Knock Out Movie Shooting At Magarpatta

Since past one week a movie unit is shooting at Magarpatta for a movie which stars Sanjay Dutt and Irrfan Khan, and is rumored to be the shoot for the hindi remake of Phonebooth movie named "Knock out", the set construction started post diwali during the night when i used to leave office, they have build up a cafe, some road side stalls, a STD/ISD phone booth, with traffic signal and traffic signs, they have tried showing Bandra Kurla Complex area in the shooting, i saw a scene shooting where the junior artistes were supposed to run helter skelter on the road in a scene depticting road violence and police officials running behind the miscreants, Sanjay Dutt also celebrated somebody's birthday on the set, this thursday.

All the employees from the offices at Magarpatta and even the Magarpatta residents thronged to watch the shooting and take a pic of Sanjay Dutt, Sanjay Dutt's vanity van designed by DC was also spotted at the set.

Some links to the movie shooting news: Sanjay Dutt on Ketosis diet to look young in ‘Knock Out’ , Twitter feed of Vikrant deshmukh, Sanjay Dutt and Kangna Ranaut in Mani Shankar’s Knock Out, Pic 2, Pic 3

Samsung S5230 witnesses Bench Mark Selling of 10 million handsets

Samsung's S5230 handset which is popularly known as Samsung Star has raced to 10 million handset sales figure, which is quite an achievement for the company because the touchscreen handset market has already got overcrowded, and this segment is no longer ruled by high-end handsets, In India this handset is available in the Wi-Fi version as well, now retailing under Rs 10,000 it offers a good deal to buyers i'm listing down a short review on this handset.

Pros:

3 inch screen
Widgets
Full Fledged Internet Browser (Fast as well, without 3G)
DNSe (Digital Natural Sound Engine)
3 Mpx Camera Smile detection camera feature which offers good picture quality for pics clicked during daytime
Multiple Desktops

Cons:

No flash
Camera not suitable for low-light and night photography
limited themes and apps available
No USB based file transfer available, need to use samsung software

This handset is light weight and acceloremeter is responsive the handset OS also fast, check out the article here

What does Google become in India ?

A vendor in Bandra - Mumbai is selling the famous Indian Slush Puppie - crushed ice with flavored syrup on top which we call it as gola, he is creative enough to take the Gogola out of Google, check his website here, he is taking party orders as well!

Wallpaper and Theme Downloads for Nokia 5800

tube5800.com is offering some links for Nokia 5800 users to download collection of wallpapers and themes, links below enjoy!

100 Themes for 5800 | 150 Wallpaper Pack | 200 Wallpapers Mega Pack

Shrinking Indian Family Size - Is this the solution to population explosion

Indian Families have been addressed with words like "The Great", "The Big" Indian Family for long, however the current generation is seeing a drastic change in the family structure, which began in late nineties first when we saw emerging trend of Nuclear Families on the rise in India parting ways from the close knit Joint Family system, now we are witnessing a significant drop in this nuclear family as well, there are many factors which are contributing to the shrinking family size in the Urban India, it is true that we have had lot's of chacha's ,mama's, fufa's and other relatives from our maternal and paternal families, but i am sure my kid would not have such big family to deal with, more reading ahead here from an article on Yahoo India

Gorgeous Auto Show Babes

Treat for those who prefer to look at some beautiful women besides heart throb wheels we love, check out some pics here

The Most Beautiful Places Of China

Take a look at a set of 113 pictures of some really eye catching images of locales from China.

Strong Leonid Meteor Shower Expected Nov. 17

Check out this report from Space.com which lists November 17th as a possible date of a Strong Leonid Meteor shower which would be strongly visible across across most of central and eastern Asia. The Leonid radiant is within the so-called "Sickle" of Leo; a backwards question-mark pattern of stars that outlines the head and mane of the constellation Leo, the Lion.  Hence the meteors are known as "Leonids." check out more about this astronomical event here

Diwali celebrations

I woke up early morning with the noise of crackers resonating in our surroundings, kind of a wake up alarm of the big day, kids in our society were enjoying bursting those noisy crackers and bombs, as i stood in my gallery gazing at the sky waiting to be lit up by the lamp of sun, took this pic of the lantern against the early morning sky backdrop, i was craving to feast on Jalebi Fafda today, it has been 5 years i have come to Pune i never thought of having Jalebi Fafda which was a regular breakfast item in our family while i was in Mulund.

Somehow today my craving for Jalebi Fafda was more strong and i set out at 7:30 am to a nearby sweet shop, where the owner had opened up the store but was not started for the day, so i waited again for half hour, skipping my morning tea, i got disappointed when that guy told me that today no Garam Nashta would be kept, all i could see in his shop was sweet boxes everywhere, i really wondered if he would be able to sell all of them by end of diwalli festivals, a thought also slipped in to my mind of all the news flashing these days on TV, where officials were hunting down mithai adultertation scams throughout the country.


I set out to Koregaon Park, at Rajput dairy also only parathas were available, i went again further to a shop at bund garden, he also told me that they have stopped keeping snack items for diwali and only have sweets, i gave up and returned home to settle for some home made breakfast, still remembering while having my tea the tatse of Kothari Sweets Jalebi Fafda i used to have in Mulund.


My kiddo was all dressed up in his new diwali clothes, i set out in the evening to visit Dagdusheth Halwai temple, the temple was less crowded so we could finish our darshan properly and took some sweets from Kaka Halwai and came back home to do our Diwali Pooja, this was my first diwali with my kid in Pune at my home, last year my wife and my kid both were in Mumbai at my in-laws place, so i felt nice spending time together with them.

A History of Windows Advertisements

Take a look at this video from You Tube which looks back at the hits and misses of Microsoft's windows advertisements

Champions Trophy 2009 - India Vs. Pakistan Match

Indian team gave into the spin bowling attack of Pakistan Team this Saturday, after clashing with the arch rivals almost after a year, Indian bowling looked miserable against Pakistan middle order batting display, above that with our class players out of action, we were more vulnerable in all departments of the game.

I felt only Gambhir and Raina were going fearlessly after the Pakistani Bowlers, while Rahul Dravid did provide a costly presence at the pitch, expecting his partners to fire, he did get Gambhir run out, as he casually dragged himself back to the crease and got himself out. Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan never looked comfortable while they came at the crease and i think they were in two minds whether to go after the bowling or play defensive.

Dhoni had somewhere lost the battle mentally after watching his bowlers being pounded for runs, defeating Australian team in a good form after winning onde day series in England, their task seems to be more daunting to stay alive in this series.

Pirangut Trip Log

It was a very long time since i had been on a outing with my wife after we had our kid, after our trip to Goa last year, i was keen to visit Lavasa at Ekaant Resort, however when i checked in with the hotel reservation desk, they informed me that all their rooms were booked for weekends up to October, so i checked up other hotels in near vicinity of Lavasa and was also thinking of visiting Mulshi, i checked some info about Centurion spring hills holiday resort and decided to give it a try since it was on road to Lavasa, i could not find much reviews about the hotel, however thought to give it a try.

The drive to the hotel is just about an hour from Pune, taking the exit from chandni chowk towards the road to Mulshi, as you cross Manas lake resort, go ahead and once you spot a petrol pump, take the road left ahead which has a sign board indicating route ahead to Centurion Spring Hills resort, I took a holiday package inclusive of room tariff and food given on their website and was offered 20% discount on it, the hotel stay was good, our room was hygenic, with a good view of hills from the gallery, the hotel has a restaurant which has decent variety of food offered, Indian, Continental and Oriental food is available both veg and non-veg, however you do not have much variety in terms of Indian food. If you want to visit Lavasa and cannot get an accomodation there, this hotel is surely a very good option because the surrounding vicinity does not have much to see, but the drive through mutha ghats is very scenic and pleasent towards Lavasa.

It had rained a bit while we caught a nap in the afternoon, the sky was still somewhat cloudy, after we had our tea we set out just to roam around and check if we could spot some bhajiya's at some eatry in the nearby village which is 2kms from the hotel, the roads are very narrow and you need to watch the road while driving, herds of cows and bullocks would keep coming your way from the village, luckily the road condition was good and we stopped by a cliff on the Mutha Ghat road and took some pics from there of the village below, however we could not find a decent food joint to binge on a wadapav or spicy bhajiya's, we did sight some road side eateries but decided to give it a miss just not to take any risk eating outside food due to the on-going swine flu scare in pune.

We came back to hotel after a good drive, clicking pictures of sky turning beautiful by the sunset, we had our snacks at the hotel in evening and the next day after having our breakfast we headed towards Lavasa, the drive was very good throughout, there was lush greenery all around due to rain god's still pouring in the month of september, Mutha Ghat drive was really refreshing and as we approached Lavasa, we took a Halt near the dam at Lavasa foothills, and clicked pictures of the landscape for there, and while we drove few steep curves up towards Lavasa, we realised that we were already late and had to checkout from the Hotel, so we headed back again from the fourth turn i took at the Lavasa road, also i was bit low on my confidence to drive up on very narrow and steep curves to Lavasa, i had never driven in such condition also my car had frequent highway trips and was due for maintainance, i was not willing to take risks with my brakes, so i headed back downwards, rushing back to hotel, clicked some pics of some bird species spotted in the hotel compound, a Munia bird was actually building a nest behind the bathroom glass window, which i recorded in my camera, we had our lunch and checked out coming back to Pune city, the drive back to pune was also good as it had started raining on the way.

I'm planning to visit Lavasa this year maybe in November or December, had a really good trip which was long due for us, check out my trip pics here.

Create your own nametag on the Internet

A lot of internet users these day's find themselves entangled in building the REAL persona of themselves on the internet, and end up with fragmented pieces of their self identity through multiple social networking site accounts, so here's Hi I'm, a social network aggregating service that consolidates the different fragments of your persona that are scattered across social networks. it refreshes the content updated by you across your social networking profiles, you can put a link to your YouTube profile, Linked in id, Twitter Id, Flickr Photos

Derogatory Ad Campaign: Tata Photon Plus

I spotted this ad campaign playing on rediff site today, while i was logged in to my mail box, i am baffled with the intention of above advertisement, it portrays a maid quoting that " I carry Shiney's number", now does this mean that Shiney has got popular amongst maid's for the heinous act he did with his maid, or does the above ad signify something else, don't know, but surely this incident is something that should not be joked about or portrayed in ads in this way.

I found this AD offending so thought of putting it across, what is your view on this, kindly post your comments

Now a DNA Bank for you!

If Swiss Bank was not enough to store all the "Black" and "White" money of the world, check this crazy stuff named Swiss DNA Bank, what they offer is Internet based service that provides a unique combination of forever personal digital data and DNA storage. In your own secure web page you may store all of your memories, your files, your pictures and videos. A banking level security system guarantees total privacy. Along with your memories they will store safely your DNA in their secure Swiss nuclear shelters. Small revenue generated by your payment fee will provide forever for the storage.

Read the philosophy behind this concept to mint money:

"Every person is composed of two parts: the body and the life experiences, his memories, his heart. At the end of our life, unfortunately, this is all lost. Why not store it in a safe place? Do so not only for yourself, but also for our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and to make them remember you, know you and take advantage of your lifetime experiences. Saving your DNA sample can also be useful to prevent and cure genetic diseases."

Do you know what this means?, if they get customer's like Osama, Laloo Yadav and so on........

Read the reason why Switzerland is a safe heaven for your DNA and the bankers who stash big bucks in this country

"For centuries Switzerland has been one of the most stable countries, both financially and politically. Its neutral position and strategic location in central Western Europe has made it an obvious choice for UN headquarters and many other international organizations. Switzerland is home to our headquarters and we proudly guarantee forever lasting stability, privacy and safety."

What does the above thing indicate, in an event of a catastrophe, UN would unlock all the money vaults and keep the money ;-), and now we know where to head during an Apocalypse :-)

You can store your family photos, a diary page to remember a special occasion, a copy of your driver’s license, or just another day of your life, through a life browser to organize chronologically your information, A saliva sampling kit will be mailed to you as soon they receive your subscription request. You will receive a package containing the kit and the Swiss DNA Card. after you send saliva sample in the test tube they we will safely store it in a nuclear shelter.

Okay, so if you really think your are one of those rare kinds amongst the other homo sapient's, and you would like to freeze a part of your body code and secure it some place, you should really try this service.

Nokia's New Handset's and 3G Booklet

Nokia has come up with 3 new handsets and it's much touted 3G Booklet at the Nokia World 2009.



The first of the 3 handsets released in Nokia X6, which is a music phone with 3.2 inch touch screen, contacts bar and home screen which has become a default offering in all new touch screen phones released post Nokia 5800, the screen layout seems spacious and good for movie viewing and photo browsing, the X6 phone looks slimmer too, this phone has 32 GB of Internal memory, also comes with Music, the download service offered from Nokia for songs, on the imaging front Nokia X6 equips 5-megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics with dual LED flash, also offering video editing, check out more about this handset here
 


Nokia N900 is a Tablet device for the first time adpopting Linux OS, Maemo 5, it has a 3.5 inch touch screen, it has ARM Cortex-A8 processor, with up to 1GB of application memory and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration, a good potential to deliver slick graphics, also offering good support to multi-tasking with apps on the phone since the Maemo OS was first developed for computers, the storage grows more big here, with already 32 GB memory offered with the handset, you can expand it up to 48 GB, with a microSD card, here's an extract of the internet capabilities listed on Nokia World 2009 site for Nokia N900  "The N900 is geared up to let you browse the web as you would on a PC, with a browser based on Mozilla technology, meaning websites look exactly as they would appear on your desktop. Watching online video and enjoying online apps is also made possible thanks to full Adobe Flash 9.4 support. Couple this with speedy internet access, realized via HSPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, and the N900 promises to deliver the best pocket-friendly online experience to date."

Read more about this device here



Nokia X3 is a slider phone with Nokia S40 OS, a toned down version of X6, it has a 3.2 Megapixel Camera no mention of Carl Zeiss optics and flash, 2.2 Inch screen, 16GB storage offered via MicroSD card, it also has a mention of Windows Media Player 11 on the phone, expected to go on sale in the fourth quarter of 200, read more about this phone here



And now the Nokia 3G Booklet, which packs a lot of potential to make some serious inroads in the swelling netbook market, the claim made on battery performance of 16 cell, 56.8 Wh, Li-Ion prismatic is up to 12 Hrs, however Nokia has being humble enough to mention that on a daily regular usage it may not last up to 12 Hrs always, it comes with all 3 versions of Windows 7 and Intel Atom Z530, 1.6 GHz processor, also with an HDMI port, also housing a Accelerometer, Assisted-GPS, with an estimated 575 Euros, which rougly comes to 40,000 INR and this pricing is very high in terms of a 3G Netbook, whereas you could probably get a high powered netbook by the time this Netbook from Nokia arrives in India, read more about Nokia 3G Booklet here

Swine Flu Panic - How prepared are we ?

Pune has being in the spotlight on the H1N1 Virus spread in India, the count of positive H1N1 virus cases is growing very fast, adding to the panic factor was the death of 14 year old student Rida Shaikh, who died due to unclear guidelines from the health ministry to tackle this epidemic, confusing statements have being made from the health ministry on the role of Private hospitals in handling H1N1 patients.

This confusion has added to the frenzy amongst people in Pune who are swarming to test centers even if they have normal cough and cold, today's Times of India newspaper had a good quote on swine flu issue under the "water cooler" moment column, the number of deaths swine flu has caused has made many people wear masks, comparatively the number of people dying from AIDS is way much higher, still people don't like to wear the rubber?, GOOD ONE.

WHO predicts that Swine Flu is here to stay and it cannot be eradicated completely, even if the vaccine for H1N1 Virus is developed, the only good part for us would be that i would curb it's further spread, epidemic scares are not new, to human race, India has faced plague issues many times.

Media channels as usual are milking this issue for TRP's, in the guise of making people aware of swine flu issues, there is no genuine effort to educate people about the do's and dont's to prevent swine flu, news channels would keep reporting the number of patients and apathy of government in dealing with this situation, whereas nothing much can be done about it, since we are staying in India, Human life is no value to some politician, or a health department, if i die due to swine flu or some one else dies, it's going to be in news for some days, later is business as usual, life as usual.

Reality show now showing "Reality" ?

There is some real crap on air these days, in addition to the regular crap shown by news channels, when they run out of ideas, everything that happens around you turns into breaking news, shows like Rakhi Ka Swayamwar, Sach ka Saamna are given special shows on channels like India TV and Aaj Tak, it's like a small recap of episodes one can watch if they miss watching the main show, an indirect way of boosting TRP's

Well the controversy that has turned ugly is of Splitsvilla 2, Wonder why contestants like Swagata, Varun and Nailini are coming out with allegations after the show is over, and even if the contestants on show could have got personal with the staff, what has any one got to do with it, who cares, if there is some MMS of some contestant released, why make a fuss of what someone does in his/her private life, these contestants are just trying to grab some eyeballs, some cheap publicity stunt probably, news channels would use them for their TRP's for few days and for the coming days, they would be one's running around in court trying to prove their allegations correct of what they have told to press and on TV.

I have learned this lesson very well in life, there is nothing that you think is right or wrong for the person doing that thing, you have your morals, keep it to yourself, if you try correcting things around you according to your morals, you will fail, and be hated for what you are trying to do.

Things like RTI, press are like a illusion in the name of meduims to bring out the truth, nothing will change, these things not just exist in glamour world but all walks of life, in personal relationships, at academics, work, some things are better left untouched and even if you try changing them be ready to face the music, becuase showing guts is not enough, facing the storm post it is what matters.

For the creative minds - Designer's Couch

Designers’ Couch is a nice platform to showcase your portfolios, while having the chance to network with other key players within the industry.

I'm Bakk

Yes, i actually drifted away from my blog for quite a long time i suppose,  have being keeping busy with lot of other things, my kid is turning 1 year old this Friday so this whole month i have being busy making the celebration arrangements, also i was twittering a lot which i realized i needed to control, anyways i'm back to blogging