Western Digital WD TV Live Review

Okie! Here goes my first gadget review. I am going to tell about a very cool bit of technology innovation called Western Digital WD TV Live player. A small cute device that is going to change the way you viewed connected media before! Honestly speaking I didn’t appreciate this amazing piece of work when my husband bought it. Well he is a gadget freak or more rightly an electronics-shopaholic. But just like any shopaholics he has his own way of convincing why that was a ‘can’t live without’ stuff. I was really skeptical if any of his reasoning was going to even convince me on this. But this time, it was the product that convinced me! I’d not say that it’s a gadget you can’t live without, but I’d definitely say its worth every penny...

Internet explorer 9 Beta Review

IE version 9 was officially launched on 15th September 2010 with a lot of promising features and a magnitude of reengineering to give a fast, clean, secure, never before web experience. You can download IE9 Beta from Beautyoftheweb.com. Web browsing or internet browsing constitutes almost over 80% of usage for a PC / Laptop users. Still it is one of the most compromised areas too. Browser crashes and slower loading time of graphic web pages are going to be things of the past with the latest IE in action. One of the most striking feature of IE 9 is that it puts content first. The screen space for the website is increased and browser controls reduced. So how does the experience get better? 1. Hardware acceleration: With the use...

Spilled Water on Laptop

"What an Idiot!" Thats what I said to myself when I spilled water on laptop - not just drops but a lot :( In an over enthusiasm to show a fish bowl to my niece, I lifted the bowl above the keypad and unknowingly tilted it!! I know that you are just thinking "What an idiot!" But anyways,whats done is done and am out of action for days to come. Here's what I did immediately upon the spill: removed power,removed all external devices connected, removed battery,turned it upside down, bloated water on surface with tissue paper, vacuumed the keypad area (i don't mind if my vacuum doesn't work ever again) and left it turned upside down near a light bulb to dry. Now I am keeping my fingers crossed as the warranty on laptop has expired!!! Do you have any ideas on what I can do now??...

We Are Family Review

Genre: K Jo Drama Director: Siddharth P. Malhotra Cast: Kajol, Kareena, Arjun Rampal, Aanchal Munjal, Nominath Ginsberg and Diya Sonecha Storyline: A terminally ill single mom transferring responsibilities to a Stepmom. Bottom line: K Jo’s big guns in action. Sadly they fail to fire! I’m sure you’ll want to see the credits of this movie once again when you are done with going through the mawkish debacle just to check if Karan Johar’s name came under ‘Produced By’ or ‘Script and Screenplay’ section. This movie has all the K Jo elements-big stars, beautiful and rich houses (Does K Jo have a doctorate in making NRI stories?), cool locations and cute kids. Can you think of one K Jo film that didn’t have any of these? This is...

Va Quarter Cutting music review

The mere title by itself is intriguing and raises an expectation to see a well made comedy. It is rumored to be Tamil Padam – Part II and I hope its not. Spoofing movies cannot sustain the humor quotient for long! Happened to hear the album today and I was not expecting a lot (even though music director was G.V.Prakash as this seems to be a comedy movie and comedy movies usually don’t have much weightage on music) as the songs these days do not seem to make a lot of impression on us. But I was pleasantly mistaken, for the album is quite good. All the songs are good to hear and have interesting lyrics. Kudos to Kumarraja,  for penning such refreshingly new lyrics. In an air stale with mix and match of same lyrics lifted in bits...

Boss engira Baskaran Review

Genre: Drama, Comedy Director: Rajesh Cast: Arya, Nayanthara, Santhanam, Rajendran, Chitra Lakshmanan, Subbu Panchu Story line: Vetti hero loves heroine, family denies to marry girl off to a no job hero. Hero raises in life and marries heroine Bottom line: Complete Galata, non stop entertainment, carnival for college students! Arya (Boss) is a vetti officer who has still not completed degree and has been writing arrears for 5 years. Nayanthara (Chandrika) is a temporary lecturer and Boss falls for her at the very first sight. Boss’s brother Saravanan’s (don’t think hard where you had seen this handsome dude before – he was the villain in the serial ‘Arasi’) marriage gets fixed to Chandrika’s sister. Arya tries to ‘correct’ Chandrika...

Dabangg – What a movie!

Genre: Action, Drama Director: Abhinav Kashyap Cast: Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Dimple kapadiya, Vinod Khanna, Sonu Sood Story line: Good triumphs Evil – simple as that Bottom line: Absolute paisa vasool!! With all  the gray shade the in betweens andcharacters marking the bollywood movies these days, it is like a cool refreshment when we get to see movies like Dabangg. The magic formula that ignited the screens in 80’s is brought back with the good conquering evil said in a complete entertainment package. Chulbul Robin hood Pandey is a fearless cop who is not really the HonestRaj types but is still good in his own way. His mother (Dimple) is widowed when he is very young and she marries Vinod Khanna. He...

The best home remedy for cold : Chukku Kashayam (Dry Ginger Potion)

As promised, I write this post to share one of the best remedies for cold. Ingredients: Chukku (Dried Ginger) – about 5 inch long piece Black pepper – 10 to 15 (crushed fine) Cumin and Coriander seeds – 1 tsp each crushed fine (optional) Karupatti (Palm Jaggery) powdered – 1 cup Tulsi (holy Basil) leaves – 1 bunch Water – 5 cups Coffee powder – 1/2 tsp (optional) Method: Crush the chukku in a mortar and pestle  till it almost gets powdered (If you get really good dried ginger, it’ll become powder with relatively lesser crushing – ask for ‘maavu chukku’). Dissolve the karupatti in water in a thick bottomed vessel, to this add the powdered chukku, crushed black pepper, coriander and cumin seeds and the tulsi leaves....

The annoying ‘common’ cold!!

That’s right, I was down with a sore, painful throat and a bad cold for the past few days. I feel that the common cold is the most annoying of all the illness, thats bcos, one is not actually sick but still cannot go about the regular discourse without a feeling of unease. Since it is said that ‘A cold cures in 7 days without pills and in 1 week with pills’, I thought this time I’d take the 7 days trial :) I am going to write a separate post on the ‘sukku kashayam’ (the dry ginger potion) that actually worked wonders on my cold. But here goes small tips that work in a big way! If you have a bad cough, try these home remedies: 1. To 1 glass of hot milk, add 1/4 tsp turmeric powder and crushed black pepper (3 to 4) and natural brown...

Inception Movie Review

Genre: Action, Sci-fi Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard Storyline: Of Dreams, dreamers and their ideas Bottomline: The director must’ve been on hell of a dreamer – excellent – undoubtedly the movie of the year When insanely unimaginable stuff is presented on screen in an unprecedented way with unparalleled clarity, there is no way that one could help being swept off the ground! Inception just does that to you. A brilliant no-chaos script that doesn’t confuse the viewers even though it is ‘the most freshest’ and the most unimaginable idea. Leonardo has just cake walked through the Dom Cobb...

Peepli[Live] movie review

Genre: Draorea Director: Anusha Rizvi Cast: Omkar Das Manikpuri, Raghuveer Yadav, Malaika Shenoy, Naseeruddin Shah, Shalini Vatsa, Farrukh Jaffer Storyline: A social issue handled in quite an intelligent way Bottomline: Hits the chords just right – A Definite yes! I don’t think there is much left for a hobby critic like me to review the movie. After all, it had won accolades even before its release in Dublin international film festival. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from writing this for I wanted to share my awe at such an intelligently thought out movie and the excellent way in which the extremely sensitive issue of farmers suicide has been handled. The casting scores cent percentage. From amma to the agri minister and everybody...

How to make a flop extravaganza?

This year has seen many high budget extravaganza movies that went straight to the dumpster from the box office within a week into launch. And with me reviewing the movies, was ill-fated to sit through those. I am really fed up watching these no script/dumb joke/total nonsense movies these days that I can give tips for making movies getting inspiration from the likes of Sajid khans. So here goes the 10 ways to make a extravagant flop movie: 1. Sign the top hero and heroine for the movie – their salary would eat up almost 1/3 of the total budget 2. Shoot the entire movie at international exotic locations. 3. Have songs that are totally irrelevant to the movie. 4. Get as many well known supporting cast as possible – even if they are going to show their faces in just one scene in the entire movie 5. Make a flashy and costly Poster for the movie. 6. Make a grand audio launch in a 5 star hotel inviting all big shots and making them say “this movie is going to be the hit of the year” 7. Create publicity stunts (like...