Entries from January 2006 ↓

Many of us have problems with playing various types of media files (.avi, .mkv, .ogg, etc..) and there dont seem to be any end of formats as well!
Most of the problems arise when we don’t have the required Codecs installed in our system.
So I just write this article which helps us in combating this problem.

Overview:
Most of the files actually play without any fuss, only that the audio or the video will come; so some of us will find it difficult to find what is wrong as it wont show any error (BSplayer will show, and some media player will show the error but will continue to play the file).

We can follow the following steps to make all the files play without any issue. We will look into individuals programs now.

Continue reading →

Life Is Beautiful (La Vita è Bella)

Genre: Comedy / War / Romance

“An unforgettable fable that proves love, family and imagination conquer all.” goes the tagline of the movie and rightly so! There is so much in the movie; comedy, romance, Drama, war; it’s a treat for the whole family. Life is beautiful is not the usual War movie we might have seen.

The first part of the movie is funny and we would really had some good laughs. Even have tried to maintain the tempo through out the movie. Even if the sequence is sad, it is portrayed in a lighter vein.

The comedy in the movie is what makes it special. Have you ever seen a War movie which is a comedy as well? There were some comic references to Schopenhauer (he was a favorite writer of Hitler) and about the tag: “Jews and dogs are not allowed”.

The kid, Joshua as he was named is cute little boy and his role was perfect and did a resoonably good job as well. His mother Dora or princess (Nicoletta Braschi) as his husband Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni) calls is also cute. Both the Kid and her mother is adorable and loving.

This is an Italian movie, and I downloaded this movie, and it had English subtitles and was English dubbed as well. Never matter the language, this movie was really good and I might watch this over and over again, of it was not dubbed in English.

Final word:
Life Is Beautiful is one of the best foreign films I have seen. I Have never seen a movie which is based on the World War 2 backdrop and is a comedy. Even thought the ending is sad, the film shows in lighter spirit. In the end you might shed a tear or two.

This movie is the best movie in Terms of War and comedy genre for me. Have you ever seen a War movie which is a comedy as well? I would recommend to buy the DVD and watch it over with your Girlfriends or family.

10/10
IMDb Page

I am a leecher.
I am referring to leeching concept that is used in the p2p circles. The person who is downloading the file is usually called the leecher. But there is more into this leecher concept. Consider a 700 mb file. I spend around 7-8 hours on downloading and when I am done, I don’t share the file with others peers connected with me. Based on the above gyan, I am a leecher.

Leeching Is NOT a Sin! It’s The Motive Behind Leeching That Makes it Sin.

“…hands that shed innocent blood.” Is it the “act of self defense” by killing another person, or the manifestation of hate to murder for selfish motive?
The above is a statement that will make sense when you have to divorce. Consider the same in the leeching. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

I have a 256kbps “Broadband” connection. It’s an Always on connection and not we are not entitled to unlimited data transfers. The upload speeds are capped to a max of 7-8kBps. I get “unlimited” nights data transfer. The unlimited transfer are for only 6 hours a day. Nights don’t start from 10:30/11/12 midnight for these morons. The so called Nights Unlimited (NU) transfers starts from 2 AM (whom are they trying to fool?).Monthly data that can be transferred is only 1gb. For 250 rs a month, it’s just 400mb a month!! My ISP, BSNL is a state owned PSU.
More of this frogshit plan and the tariff of BSNL dataone : Here

I am a leecher

When I have a 6 hours a day connection, what will be the plight of juntas like me? Upload speeds are also capped. I don’t get speeds more than 7-8kBps, it’s limited to 25% of my download speeds. So even if I had a 24X7 connection, I will have to seed (share) the file for a longer time and to upload and share to the amount I have downloaded will take me 4 times as compared to the time elapsed for me to download the same file. This aspect will always add pressure not to share and seed whatever we have downloaded. I did have 24X7 connection as a promo offer for 4.5 months, I was having a tough time to maintain good ratio (D/l : U/l) in some torrent sites and with a private torrent tracker.

The so called Nights Unlimited (NU) transfers starts from 2 AM in the morning. Is it a nights free usage? It’s a mornings free usage! All the juntas who have this connection and also download have sleeping disorders. It’s a really shrewd move by BSNL, they know that many won’t connect to Internet at 2 Am.
As for me, I don’t wait for 2 AM every morning, so I get a average of 4 hours or so only per day as a free transfers.

Bandwidth drop by more than 40% when it rains. We all know that it has been raining heavily for past few months here in Chennai and I lost some BW and transfer at those times.

To sum up:

• 6 hours a day of transfers only.
• Capped upload speeds (merge 7-8KBps) which is 25% of my d/l speed.
• 2 AM (!) is the starting time for the so called Nights free usage.
• Every extra mb transferred (u/l or d/l) will cost you 140 paise.
• Bandwidth drop by more than 40% when it rains

So? What’s the deal?
Yeah, I am a leecher.

Not that I don’t take any efforts, once I d/led a file from another tracker and uploaded the same to a tracker which have ratios. Once I have also asked my friend to upload the stuffs on his line which is uncapped.

It’s virtually impossible to seed with my connection, even if I want to share, the amount and quantity that I share will be merge and negligible, so it’s not worth the effort.

I know that p2p is driven by the fact, love it, share it. Dial-up connection or a capped connection is not a excuse for not seeding. But I am forced to “kill” another person as an “act of self defense” and for a selfish motive! This answers the below question that I started with:
Leeching, is it the “act of self defense” by killing another person, or the manifestation of hate to murder for selfish motive?

This is cricket season and many would be loking for live audio or video streaming of matches. Here is two such sites that may be useful.

[Updated] - 26/03/08

South Africa Tour of India - Test Series

South Africa Tour of India - Live Cricket Streaming

Subscribe for future updates. For email updates, enter your email id in the sidebar field.

Also you might want to check this post where I tell help you with ways by which you can see TV online for free: Little Known Ways to Watch TV Online for Free

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I am yet to find some sites that provide video streaming, but will update this space when I stumble on such a link.

Enjoy!

Prisons and cells are places that we might not have chance to seeing in our life, that’s where movies come in the picture. We get to see the prisons and how the inmates live there..

Close to the heels of Top 6 Christmas Movies comes this post. I had always liked prison break, adventure or POW movies.. so I started watching a few movies and here comes my list of top prison break/escape movies. Almost all the movies in this list are a true life stories.
Again I have a list which is in different genres.. from Adventure (The great escape) to Thriller (Escape from alcatraz) to Drama (The Shawshank Redemption) to Crime (Midnight express) to Biography (Papillon) and even comedy (Stalag 17)!!

POW-WAR movies are actually fun to watch (or thats what I feel!) as there might not be any brutal or depressing scenes which is a characteristics of the so called “War” movies, and at the same time entertaining as well. I have covered two movies in this genre - The Great Escape and Stalag 17.

Now coming on the list…6 movies 6 different genres…

Continue reading →

How well do I protect my PC?
I really don’t protect it much, it protects by itself.

Lets see how most of the people protect their PCs..
How well we can protect our systems:

We can protect windows in the following ways:
1. Antiviruses (AV)
2. Firewalls (both Software & Hardware)
3. Anti-spywares

Some examples where people are you-know-what:

1. Some fellow was asking can he add two AV’s   Why in this world he need two AV, it’s not required (IMO) also the AV cause conflict with each other.
2. Having 2-3 Firewalls and not exclude the Windows SP2’s Firewall.
3. Again 2-3 Anti-spywares and HijackThis and browser hijacker detectors
4. Desperate to install SP2 in their pirated copies of Windows XP . Why would they want to do? Atleast it’s OK if they got license for the same. I don’t question the use/Whether SP2 is required or not, just why are they desperate?

Other than that:
- Updates for their AV/Antisypwares,etc. They go to extend of saying that my AV have updates every 3 hours (KAV) and mine every 2 hours, and so mine is better.
- Desperate for new versions for their softwares like for eg : Browsers, AV’s etc.
- People ask if using P2P softwares is safe or not..

Now, let me take some issues in this and see what I have to say:
P2P:
I just wan to say that, I once had a 24X7 connection for 4.5 months and I used to run P2P atleast 20 hours a day. I have had Bit Tornado (tried 6-7 clients, but never liked the others ), ARES, , Edonkey ( it’s a adware and installs spyware also) and DC++ .

I had my computer “ON” for 20 hours and on P2P. Remember most P2P dontwork properly when we got firewalls. Still nothing has happened.  Still I see many topics where people ask if using P2P is safe or not.

I still see ppl say P2P is not safe . But IMHO, I feel P2P without “protection” is safer than having SEX without Condoms

Browsers:
Regarding browsers, I have IE, FX and Maxthon installed in my system. I use FX and Maxthon only. I never update my FX or Maxthon for security concerns, I dont give a damn

I update browsers only for features and not for better security reasons; ok maybe if they have fixed some bugs . I fell that new version should be installed or updates from earlier versions only i case they got new features or fix bugs.

Firewalls:
firewalls are not only in place to “hide” our PC from the outside , but to restrict the use of BW or restrict the use of some applications like IM, P2P etc.

They can be used in the following ways:
1. Restrict the BW usage in homes/work places.
2. Block programs to access our BW
3. Block images or unwanted images when we browse
4. Restrict the use of some programs like IM or P2P..
5. Limiting unwanted BW transfer (like ppl are scared when the transfer when there is no activity )

I don’t have *No Firewall* installed in my system , even SP2 firewall (I turned all the “Features” of SP2 to “OFF” and no remainders to it as well  )

Now.. I got my system like this :
- No firewalls
- No AV’s
- No Antisypywares /Browser hijack detectors
- I don’t update my Browser for security alone
- Automatic updates are off
- All features of SP2 are turned off
- Never installed this Auto-patcher thing (till now I don’t what the f___ it is)
- Use P2P (still ppl say it’s not safe; but IMO it’s 100% safe)

Now you may argue that prevention is better than cure, loose important data and stuffs like that …

But consider this:
-  Nothing has happened for the past 7-8 months when I got no AV/firewall ..blah blah..
-  My speed of network Internet never comes less than 28kBps, so We cant argue that some stuffs make your system slower wrt to BW
-  My PC is blazing fast now , and loads in 5 mins, with all the “other protection” it took 8-9 mins. Yeah baby, I have only 128mb RAM only.

The other we protect our hardwares/PC in general:
1. UPS or stabiliser atleast
2. Anti-static covers for your PC
3. Extra fans for various requirements like for cabi/ HDD etc..

Now consider this:
- I have no AC in my room where I have my PC
- No UPS/ Stabiliser ; so PC goes kapuut in case there is a power cut, but I don’t care for it.
- I have no Anti-Static covers for my PC, I just cover it with a linen cloth.
- I have a mouse PAD, but some say it’s not required so I will reviewing to use that or not 

Some ppl  got FANS for his MODEM (BSNL Dataone modems heats up quickly) also Yeah the modem is a crap but FANS for it?

My PC is 6 years old assembled set… still it works well or I make it work for me in the way I want to!

Final word:
I don’t say that we should not have all this AV’s or firewalls installed but it all depends on how you use your PC and know what you do in the Internet and what you browse and what Ads you click

I have no AV, no Antispyware or firewall in my PC for atleast 8 month , and till now nothing has happened, when I had AV only I was infected with a virus which deleted all the .dll files in system32 folder and I had to do some changes and format my HDD, now I have learnt my lesson!

But IMHO, I fell all this is not required Why are ppl over cautious? After what will happen if my Windows crashes. loss all my data? I am not in Army to have secret matters. Well All the important things I have backups

Please leave your comments as how well you “protect” your PC… or do yo ppl wear condoms?

When I was browsing through the new movies torrents at Demonoid, I saw a torrent which claim that we can fold a T shirt in 2 secs.. Wow that’s interesting.. I am lazy as a log and this is great news for wastrel like me!

Here is the image which illustrates the process.

It does not show the full size, click here to view.

Immediately I tried it with the one I was wearing (duh?) and it worked. It’s simple and works!

The video is in Japanese, and it has a subtitle and god alone knows what language it’s in! Anyways, watch this like a cartoon and you’ll understand.

Check out the stuff!
How to fold a t-shirt in 2 seconds