Entries from March 2008 ↓

I’m a big fan of StumbleUpon (my profile) and their toolbar doesn’t work with my favourite browser, Safari. StumbleUpon toolbar was the only thing I missed which was irked me when I switched to Safari.

Recently I came to know about Stumbi, the StumbleUpon ‘toolbar’ for Safari. Don’t except pretty icons. After installation, it adds to your Menu bar.

The Good:
We can give thumbs up, etc. with keyboard shortcut which I find efficient than the traditional way of enjoying StumbleUpon. Good as it’s lighter than the StumbleUpon Toolbar. (Safari starts in less than a second and Firefox takes 5 seconds.)

The Bad:
Issues are the lack of various small ‘features’ in the toolbar and the absence of the standard window that comes when you give thumbs up/down for the first time. The developer has promised more features (and a toolbar) in the next updates.

It just works regardless of the features which you might never use.

Note that you need to donate $2 before you can download it.

Stumbi

Do you know that you can register with TvTorrents without invites? Problem is you’ll have almost no credits to start downloading.

Recently Milind helped me with his TvTorrents account and I built over 11 GCredits to my new account within a week.

I’ve covered the topic on building ratios extensively in two articles. Have a Torrent Ratio You Can Be Proud Of and How to Improve or Maintain Ratio in Private Torrent Trackers . If you’re looking for more read, head to the recent article featured in TorrentFreak: 10 Tips and Tricks for Private BitTorrent Sites.

Here’s one killer trick which will work in your favor and never been discussed before. Get the file from an older account from your friends account or get the files from them and then seed them to your account.
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Never before a India - South Africa tie has attracted so much attention and rivalry. India had done well in Australia and South Africa also played good cricket in home and away. This series is the fight for the second spot (currently held by India) in ICC Test Rankings.

History also beacons Sachin Tendulkar (200 odd runs required to beat Lara as the highest run amassed) and Rahul Dravid (10k runs and aim for 2nd spot in highest number of catches held).

As always at The Newspaper Blog, we get to see the cricket matches online in your PC.

Open links in Internet Explorer (IE). Have SopCast and TVU Player installed. For more resources on how to use SopCast and watching Online TV, Streaming Content check: Little Known Ways to Watch TV Online for Free.

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iTunes is not just for managing iPods & your Digital Music and be a yet another music player. With iTunes Store, make iTunes the capital of your entertainment world.

iTunes Store is Apple’s Digital store wherein we can buy/rent movies, songs, TV Shows, albums, etc. Creating an account is free and not many people where we can put the iTunes Store to good use. The best part is we needn’t pay a penny.

How to get an iTunes Store account

Goto ‘Store’ section in your iTunes. There’ll be a link to create an account (or it’ll prompt you). You can create an iTunes account with 17 countries (not yet in India) but US store has the best stuffs. UK store comes second.

1. Create an account directly (needs Credit Card information)
If you’re creating an account, you’ll need to provide your Credit Card details (i.e. US CC details for US store). If your country doesn’t has a iTunes Store, ask your friends/relatives to provide this information.

2. iTunes Store Gift Cards
Available in the denomination of $15, 30 and 50. In addition to the freebies; you can buy ringtones, audiobooks and rent movies/TV Shows.

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Hello, I’m Milind Alvares. There is no way in hell I’m going to compete with the abominable Aayush in writing a spiffy intro for myself. Not going to happen. After all I’m a simpleton from Goa (the drunkard kind), who just happens to have gone a little crazy about these Apple products. I also happen to run a non-profit blog, Goobimama’s Soggy Blog, which is my medium for wasting other peoples time just as I am doing right now with this crappy intro. So without further ado, here’s how you enjoy your media on your Mac.

Most of you coming from the Windows world must have gotten used to creating separate partitions for movies, music, and then organising them in folders. In the Mac world we do things differently. It is one that really makes you feel like you are in control of your media.

Now, if you buy movies and TV shows from the iTunes store, all of this is all done for you. But what happens when you get your movies from elsewhere? Managing them again in those folders is just painful. With just a little bit of effort, managing media with iTunes has proven to be a real joy. One that I can’t live without.

See all your TV shows at a glance. The blue dot signifies that you have unwatched episodes in there. Hit the “Previous track” button on the remote and it organises all your individual episodes with the most recent ones at the top.
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For those not in the know, which should include pretty much every one of you, I’m Aayush Arya, a nineteen year old student and a freelance author by semi-profession. I currently write for Macworld and Apple Matters and for my own blog, Penned Thoughts. Ashwin and I were acquainted on the Digit forum and have since become good friends, due in no small part to his switching to Macs. On his request, this is my humble contribution to his ongoing series of TV show recommendations.

Now that the customary introductions have been shown the door, let us get on with the juicy recommendations, shall we? All the three shows I’m going to mention here today are from the wonderful genre of comedy. Unlike most other guys, I’m not really interested in action flicks with guns and blood and gore.

I’d much rather plonk myself down on the couch, grab my Apple Remote, hit Front Row and enjoy an hour of mirthful laughter, uninhibited by people jumping off the back of trucks and gunning down anything that comes in their path (though I did enjoy Live Free or Die Hard, but even that was more due to Justin Long’s witty quips than all the outrageous action sequences).

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Macs are getting popular these days and everyone wants to own a Mac.

Other than the killer looks and splendid design, what’s so special? It’s the Apps. That’s was one of the main reasons why I use a Mac. You might be a Writer, Blogger, Designer, Student or just want to be productive, there’s a clear advantage over other PCs.

So where to buy a Mac after convincing yourself and your parents/spouse? This is going to be an Indian perspective article, but everyone will be benefitted.

Buy in the US

With the Dollar weakening (and Rupee appreciating), it makes sense to buy in the US. Even without any discounts, it’s a lot cheaper than what price you’ll pay here in India. Take an example of MacBook Pro. You save ~Rs 25k (without any additional discounts). And you can save on Taxes too if you ship to certain states where there’s no tax (like Delaware). More on buying in US, listed below.

Other places like Singapore (~Rs 90k) and Dubai (~Dhs 8.7k/Rs 96k) might be other alternatives where you consider to buy. [Costs Rs 105k in India. Prices mentioned are that of the 15" MacBook Pro.]

Try not to buy in India as it’s overpriced and expensive. If you’ve no other option, then here the list of Apple dealers in India.

Apple has partnership with Reliance and they’ll be opening new Apple called iStore. They’ll open 60 iStores in 20 cities.

I’ve listed some ways where you can get discounts on Apple Products from Apple Store itself.
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