My Reviews & Tips

Google with efficiency

2007-08-20T20:45:00.001+05:30

I bet a lot of you know what a handy tool Google is, but do you use it to your full advantage?

I have enlisted a few of the things about Google that I love and I can't live without:-

Currency converter:- Google is very good at converting one currency into other. for Eg. try this 1 GBP in INR. This will give you the value of one Great Britain Pound in Indian Rupees. Just remember the "in"
Calculator- simply enter any calculation as you would in Excel and you will get the result in a jiffy. List of functions available here.
Basic Search functions such as using quotes ("") and minus - will help you speed up & greatly refine your search. More info here
For searching for something within a website use the followig syntax- search string site:sampledomain.com
The other function which I use regularly to find definitions is define. syntax: define:term
Suppose a website with some info that you desperately need is offline/unavailable how do you check it? Simple, just Google the website and click on "cached" below the website's name.

There are several other functions listed here :http://www.google.co.in/intl/en/help/features.htm

I hope the above makes your life a little simple.

Tip: Suppose you are looking up an old crush Rose Mary, insted of Googling it simply try using it with quotes and see the difference in the results ;-)

Torrents General Info.

2007-08-20T20:16:00.001+05:30

Most of the questions I get about torrents can be categorized into 2 parts- A) selecting which torrent to actually download and B) the myriad of file extensions.

So, what I will try here is answer the most common Questions:-

A) Selecting which torrent to download:-

I would suggest that you use the following guidelines when selecting which torrent to download:-

Always check on the comments- ALWAYS.
Always choose files with a lot of Seeders/uploaders
Always download from reputed Torrent web sites such as mininova & newtorrents etc.
Always bear in mind that axxo release is after the date of retail DVD release. (meaning if there is torrent claiming to be axxo but the movie is very recent and imdb shows that its DVD is not available for sale- do not download)
Always give preference to web sites which I listed in my previous post "Useful Links-Movies"

B) The File Extension Mayhem

For the sake of your sanity I would suggest that you download the following application. These 2 tools combined will open 70% of what you will generally download.

WinRAR: For RAR files and the ones with many small .rar parts and almost all types of compressed files
PowerISO: for all ISO files and several other image files

Also, whenever you download some movie which asks you to download and install a specific player e.g. 3wm player some something. DELETE the file immediately and DO NOT install the software. It will contain tons of SPYWARES and Trojans.

Downloading Movies for FREE

2007-08-20T15:31:00.001+05:30

First of all- to all the people who are piracy conscious. Please note that I live in a city where we seldom have any good movies playing and original DVDs are nonexistent. So, please spare me the lecture.

Now, for all of you ‘normal’ people, here are the steps to download movies fast and in excellent quality:-

Download a torrent software- Like µTorrent from here http://download.utorrent.com/1.7.2/utorrent.exe
Read my previous post regarding Useful Links-Movies
Now whenever you visit any torrent site you click on a link which would say something like "download torrent" and save the file when prompted to do so.
Now you will have downloaded a very small file of about a few hundred Kilobytes now open this file with µTorrent (File>add torrent. then select the downloaded file) then click ok.
The file should ideally start downloading now.
You can check the speed by clicking on the speed link in µTorrent.

Please note that the above post is just focuses on the basics of torrents. I will follow it up with more specific tips on various aspects of torrents downloading soon. This is just to get you up and running.

PS: You can get more info here:- http://www.utorrent.com/beginners-guide.php & http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-use-bittorrent/

Webcam Hack!

2007-08-20T14:15:00.001+05:30

To view several public webcams around the word click here or just Google the following: inurl:view/index:shtml

View the tutorial below:-

Enjoy ;-)

Video Conferencing for FREE

2007-08-20T14:11:00.001+05:30

Note: The post below is intended for ppl having a min. on 128 Kbs bandwidth.

I know as soon as you saw the heading you thought that I know how to do that. But what about the quality, ease and expandability??

What we usually do (my friends and I) is that if its a one-on-one chat session we always use Skype since it is painless to set-up and the voice & video quality is always good. Its got mobile-phone quality. Also, please bear in mind that Businesses use Skype, so its the best.

BUT, what if there are 4 ppl who want to video-chat simultaneously? Since Skype only supports one-on-one video chats, what we do is we use Yahoo messenger for video (decent video quality, not too good) and skype for voice this allows us to add unlimited number of ppl to our chat without having to deal with yahoo's pathetic voice quality.

The main problem faced by us during a video-chat is the quality of the whole experience. If the video is fine the audio seems to echo a lot, and if the audio is crisp the video seems patchy. Here is a list of things to do before you video-chat:-

Disable all downloads/uploads i.e. close all p2p software( Limwire & Morpheus etc.) and torrents too.
Close Outlook and/or other Email software.
Check system resources (right click on taskbar >Task Manager> Performance tab,) and see if any software/service is hogging too many resources.
Close all unnecessary software. (rule of thumb- keep your task bar as clean as possible- it includes all the small icons you see next to the clock) close every software you are not using and free as much RAM as possible.
Use headphones otherwise all the voices will eco. you can use the inbuilt microphone in your laptop/monitor but it is advisable to purchase a headset since it costs not more than Rs. 80-120.

I hope the above helped. If you have any queries, drop me a line and I will be glad to assist you to have rewarding video-chat experience.

PS. I have used MSN, Google Talk -but Skype is the BEST!

Useful Links- Movies

2007-08-20T13:42:00.001+05:30

Below are my favorite bookmark links for downloading movies, Enjoy :-)

For any worthwhile DVD Rips on 'The Scene' visit: http://www.rlslog.net/category/movies/dvdrip/
For anything regarding the movie visit Imdb.com
For all axxo releases (the most popular & best releases on the net) http://axxo-release.blogspot.com/ & http://axxo.superfundo.org/
The quintessential torrent search engine:- http://www.torrentz.com/
For the impatient who just can't wait to see a movie that just released somewhere or is due to be released-they might want to check out http://www.rlslog.net/category/movies/ for several kinds of releases such as camera prints and others.

For the unenlightened, I will explain about torrents and its virtues without any jargon in subsequent posts.

Also soon to follow- tips on searching torrents and p2p sites.

Movie tickets discounts

2007-08-20T13:29:00.001+05:30

PPL time to rejoice. BookMyShow.com is offering 20% discounts on movie tickets!

Note:- Conditions Apply- (only on 2 ticks and only on ticks < Rs.300)

A New Beginning

2007-08-20T12:13:00.001+05:30

Ever since the advent of unlimited Internet connections I've been bit by the downloading bug. What started as a one-off thing to catch up on my favorite soap OTH (One tree hill for all future references; which is a 5* show by my ratings), it blossomed into a full fledged fetish.

As things stand now, I download very many applications, shows, movies, songs and other stuff ;-) literally anything under the sun that catches my fancy. My choice can be best described as eclectic!

Ok, so now you'd ask why the hell would any one need another review blog! After all there are tons of them on the Internet and a few of them brilliant...

BUT, this blog caters to people who Know me and agree with my choices and verdicts. So, instead of sending them Emails regarding the things I think they might like- I made a Blog;' this way they can check in when they like and not the other way around.

The other thing that I'll be doing here is reviewing services & applications and ways to do stuff that otherwise I'd tell you in person when I'd meet you.

To summarize now here is what I think I will do in this blog:-

I will post short reviews on anything that I hear/see.
I will post tips & tricks on doing mundane things on the Net
I will not plagiarize other blogs or Imdb.
I will not write any synopsis.
I will be to the point and bang on target- my post will contain my one line review and according to me who would want to watch the said Soap/Movie/etc. or use the application/service
I will post links to other blogs/sites that provide more info.

I will welcome all comments and constructive criticism.