alex!] who put Marlon Brando to shame with his amazing dialogue delivery - "Sekoority illama engayum pova koodathu", "Indha panatha bang-la podalam. Andha bang manager en friend dhaan" to quote a few. Mexican accent I guess. The third guy, Rajmohan, does a pole dance during the climax in mundaabaniyan and pattapatti undraayar. Among others, there is one head of CBI who speaks Tamil as though he is onnu vita cousin of Thatha Naharkar of Junoon fame. Susi Ganesan does a cameo - a pivotal role of a person who takes photographs of Mexico on his iPhone. Padayappa-la paambu eppadi oru turning point-o, adhey maari dhaan namma Susi role indha padathula. Indispensable. The only mistake in the casting department was naming Shriya as Subbalakshmi and giving her costumes of Jothilakshmi.

The movie is a collection of incoherent scenes with the editor doing his best to ensure this. CBI aapesar will suddenly go raid. Kappi Crusader will suddenly start cocking in front of a bad guy. Villain will suddenly decide that he needs to do matter. Shriya will suddenly decide to she needs to sing a sexy song. Pichumani will suddenly decide to do Billa don walk. Vadivelu will suddenly decide to put one mokkai. Hero will suddenly decide to get preachy and throw some statistics to villain who is standing in jetty. Like this wonly full movie. To bear all this for three and half hours, oru miga periya mana dheiriyam is required.

The re-recording was one nice aspect. Devi Sri Prasad did a good job with that and compensated for allowing Vikram to talk in all the songs. Vikram-ku pitching problems neraya. Neraya notes are orey flat. Voice-la throw seri illa. Innum nalla practice pannanum. Sruthi set aagala. Sruthi-oda akka-va vena try panni paakalam.

Cinematography is very mangalagaram. Ekambaram was warned by Sivagami Computers that he has gandam in all colors except yellow. All characters look equally jaundiced. I think while deciding on what to use for Mexico, he watched the Salma Hayek matter scene in Desparado and decided that everything in Latin America should be of that tinge only. Water, grass, people, everything. Mexico-la ellarum manja thechu kulipaanga-nu yaaro avarukku thappa informesan koduthirukkanga paavam. Very mangalagaramaana cameraman. All the scenes in Mexico have been shot in one open (yellow) grassland. For this why Mexico? Nonsense fellow.

Susi has donned many hats for this film...though none of them turned out useful. Susi the actor offers some solace to the audience...it helps to know the face of the person you are scolding in bad words. The powerful script writer in him has made heads turn across the globe. Sun Microsystems issued a notice banning Susi from writing any script in future, including javascript. The Human Rights Commission is planning a mass campaign with Susi's pic and a message - "Inime pena la kai vecha, mudhal dead body nee dhaan". He has also been extremely compassionate as a story-teller. For the benefit of heart patients and pregnant women he has ensured that the most nail-biting moment in the movie is the curiosity that builds up if Vikram will succeed in getting the cock (seval) body-language. He has also cleverly used slo-mos throughout the movie. So if at all you fall asleep, when you wake up you'll still watch the same scene. Total hollywood level thinking.

Overall, with few things right and most things wrong, the biggest release of this year is a disappointing attempt at commercial cinema. To pump in crores of money in this movie which took two years to produce, one has to be an utter dummy piece. It is high time Kalaipuli changes his name to Kaipulla Thanu.

I am glad I did not have to buy tickets for this movie! Thanks to Hamsini for the oasi tickets :-D.

The only good thing about the movie is that it made me put a big mokkai post after a year! Susi Ganesan vaazhga!

Backup your PC before disaster..

I know pretty much, how valuable taking backup of your PC often, because once in a while I get to screw my system.  Now, I take backup of my PC every week using Norton Ghost.  So, I thought I can post about how to take backup in a easy, simple, yet effective way.  OK, some may think why should I take a backup?  My system is hale and healthy... Here are the reasons:
--All sick persons were once healthy
--we use PC mainly for internet so it is very much prone to viruses.
--if something gone wrong, you have to install everything from OS to winamp which may approximately takes 8 to 9 hours.
--if you have taken backup using the below steps, you can restore your OS to the date the backup was taken in less than 10 minutes! (Ain't it sweet?)

Those who cannot spend money to buy latest version of Norton Ghost, can download the "Hiren's Boot CD" which contains many number of PC disaster recovery tools INCLUDING NORTON GHOST (dos version).  Download the zip file from here (170MB).

One you have downloaded the file, unzip it and burn the ISO file to a CD using any CD burning software that burn ISO to CD (Nero is one).  This makes the CD bootable with your PC.

Step by Step guide: 

1.  Put the BOOT CD in your CD drive and restart the PC. (make sure your CD drive is the 1st device in the boot device priority in BIOS).

2.  Once the HIREN CD screen comes, Select Ghost.

 

 3.  Select  Local > Partition > To Image

4.  Select the partition you want to create GHOST image.(Drive C which contains your operating system always be drive number 1)

(PLEASE! make sure you select the partition correctly) **

  

 5.  Use Tab to move to OK button, Then push Enter.  The software will ask you where to save your GHOST image. (Don’t forget to add file name and type of your file must be *.GHO)

  

6 : Click Fast to start the process.

  

7 : Wait until the process finished.

  

8 : Your Image completed.

  

Restore from .GHO image

1 : Select Local > Partition > From Image

  

2.  Find your GHOST image, Then click Open.

  

3 : Select your destination partition. Click OK

  

 4. Click Yes to start the process

  

5.  The process completed. Then, click Reset Computer.

(screens courtesy: http://ghost.radified.com/)

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Couple of Jokes.

Meeting the Parents

 A girl invites her boyfriend over for dinner with her parents. Since this is such a big event, the girl tells him that after dinner she wants to have sex with him for the first time.

The boy is ecstatic, but nervous because he's a virgin. He goes to the pharmacy to get some condoms. He tells the pharmacist his situation and asks for advice. The pharmacist tells him everything there is to know about sex. At the register, the pharmacist asks how many condoms he'd like to buy: a 3-pack or a 10-pack. The boy says he feels lucky and insists on the 10-pack.

That night, the boy shows up for dinner a little late. His girlfriend meets him at the door leads him straight to the dinner table where her parents are already seated. The boy sits down, quickly offers to say grace and bows his head. A minute passes, and the boy is still silent with his head down. Five minutes pass, and still no movement from the boy. Finally, after 10 minutes, the girlfriend leans over and whispers to the boy, "I had no idea you were this religious."

The boy turns and whispers back, "I had no idea your father was a pharmacist."

 

A woman went to her priest with a problem...

 A woman went to her priest with a problem. "Father, I have two female parrots, and they only know how to say one thing. All they ever say is, 'Hi, we're prostitutes. Wanna have some fun?' "

"That's terrible!" exclaimed the priest. "But I think I can help. Bring your two female parrots over to my house, and I will put them with my two male parrots whom I taught to pray and read the Bible. My parrots will teach your parrots to stop saying that terrible phrase, and your female parrots will learn to praise and worship."
The next day, the woman brought her female parrots to the priest's house. His two male parrots were holding rosary beads and quietly praying in their cage. The woman put her two female parrots in the cage with the male parrots. The females said, "Hi, we're prostitutes. Wanna have some fun?"
One male parrot looked over at the other male parrot and exclaimed "Put those beads away, our prayers have been answered!"

 When Can I Get That Haircut?

 A shady-looking guy sticks his head into a barbershop and asks, "How long before I can get a haircut?"

The barber looks around the shop and says, "About two hours." The guy smiles and leaves.

The barber looks over at a friend in the shop and says, "Hey, Bill, follow that guy and see where he goes." In a little while, Bill comes back into the shop.

"Bill, where did he go when he left here?"

"To your house."

 

Poor Old Man

An old man is sitting on a park bench crying. A young man is walking by and asks him why he's crying. The old man says, "I'm retired and I have lots of money, a huge luxury apartment, a beautiful 25 year old wife who loves me and has sex with me twice a day"

The young man says, "Well then why the hell are you crying!?"
The old man replies, "I can't remember where I live!"

 

 

 

John Wayne (1907 - 1979)

Well.. let me spend few minutes to dedicate a page for my all time favorite hollywood hero.. JOHN WAYNE.

John Wayne is one of the genuine icons of 20th-century American film. Famed as a star of westerns, especially the westerns of director John Ford, "The Duke" also played cops and soldiers with regularity. No matter what the role, Wayne nearly always played the same character: a big, tough, but sentimental hero who talked straight and met the bad guys head on.  He has acted in more than 150 movies.

Most of the time, he reminds me of our tamil legend "Sivaji Ganesan".  I used to think if Sivaji Ganesan born in America and acted as Cow boy he might have had the same mannerisms as John Wayne.

I happened to see most of the John Wayne’s blockbusters.. to name a few.. TRUE GRIT, HATARI!, THE ALAMO, BIG JAKE, WAR WAGON, RIO LOBO, RIO GRANDE, HORSE SOLDIERS, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON, wow.. the list is quiet a long.

I think he never acted vulgar or as villain.  He won the Best Actor in a Leading Role for: "True Grit" (1969).. I can never forget the role one-eyed "Marshal Rooster Cogburn" in that movie.

For me he remains my all time hero.

Few posters:

 

  

Kettuvalam....Kerala House boats

For a change, something exotic.... House boats.  Ever since one of my friend sent me the pictures of these houseboats, a trip to Kerala with house boat ride exists in my travel plan . Hope I can make it next year!!


The kettuvallam or the Kerala houseboat is a large floating structure with a high load-carrying capacity and it has been a part of Kerala' s culture and heritage over the past many years. The advent of road transport and motorisation in waterways saw the steep decline in the significance of the kettuvallam as an effective carrier of bulk cargo.

 

The Kettuvallam or 'boat with knots' is called so because coir ropes tied in knots hold the entire structure of the boat together. During the entire assembling work of the boat, not a single nail is used. The boat is made of huge planks of Jack wood (Artocarpus hirsuta) or 'Aanjili' and joined with coir. This is then coated with a caustic black resin made from boiled cashew kernels.





Other details:  Take the Alleppey Express and reach Alleppey.  (or you can reach Kumarakom; Houseboats are available in Kumarakom also).  Transport to houseboat and checkin to houseboat.  A/c single cabin boats available from 8000Rs I guess (for whole day).  It includes 3 meals (veg/non-veg).  A cook will be available inside the boat itself.


More pictures:

 

  

  

  

More to come...

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Orbit Downloader

Hi friends,

I am sure everyone use some kind of tool to download stuff from internet.  There are some tool which can open multiple connections to the download link and complete the download much faster than normal download speed.  One of such tool is "Orbint Downloader". Prior to using Orbit Downloader, I was using FlashGot.  However, Orbit Downloader beats everything in terms of speed, ease of use and feature.  More than anything, it is FREE!

It supports video download from sites which use anti-leeching technology like YouTube. (ain't that juicy??)

* Super Light: micro-sized and resource-friendly - Orbit Downloader is written with efficiency in mind, it typically uses less than 3MB of memory and 3% of cpu when downloading. Additionally, the installation package is less than 1.6MB.

* Great Speed - Orbit Downloader is based on p2p and multi-source downloading technology, which make you download files up to 500% faster than before.

* Support RapidShare - Orbit Downloader supports most of file-sharing service websites, including megaupload, badongo, sendspace, sexuploader, yourfilehost, uploading, filefront, 4shared, turboupload, depositfiles, filefactory, more....

* Easy to Use - Orbit Downloader has a simple and clear user interface. It is easy to use and config for both newbies and professions.

 You can download the app from here .

Screenshots:

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Cooking Videos by SanjayThumma

Guys, I know you sure must have heard about lot of culinary books (not to forget the good, famous Malika bathrinath and Dhamodaran) but how about a videos of recipes?  Couple of years back, I found a video of one Mr.Sanjay Thumma in YouTube showing how to cook chicken biriyani and it was very interesting.  I very much liked the way they showed the ingredients clearly and the tips the chef was telling at appropriate places, it was a whole good shoot. 

When I searched of other videos of him, youTube has got more than 200 videos.  :-)

I think this Chef Sanjay Thumma is working for VahRehVah.com in USA. Now, I see that he is appearing in a television ad for bingo.  Though we cannot try all of them, I believe there are some useful videos which are quite good.  All these videos could be useful for anyone who is learning to cook or trying to do different things (or want to do things differently).

You can either search for any particular dish by searching in YouTube or you can head to their website VahRehVah.com.  They have them all videos categorized. 

YouTube: Click Here 
Website: VahRehVah

You can use any video download tool to grab a personal copy of the video from YouTube.
More to come...

Frozen Thoughts (Magazine)

In the recent past, I happened to read a magazine which I really liked.. it is "Frozen Thoughts".  Thought of sharing it with you all. Website:http://www.frozenthoughts.com/

This magazine contains inspirational articles, interviews from successful personalities, stories etc.  The articles are very positive, thought provoking and inspiring.  It is a monthly magazine and costs about Rs. 80. (believe me, worth it!).

Go on, grab a copy of the book and see what it is worth of.  I am sure you wont regret it.  It would definitely change the way we look at the life and be positive.

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Must have apps for your PC

After reading my previous post, one of my friend came and asked me why I did not tell about KMPLayer earlier.  Actually I was a happy user of GOM Player until my 4yr old screws the settings once in a while.  I got tired of making the settings right every now and then.  Boy, thatz hell lot of settings.  (not to mention, there are few times, I was scrolling through all options and did not know for couple of days why the picture was so small).  I wish GOMPlayer had a "export settings" feature.  Since, it did not have one, I ditched it and moved on to KMPlayer.  I must say I like it.

Ok, let's get to the point.

Time to time, I used to download some apps for my day-to-day PC chores and I thought I can share that list of softwares.  Most of them may not be any new to you but some would be :-)

µTorrent - Download torrents (legits!)
AC3Filter - Audio filter for better stereo effects while watching movies.
Ad-Aware - Adware removal tool
Adobe Reader 7.0 - pdf reader
AI RoboForm (All Users) - Password manager tool (my favourite)
Auto Power-on & Shut-down 2.04 - (self-explanatory)
Avant Browser (remove only) - (self-explanatory)
avast! Antivirus - (self-explanatory)
AVS Video Converter 6 - (self-explanatory)
CCleaner (remove only) - (self-explanatory)
ConvertXtoDVD 3.3.4.106e - Tool to convert DivX videos to DVD format
DFX for Winamp - (self-explanatory)
Folder Size for Windows - I like foldersize displayed like file size in explorer.
GOM Player - Best free multimedia player
Google Chrome - Google's browser
Google Talk (remove only) - (self-explanatory)
Launchy 2.1.2 - With so many apps and plenty of menus, this is one to avoid searchign any apps.  Just type few letters, bingo... you can launch any app
Mozilla Firefox (3.5.2) - Browser
MyPhoneExplorer - Phone manager for my sony ericsson phone.
Nero 7 - for your disc burning needs
Orbit Downloader - Excellent download manager (think, I can post more info about it.)
Picasa 3 - google's photo manaement tool
RealPlayer - multimedia player to play .rm files
Recuva (remove only) - to recover deleted files
SpeedFan (remove only) - to check temperature of CPU and fan RPM numbers... i get to know when to clean my CPU from this.

Spybot - Search & Destroy - spyware removal tool
SpywareBlaster 4.2 - ditto
Startup Delayer v2.3 (build 134)  - delay some programs post logon so that u can get to the work straight away
SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition - spyware removal tool (god! I DO have too many spyware tool.. seems like I didnt quite satisfy.)
TeamViewer 4  - VNC tool
The KMPlayer (remove only)  - already made a post about this!
URL Snooper v2.23.01 - Superb tool... grabs the URL of anything that plays in your PC..
VLC media player 1.0.0  -- another marvellous media player
Winamp (remove only)  -- doesn't need introduction..this was the first well known app from my childhood..
WinRAR archiver - better alternate to winZip.

Well, if you need more details about any particular app, do drop by a comment.  I 'd be happy to feed the same.




You can download most (or ALL?) of the above software from http://www.filehippo.com/

More to come..

KMPlayer.. A perfect Media Player

If you want to use a software just for playing audio or video of popular file formats then I can suggest you to use KMPlayer. So that you don’t have use separate players for each file formats because KMPlayer can play all major formats like AVI, AC3, MKV, OGG, OGM, 3GP, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV, Real Media, QuickTime, VCD, DVD, etc.


The sound quality is really better and the visualization makes it look good, vast audio & video features are inbuilt in this player which makes it really better compared to other music players. Subtitle control is really superb and allows us to adjust font size and lot other, it becomes useful for those, who often watch foreign Language movies. Even you can improve the low-resolution video by using video effects & screen controls.

 

  

PROS of KMPlayer :

--It's free
--The simple user interface of this player makes you stick to it. It even plays a damaged or incomplete file just by skipping the damaged frame and as it supports some of Winamp plug-ins so it becomes a good choice.
--It can be moved to tray icon instead of task bar which saves precious space in the task bar.
--When playing a movie with subtitles, you can configure to render the subtitles at the bottom of the running video (yes, at the black margin).
--Once you configured the options, you can export them as presets and reimport back if you screwed the settings.


CONS of KMPlayer :
--Though I don't find anything in particular, I have felt sometimes the configuration options are too much.  They could put it as basic mode hiding all the advanced options.

You can download the latest version from filehippo.com (http://www.filehippo.com/download_kmplayer/) or you can grab the portable version from here.

I am happy user of KMPlayer for the past one year (previosly I was using GOM Player but ditched it because I could not save the settings).

More to come..

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