Netbooks

How fast technology changes is what really amazes me. There were days when a B School grad would stroll in the campus garden with a laptop(Notebook) in her hand. But now a new device is making rounds. Move over notebooks, Netbooks have arrived. Net books are smaller version of laptops, primarily focused for the Internet surfing needs.

For those who spend most of their time on Internet, Netbook is a cool answer especially those who prefer mobility. The netbooks offer more or less the same features of a regular laptop. But there are small nips and cuts here and there in features. The all host communication devices, like Bluetooth, WiFi, USB, Broadband (Ethernet port), Modem. But netbooks primarily being made for online application are not heavy on hardware. They mostly host Intel mobile processors, which are made specially for mobile devices. Some netbooks have solid state drives. That means no hard disk with rotating platters! These are costly variants of netbook. And they have is the battery life option. They come with two battery capacities, 3 cell battery (Regular) and 6 cell battery (Extended Life). They also have varying screen size. They range from 7 inches to 10.2 inches. The keyboard size also varies accordingly. Most find it too difficult to type on the 7 inch width netbook. It tad too tiny for anyone's fingers. The mantra here is the wider the netbook the better it is!

Netbooks are manufactured and marketed prominent brands in computing world. They are Asus, Acer, Dell, HP, MSI, Lenovo, Samsung, to name a few!

Interesting Fact

It is found from a study conducted by NPD that 60% of netbook buyers do not take their netbooks out of their home.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbooks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_netbooks

O.A.K.

When the cute child said... Booo

There are movies made to make you laugh, to make you cry, and there are some to scare the hell out of you! Yes, they are famously called Horror Movies. These flicks operate on some fundamental base; Fear. Fear is one factor that is hidden somewhere in our subconscious mind. Like when the camera takes a shot at the background of the character. The character turns and something jumps at her. In such a jumpy situation, your heart leaps out of the mouth! Well, how does this camera panning make the heart leap out? We fear many things, from creepy crawly bugs to dark corners of room. Some people have fear or can say phobia of being trapped alive in a coffin buried underground. While I have seen some people being afraid of Peas. Yes, those cute li'll green peas! Harmless for you but may scare the **** out of others. But what drives such fear/phobia? Fear is nothing but past impressions on our mind. Psychology reluctantly believes in re-birth. In the past life if a person has died due to poisoned peas, then the last sight in front of him would be the dreadful peas. The horrific impact stays in the mind for a long time. The impact is such that it has a lingering effect even in the after life! Same happens when we watch a movie. The impressions made by the horror flick lingers on for god-knows-what length of time. I have some impressions too. Some of the Hollywood booo-chandi(In tamil it means ghosts) flicks that have impressed me are Ju-On (Grudge), 1408, Event Horizon, Exorcist, Poltergiest, The Shining. These films work on certain principle of scaring viewers. The best way to scare out people is the silence. Generally a scary movie has a spine chilling background score. But the background score where no background score can be heard, has a spine "freezing" effect. The silence seems natural instead of the spooky music. And the viewers are scared to death when the sound is back. Another trick from their book is to loneliness. People hate loneliness, especially when they are afraid. It is like hitting in the sore wound. In the movie, 1408, Mike Enslin (jhon Cusack) is left alone in the room. No other characters. Yet it spooks out the viewers! Asians seem to have a fetish for hairs. That can be seen in The Grudge! Where as the westerners have used the faith in god as leverage to spook people. The exorcist is a classic example. The Poltergiest was a good example of the para-normal activites! Fear arises when you know the dreadful problem but no aparent solution is available. But there is a difference between Terror and Horror. Horror is the feeling of revulsion that usually occurs after something frightening is seen, heard, or otherwise experienced. It is the feeling one gets after coming to an awful realization or experiencing a deeply unpleasant occurrence. By contrast, terror is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience. In other words, horror is more related to being shocked or scared (being horrified), while terror is more related to being anxious or fearful (being terrified). Now it is up to you to decide whether you want fearful impression or not!

The days of mobile are numbered!

Come June 30, 2009 will be the last day of using a phone with a phony IMEI No. With that the usability of the phone will also cease to exist. According to the technology calendar, year 2008 was the year of security lapse! A person could easily get a SIM card from a local retail outlet with a little cost of Rs. 15/- for a SIM and start using the phone in matter of few hours. No verification done! Pre or Post. That gave the Nov 26 attackers an added advantage. Simply with a fake ID cards, you have a fully functional cell phone with you. It seems, our country is keen on learning any lesson hard way. After the attacks, the national cellular operators have taken up the task of customer authenticity/ verification. The solution is not that simple. There are many people living in the city who come from remote villages. They buy prepaid cards as they are very convenient. No hassles of bills! Most of them live as tenants, or share a room with other colleagues. How shall such verification be done? The attackers take the advantage of this loop hole to plan attack. Phone Operators now-a-days do call and verify the details. But is it fool-proof? There are no physical verification of address except in case of MTNL Mumbai. The problem does not end here. With the flood of China made phones at utterly cheap rates, it is attracting the price conscious customers like a house flies to the sweets (or shit). But the bug here is, most china made phones have an illegal IMEI no. IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity No.) is a unique 15-digit code implanted in handsets when they are manufactured. It help security agencies track terror suspects and for locating the missing ones! Keeping national security in mind, DoT Dept of Telecommunications, in October 08 asked operators to discontinue the services to handsets that do not have IMEI no. or having a fake number. But the so called last date has been postponed three times and June 30, 2009 is finally decided to be the D-day. You can check the IMEI no. by typing *#06# from your handset keypad. To verify if the number is genuine, Just type a SMS "IMEI" (w/o quotes) followed by a space followed by 15 digit IMEI number and send it to 53232. You will get the SMS describing the legality of handset! Now what if the IMEI number is fake? Soon there will be 1600 Genuine IMEI Implant centers that will be opened across Indian cities. All you will need to do is carry a valid ID card, driving license or voter's card to such center and with Rs. 180/- plus tax and 30 minutes of time the IMEI number will be changed to a valid, legal, no-issues number. Check the number before the days of mobile get numbered! O.A.K.

Geni - Family Tree !!!

Consider this situation: You are attending your relative's wedding and someone just pops up from the crowd and says, "Hi recognised me?? My god Last time I saw you you were so small. May be 10-15 years back right?" You keep wondering who that person is. You mentally climb the "Family Tree" to find the connection. Well, In the era when Social Networking rules, it has become more of a challenge to be socially networked offline. We, now-a-days spend so much time in front of the LCD Flat Screen that the world has started appearing flat! I was very much ashamed when I realised that I could not recognise people from my family tree! Here comes "Geni" to rescue! Geni is also one of a pseudo social networking site. I call it pseudo because, it looks like social networking acts like social networking but actually the purpose to make your family tree. You create an account and add the people in you relation to form a tree. You can also send an invite to them through email to complete the family tree from their side. As more and more people join you tree, your family will start looking more complete. I was surprised to see how big my family tree is! This is really a wonderful site, beautifully managed, lesser stress on bandwidth, lots of peripheral functionalities like statistics(Must check out!) Timeline, relatives, photos, videos and mainy the FAMILY TREE. Joining is very very simple. No much forms to fill. In fact when I got the invite from my uncle, I just clicked the link and my account was created. User name and pasword was automatically generated! No hassles! O.A.K.

Time Framed!!!

Tasveer 8X10. Nagesh Kukunoor directed, suspense thriller film is a movie I just risked watching. Akshay kumar a.k.a. Jai Puri, is a forest ranger with an ESP (extra sensory perception). His powers allow him to stare at a pic and then have the sight that the person in the photo had, just before his/her accident. Jai's father Jatin (Benjamin Gilani) dies in what seems to be an accident and a heart attack. On his death, Jatin's wife, Savitri (Sharmila Tagore) bequeaths all his wealth and estate. But all does not end here. Enter Happi (Javed Jaffery), "Happi with an I" as he calls himself challenges Jai into his theory that Jatin's death was not an accident. It was ill intended, well planned murder. Jai initially rubbishes this hypothesis, but his dreams of his fathers calling out for help, makes him suspicious. He uses his ESP on the pic taken by his mom, just before Jatin's death, to check out the truth. That pic has four people in it, who are also the suspects in the film. In the whole film he uses this power over 5 times. This movie, although a bit slow paced, holds the audience in good grip initially, the climax peaks up till intermission. It is a sign of a good suspense movie director that he lets the audience keep guessing who the culprit is. Kukunoor has made marvelous effort in directing this suspense thriller. The cinematographics and technical details of the movie is really appreciable. All the characters have a meaningful and integral role in the film. Nobody wasted. Javed Jaffery is exceptional with his whimsical role of a detective. Akshay's role is unlike his other films and has given his full effort. He has exhibited some of his parkour skills in the film. Sheila (Ayesha Takia) has a very "sweet" role of Jai's fiance. She definitely has a very important role and pulled it very well. Anil Sharma (Girish Karnad) as the lawyer, has a very limited reel time, but has a very meaningful part of a suspect. Other important characters are played by Anant Mahadevan andRushad Rana. Both have done it well. The music score by S. Suleiman keep the audience at the edge of their seat. While watching the movie, I was reminded of M. Night Shyamalan's stlye of direction. Looked very much similar. As the movie nears its end, the audience is clean bowled. The expression is like; "Now, whats that!!!!!" If you are able to catch the ending Kukunoor throws at you, Good. Else you will keep wondering what you are doing in the movie hall!

Review: Ratatouille

Aaah! This is one well made movie. Must congratulate Walt Disney - Pixar Studios for creating splendid animation! The details in the movie is par excellence. And please its not Rat - a - tuli, its is pronounced: Rat-a-tui

Its a movie on a rat named "Remmy". Well a rat with a bunch of unique taste buds. When most rats preffer stealing food that are considered unconsumable by humans, Remmy would go around shopping for exotic ingredients in and around the garbage can for his evening meal. And guess what, he also does not miss the Chef Gustaue's Episodes on cooking. Remmy strongly believes in Chef Gustaue's philosophy that "Anyone can Cook" The adventure starts right from the begining of the movie till the credit rolls at the end!

The movie holds you glued to your seat. Not an "Edge of the seat" Action movie, but still once you watch the movie for 15 min, you would not even think of getting up till the movie ends. There are chases thrown here and there and some stolen kisses, nevertheless, an ultimate adventure.

The crux of the movie is worth observing. This is one movie entertains kids and adults alike. Fun for kids and philosophy for adults. A lot to learn from this movie. What more shall I say? To read more review click here to go to bawa's opinion on this movie. 

O.A.K.

Check your mechanical ability

Some people have a flair for building mechanical things. Contraptions come in that category. I just stumbled upon a website built in flash. The name is Fantastic Contraptions. What is the objective of that game; you just have to roll the ball in the goal area. That's it! But is that all easy as its said? Hit this site: fantasticcontraption.com It is a really addictive puzzle game for those who love mechanics. O.A.K.

Kung Fu Panda

Truly Enlightening movie! A real entertainer!! It has got a simple yet superb story line and is successful in keeping the viewers enthralled till the end. Po's father expects Po to takeover the reigns of the noodles business after him. But Po has different dreams. He dreams of fighting hordes of enemies with Tigress, monkey, crane, viper and mantis; the "famous five of kung fu". Master Oogway predicts the release of the dreaded Tai Lung and mentions the dawn of Dragon warrior who will defeat tai lung. Master Sifu hosts a ceremony where the dragon warrior would be selected and spreads the news in town. Po reaches the mountain top where the ceremony is arranged. Po reaches late and he misses the chance of witnessing the selection. But Po skyrockets and lands up in the selection party. When he opens his eyes after the fall, he realises that master is pointing finget at him saying he is the dragon warrior. The question arises how could a fat flabby panda bear who knows the history and facts about the 5 warriors but knows nothing about kung fu can fight, Tai Lung? Well I am not going to narrate the whole movie, for sure. But what is really worth of mention is that the movie has surely got a philosophical base. The fact that nothing in this universe happens accidentally, Its all the plan of the divine, is emphasized thoroughly! Haaa.. And Master Oogway reminded me of guruji to certain extent. Po is a real entertainer and the critical element of the movie. There are no scenes in the movie which seem out of place. Intricately built story! I have watched this film 3 times in last 5 days before writing this post! You enjoy it too !!! O.A.K.

Shelfari!?!

Hey! Did you notice a new widget on the blog? Its called shelfari. Shelfari is a webiste where you have an account. And in that account you cann add the books you've read, you wish to read, or you wish to buy. You can rate the books on the scale of one to five. This is a must visit website for the voracious readers like me. The list of books in the shelf of shelfari is just 2% of what I've read. To view my current bookshelf on shelfari go to http://www.shelfari.com/omkar890 Reading is a very good habit. I know that with the advent of Cell phones, laptops, internet; reading, per se, is being slowly dispensed with. But gals and guys, I tell you there is no other joy like reading. You go to gym to pump muscles and train you body. Reading is a rigorous workout for you brain. More you read more flexible you brian will be. So keep up the habit of reading! O.A.K.