Indian Blogs – where to find them ?

          We are often looking for people writing on the content most relevant to us (Indians), and blogs written by Indians are hard to find. But I realized that there are couple of sites where we can find exclusive Indian content with the information we would be interested. Given below are couple of sites with a small review of each.

          India Blogs : A listing of exclusive Indian blogs, the blogs are segregated based on various categories and each category has only a couple of blogs listed. The selection criteria is pretty tough, you can be assured that only interesting blogs are featured here.

          Blogadda : A collection of Indian blogs. Blogs on very topic relevant to Indians can be found here.

          Indibloggies : Check out the award winning Indian blogs here. Every year a competition is held among all the Indian bloggers. The award winning best blogs are featured here.

          Technorati : This is a global accumulation of blogs and everyone and anyone can register their blog here. Search for Indian blogs would pop up any blog which has any sort of reference to India. Not very useful if you are looking for some quality blogs which is already moderated and judged, but is useful when the search is for specific topic.

Agyaat is it good?

 

There are already many reviews blasting off this movie. Well, before giving the verdict, it is important to understand there are two main reasons why people go to watch thrillers.While some go to experience the fear, thrill and edge of the seat excitement some others go to tickle their brains and guess the killer before the director decides to reveal. This movie will hugely disappoint the latter, because we do not get to know the killer at all. Now that is unique for a murder mystery, but this if viewed as the thriller, it blows your guts out.

 

After watching the movie, you would think twice before venturing into a small park, let alone a jungle.

But the thrills apart there is very little the movie offers, the lead pair being a major drawback.

Love Aaj Kal – is it worth watching?

 

Answer is a YES!! , in fact it is a must watch for people of the new generation and people of the current or previous generation. Does not leave anybody I guess . The reason I make these strong statements is because this film is unlike any other love story seen on the Indian screens in the recent past (except for Dev D).

So what makes ‘Love Aaj Kal’ so unique? Well there are plenty of reasons, but the top one is the freshness of the story itself. While we are there, the story, is alien to the normal middle class India and would largely seem illogical for the present or the older generation. But none of the characters shown are from the middle class, so if one is not able to relate to the story then fine, just view it as a story of a rich London settled guy and gal. The brief interlude every now and then of the previous era love story set in India only add to the magic.

Apart from the story what stands out are the dialogues and visuals. The dialogues are witty and not melodramatic as a normal Bollywood love story.

Go enjoy the ride !!

The director Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met was very well appreciated. It was good, no doubt, but the current one is lot lot better.

Very handy screen capture tool

 

Many a time we need to capture a part of the screen to be sent across to some one or to paste in a document for reference later. Windows “Prnt Scrn” is good enough but it has the disadvantage that it can either copy the whole screen or whole of the active window. This is not very convenient since the actual information required to be captured might just be a fraction of the screen and moreover the size of the copied window would be too high especially if we plan to send it across in a mail.

A very handy tool to copy only the required portion of the screen is called ‘Snippy’ , apparently developed by an Indian. It is very light (hardly an MB) and there is no install required. Just run the executable file and start snipping !.

Can be downloaded from Snippy download.

More reviews and help on this tool can be found here .

   Clippings on this page have been done using Snippy.

Technorati Tags: Reviews,software,screen capture tool

Pens reviews

I lost my pen once again !!, the second one this week. This time I decide I am going to buy only the pens which cost Rs10/ or less. When I visit the shop to get a new one a plethora of pens are there in this range. I think with the rate at which I am losing pens I can at least try out a few of them.

Cello FASTER – Cost Rs5 /- . Very smooth and has a .7mm thick point, so the writing is very clear. Supposed to have German ink , and it shows. There are no breaks or un-uniform flow of ink. Gets 4 star , very good value for money.

Technorati Tags: Reviews,pens

Aamir Hindi Movie Review

This is one movie which seems have received reviews which have either rated it too high or rated it too low. CNN-ibn has given it a fairly high rating and puts it under not to be missed category, but on the other hand fullhyd has given it a too low rating. Apart from the reviews this movie was also involved in the controversy because it is rumored that the story was a straight lift from a foreign movie.

Controversy !!

CNN-IBN review

Full Hyd review

The basic plot of the movie is quite chilling. An NRI comes home after long and finds that his family has been kidnapped by a fundamentalist group. The group forces him to plat a bomb in a crowded Mumbai bus. Sounds perfectly plausible, but the movie takes lots of twists and turns before the protagonist and the viewer realize what the whole thing is about, which actually makes the whole thing boring. Moreover towards the end the twists and turns seem so unnecessary if the idea was to just force a person to plant a bomb.

But the presentation of the movie is really refreshing, even if the plot has been lifted, vivid presentation of the Mumbai streets and the protagonists dilemmas deserves praise. Would say not worth the theatre visit, a one time viewing at home is fine.

Ending is predictable, hero sacrifices himself but saves the whole crowd by bombing himself up in a lonely place.

Technorati Tags: Hindi movie review

Jodha Akbar – Hindi Film Review

Starring Hritik as Akbar and Aish as Jodha, this film tries to cover too much ground and unfortunatly inspite of 3.5hours , it does not get to cover even one aspect of Akbar’s life. Supposed to be a love story between Akbar and a Rajput princess Jodha, there is very little love and more of many other things including palace intrigue involving Akbar’s brother and brother-in-law and numerous other relatives. Aish does have a big role and a meaty one too, but given her acting skills even after putting quite some efforts she does not evoke the response or emotions which one should expect from the role of Jodha.

Story starts off with how Jodha a Rajput princess is forced into marriage with Akbar and the pains of Akbar in trying to get her to accept him. This is the part which is mostly poorly scripted, Jodha peeking in when Akbar is displaying his fighting skills in a traditioal attire (which means the shirt is off) and this being a point where she seems to change her opinion about Akbar is very odd indeed.

That apart the film also tries to cover certain other aspects of Akbar’s life including some tax reforms he brings in(again presented in a shoddy way). There is also a war picturization between Akbar and his brother-in-law, this one too a silly one. The two armies come to fight each other but Akbar proposes a hand-fight and the opponent agrees and obviously Akbar wins after some ‘tense’ moments.

The nice part of the whole movie is that though the whole seems so badly made, the parts in themselves keeps you rivited and that saves the day. The huge sets and some what authentic looking jewellary and the nice songs all ensure that you are not feeling either bored or cheated into buying the tickets.

Hrikit obviously is the highlight of the movie, Aish is ok except for some frames where she looks stunning. Music by A.R.Rehman is good. On the whole a good timepass, but nothing great.

Race – Film Review

Watching the Miss Universe peagent is intersting and alluring , but I find the question answer part the most boring and I don’t think anyone in the judges ever decides on the winner based on that. Race is also on similar lines, glossy to the core, almost looks like a series of catwalks all through the movie. Race is supposedly a murder thriller, and yes there is a murder (a fake murder , though), but thriller only in some rare occurances. So is it watchable?, Ofcourse, would you want to miss Miss Universe especially if there are couple of Indian enteries and some excellent locales for a backdrop.

Race is a tale of two brothers trying to outwit each other, and also in the process also try outwitting the insurance company which would give 100 million (now we no longer talk in crores ??!!) . Only hitch is that one of the brother must die ‘accidently’ for the other to get those millions. Now starts the most complicated plan just to bump off one of the brothers. Akshay no expression khanna is the younger one and is projected as the bader of the two , the handsome,six pack Saif is the elder one . The elder one is always a step ahead and obviously wins most of the times. Most of the film, we are shown both the brothers being just brothers loving and caring, it is only at the intermission that we get to know that one of them or rather both of them are out to get each other and also the 100 million.

Bipasha plays the female lead, but one would be wondering for most part of the movie who is her male counterpart, same is the case with the other female lead Katrina beautiful kaif. Story is complicated so I woul’t try putting it in words. But can only mention that there are sufficent twists in the tale that I guess Sherlock Holmes would give up this case without even a try. But given Abbas Mastan (directors) we have Anil Kapoor with a pretty secretery S Reddy solve this murder mystery, wait did I say murder, well actually there is no murder, yes no murder but yet a murder mystery and investigation with Anil Kapoor solves. Enough of confusion , it might just be good to add at the risk of giving the story away that Anil kapoor too is involved in the whole setup.

All the actors except for Akshay do their job well, especially the female ones do their job well. Their job obviously is very easy, catwalks with every little to act, ok not to be too harshh, Bips does have a considerable role and she does her job quite well.

Music is good, btu could be lot better, 2 of the songs are hits and hummable. ON the whole a watchable movie but nothing great or so.

Hair cutting shops in and around Miyapur

This one is becoming a real ‘head’ache with none of the barbers in this area coming anywhere close to the barber at A.S.Rao Nagar. Not that the guys at A.S.Rao Nagar were very good but they were acceptable. So what do we look for at a barber shop

- good barber -> knows how to handle the scissors

- no smoking

- a little livable ambiance

- some English books or atleast news papers

- apply malish (even if it is for a fee)

- capable of small talk but not becoming too intrusive

that’s all !!

Shops inside deepthi srinagar colony

- one at the cross roads inside, just beside the cable guy – worst of all – he is a part time barber and wants to finish as quickly as possible. ambiance is worst (put politely). No oil and no backward hand combed cutting.

- one at the ROI apts, kid manages the show and his cutting is not even half as stylish as he is and lot of noisy crowd

- one at the building housing “More” supermarket just in front of deepthi srinagar colony. This is a posh one costs Rs50 for a cut, but you should be lucky to get hold of a good one else you have had it. Ambience is great, books are there including the film magazines.

- found a good one at last ! , Style Care , it is a shop in the complex beside the big church (on the Miyapur – Chandanagar Road). The guy is experienced and uses the scissors well and the malish is too good. Has facility for facials too with reasonable prices.

Technorati Tags: hair cutting shops,miyapur,reviews

atyanarayna enclave.

Search for a good photosharing site

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Flickr – Free but 100MB limit

photobucket – Free but with some limitations but still liked by many

riya – sound differnet has face recognition capability !!

zoto – another new one !

There are lots of new players emerging too. Riya may have taken a step forward in facial recognition. Other sites like Zoto and BubbleShare are showing off ajax and speedy applications.

Signed up for riya… it is beta but seems to work good. lets see. Note that it stores in 800/600 only so no high resolution pics over there.

dotphoto.com seemed the best one to suit my needs. Signed up and posting photos right since

LiveJournal Tags: photostoring sites