The plot of the movie is about a man who goes for his dream at all cost. Chris Gardner(Will smith) is a sales person of a medical scanner and he finds it difficult to sell the equipment. His dream is to become a stock broker and his wife hates the idea and leaves him because of his inability. Will smith joins the stock broker training program at the time when he couldn’t pay the home rental and forced to get out of his home. Homelessly he suffers to find a place to stay everyday but manages to attend the training program and becomes a successful stock broker. Finally he goes on to become a millionaire.

The movie is very emotional and Will Smith is the man who lived as Chris and holds it up in his shoulder. In the scene when he spends a night in a public bathroom, his son was sleeping and the door was knocked by someone. There were no conversation in the scene but it tells thousand words.

All the characters in the movie have done their part brilliantly and the small boy too was brilliant and shown some very natural expressions. In the climax the stock brokerage firm manager tells Will smith that he had done an excellent job in the examination and he could start working as a broker in the firm from the next morning. In that scene, the way Will smith expresses the joy and relief, no words to say, absolutely brilliant man.

Don’t miss to watch this movie.

http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/

Here in my area the local cable tv service sucks. The operator has no control over the channels telecasted and everything is controlled and dominated by the main provider SCV group. As far as news channels, we are getting only NDTV 24×7 and Times NOW. Times NOW is full of grains and only watchable at sometimes.

When the CNN IBNLive channel was started, I got to see it for about 3 months and I was really impressed by their service. But for some reason the ibnlive channel was stopped by the local operators and I have been insisting the cable tv operator to get the channel but still no positive signs from him.

That’s why the online videos section of ibnlive.com has made me that much excited and I hope it’ll be a great site for me to watch the newsclips instantly online during tea time.

I upgraded my pc last year and here goes the configuration.

• Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz
• Intel 915GAV Motherboard
• 1 GB DDR RAM (2 x 512) Transcend
• Seagate 80GB SATA Hard Drive
• Sony DVD writer and reader
• 17 inch LCD Monitor Samsung SyncMaster 713N
• Pinnacle PCTV Pro TV Tuner card
• Logitech QucikCam Pro 5000 webcam & headset
• Antec Cabinet (Door model)
• Logitech Normal Keyboard
• Microsoft Optical mouse
• APC 800VA UPS

The one thing I supposed to have is a good speaker system and a decent graphics card. I lost interest in gaming and I never liked hardcore gaming, so I left the graphic card. But for speakers I had been waiting for the right time to buy.

I bought a HITACHI 1 ton ATOM Split AC two months ago. When the AC was installed I remodeled the interior of my room completely. At that time, I asked the electrician to place small holes in all the corners of the room keeping the surround speakers in mind.

Some good music albums released last week during Tamil New year and I decided that this is the auspicious time to buy the speakers. Then a little confusion came whether to go for 5.1 or 7.1. My friends told that 5.1 suits best as my room is a 11 x 11 sq ft room. I did a small research about the speaker systems specifications and went through all the reviews and user comments about the speakers.

Finally Creative Inspire T6060 5.1 speakers impressed me and for sound card I looked the Audigy 2 Value. I phoned my local computer sales person and inquired about the availability and rates of the models. At first response, he told me that there is only a single 5.1 speaker system available in the market and its rate is Rs.3200. I told him that the specific speaker is available for sale at futurebazaar.com and sify shopping. I insisted him to get the rate of the specific models. After couple of days later; I got a phone call from him and he told that the T6060 speaker was available and the price is Rs.5100. He also told that the Audigy 2 Value soundcard is not available in the market and advised me that an external soundcard is not really required as my onboard card had 5.1 High Definition audio support.

I took his words and ordered for just the 5.1 speakers. Eagerly awaited two days and he came home with the brand new speakers pack and setup them in just 15 minutes. When he first played a song, my impression was not great but that I fine tuned a bit, it ROCKS. The bass is deep and chest thumbing at high volume.

I have not placed the speakers in the right places yet where its supposed to be. So the full effects of the speakers are not yet known. As of now I’m really satisfied with its performance and it’s a great value for money.

A small difficulty I’m having after setting up the speaker is I can’t use my headset now. All the linein, mic and audio out pins are plugged with the subwoofer are converted as rear, front and center speakers. There are only two options to get around this issue.

1. Using an USB headset.
2. Using two way pin for the mic and audio out.

Mine is not a USB headset, so 2nd is the only option for me. I will write more about the performance of the speakers after placing the speakers in the right spots next weekend and watching a good DVD movie to test the sound.

Last Sunday I was about to blog, but got struck with my system. My 80GB Hard drive is not large enough to fulfill my needs and almost 85% of the drive was filled with my softwares, music, e-learning and reference materials. The performance of the system was badly hit by this and I decided to clean up my system before its too late.

First I prepared a list of all the important files, which are need to be written it a DVD before doing anything. I burnt all the files which were taking space in the hard disk to give my system some breathing space first. One by one I finished the list but still I didn’t feel any noticeable performance boost in the system. So I downloaded and installed the windows registry cleaning software Registry Mechanic to clean the registry. It scanned my complete registry and showed around 300 errors. I just clicked the repair button which fixed all the errors in a second’s time.

Since I hadn’t done defragmentation for more than 6 months, I started the process and it took about 5 hours to finish. After doing it, I got a notification from ZoneAlarm that a new version had released and prompted me to upgrade.

One thing I’ve never cared about is the antivirus problem, because of the great software package ZoneAlarm Security Suite which takes care of the security department of my system. I have been using ZoneAlarm for more than 4 years and it never failed to protect my system and gave me no problems at all.

As its a most trusted software of mine, I had no second thought about upgrading to the new 7.0 version. Happily, I upgraded the software and noticed that the logo of the software has changed and some layout changes. Everything looked perfect till I rebooted the system.

How to say..? I received a strange error message whenever a file is opened and also the system restarted randomly. I was terribly shocked and felt that something had gone wrong in the maintenance session. Since ZoneAlarm is in my favorite zone, my first suspicion was in the Registry cleaning software which was installed just before I upgraded ZoneAlarm. So I restored all the changes made in the registry using the same software but still the error messages didn’t disappear.

The error appeared whenever a file was accessed and that gave a small hint about the antivirus, because only the antivirus softwares have the nature of checking a file whenever its accessed. Then I started to suspect the new version of zonealarm I upgraded and googled about the problem. I guessed it right, lot of people who installed the new version had the same problem and hot discussions were going in the message boards and some blog comments.

Suddenly uninstalled the ZoneAlarm Security suite 7.0 version and installed my old-gold 6.5 version. Everything worked again and things went back normally. I’m not even going to think of upgrading zonealarm until a solid bugfree version releases. Although it’s a simple problem, it gave me mental worry before finding out the issue.

Thus goes my system maintenance session and now I can see some good difference in my system performance.

I’ve bought a new 5.1 speaker system and will write more about it in my next post.

BCCI 

Time to time it happens that if the chairman of BCCI is from Kolkata, the players from the west will have a good time and if its from Mumbai, Mumbai players will have a good time. Earlier it was Dalmiya and now it’s Sharad Pawar. Why was Romesh pawar and Agarkar always been chosen time and time again even if they are in bad form? "They are Mumbai players" must be the only answer. Agarkar is included in the team in the cost of sacrificing an upcoming allrounder Irfan Pathan. How many chances are given to Irfan Pathan to get his form back compared to Sewag and Kaif? Very few. He has the batting average more than our batsmen. Then, what happens to Lakshmipathi Balaji, who can bowl and bat 1000 times better than the duck Agarkar who doesn’t even know how to hold on a cricket bat? Every move is based on the cheap region based politics in the BCCI.

Selectors, Coach and the Captain

I believe that if Dinesh Karthik had played in Dhoni’s place in the match against Srilanka, he would have played Muralitharan’s ball much better than Dhoni and who knows India might have won the game with the partnership of Dravid and Karthik. And also imagine if Irfan Pathan comes next in the place of Agarkar. Everybody understands that the worldcup is a big stage, but what is the use of sending a 90 year old dancing legend to perform on a big stage.

Players

As pointed out by some cricket lovers, Sachin has lost his touch completely and can’t perform against good bowling team now. The ball from Fernando proved it clearly and he should announce his retirement atleast in the upcoming series for the sake of Indian cricket. To me, a great player should be consistent and play under any condition especially when its required. Aslo a great player must rises to the occasion and if its very much required by the team. How many times have Sachin won matches for India against good opposition? If I am right, there is only a single memorable match against Australia in the Sharjah. Come on Sachin, having highest number of centuries scored in a flat batting track as an opening batsman doesn’t mean an achievement. You should have concentrated more on your game to play under tough conditions rather than enjoying the sweet comments of the commentators. I admit, you were simply superb once upon a time, but not now. Its time to think of retiring.

I’d say Saurav Ganguly’s performance could be one of the major factors for this downfall. The reason is the way he batted in the first 15 overs? Yes of course, the ball moves around a bit in the first hour. But can’t he score runs at a strike rate of atleast 80. I think he is following the old strategy of Ravi Shasthri which will never do wonders for the team especially in this powerplay enabled cricket. It seems like he is playing only for himself and doesn’t even care about the team’s total score. If an opening batsman plays like this, it will definitely put the aggressiveness of the players down.

I heard that the big advertising companies are now more preferring movie stars than the cricket players. Its great news and I very much welcome this move. Let the players be just players and make them concentrate more on their game than their hair.

Its too much money involved so none of the senior players will be ready to give away their place in the team. Current or new players may become popular again and come up with a cool drink or biscuit to fool us. Be aware.

Just hate the products which are promoted by any cricket player and let them have a run(runs) for their money.

After India ruled out of the cricket worldcup 2007, I was very much disappointed as every Indian. I just visted the cricketing sites and found some interesting reactions from the fans.

Stop the players to advertise
Stop the BCCI to pay "No win No pay"
Stop the TV channels to give Expert commentery on crick( Even item girls have become cricket expert)
Stop playing crickect so much. It is spoiling all other sports and childern are not concentrating in study.

Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!………………….

1996 World Cup- India won the match against Pakistan by batting first but lost the semifinal against Srilanka by choosing field first.
1999 World Cup- After winning three consecutive match they lost the crucial match against Australia by electing field first.
2003 World Cup- After winning the semifinal against Kenya by batting first but they lost the final against Australia by electing field.
2007 World Cup- India won the match against Barmuda by huge runs but lost against Srilanka by electing field first.
Conclusion- India batting does not click in crucial matches.

Don’t worry. Chappel was just doing an experiment and everything will be fine in 2011 World Cup.
You want to blame. Then blame everyone from top to bottom i.e. selectors, captain, our so called great players, media and fans.

 let india start playing against the so called minnows like zimbabwe , kenya, bermuda , scotland, holland & canada,and then afetrwards play bangla and ireland and then start playing against the other countries. all the matches shud be played with the new crop of youngsters , seniors shud sacked without mercy , new captain and new coach , ban the ads with cricketers and the media hype shud b restricted

I would rather suggest we should start playing against Nepal, Bhutan & Burma also. They are our neighbours….

I only get to hear three songs of the album named ‘Sunlight, Waji waji and Sahara’. Here are my views after first hearing.

You can listen to the sample songs at http://www.imayam.org/songs/radio

Sunlight
When I start to listen to this track, I doubt whether I’m listening to Sivaji movie song. Because it sounds more like an english pop song. "Who let the dogs out.. who.. who.." kind of song which praises about the styles of the superstar and I assume it must be a introductory/background track. It hardly impresses anyone at the first hearing.

Waji waji
This song too starts like the first song and thankfully, it transforms to a much better listenable song after 30 seconds. It sounds like a catchy number, who knows it may become the anthem for next 3 months.

Sahara
It starts off slowly and sounds really smooth which gives a big relief to our ears after hearing those two noisy songs. I especially liked the bgm of the song with tabla sounds blended perfectly. As far as me this song is the pick of the three.

I’ve only heard the songs twice and for me the three songs are not exactly what I expected. But I think the song will grow in me. May be my opinion will change after repeated hearings.

Awaiting the official audio CD to hear rest of the songs in good quality.

After started using the wordpress blog, the feature I really missed was the rich text editor(an advanced text box with toolbars to format the text) used to create a new blog post. I was surprised to see just a basic text box available in the post page and no option was available for the rich textbox. Only later I came to know that there was an advanced rich text editor option hidden in its control panel.

I googled a bit to know how to activate that feature and found that using the shortcut keys (Alt + Shift + V) would do the trick if pressed when creating a new post. But I tried to do that and nothing seemed to change in the post page; only my browser’s “View menu” got activated whenever I pressed those keys.

I again googled about this problem for more than an hours, then created a support ticket in the wordpress support forum on this issue and tried every possible thing to get the rich text editor activated. Nothing went my way and only the next day I discovered that a javascript error message was being logged in the background whenever the shortcut (Alt + Shift + V) is pressed in the keyboard. The error was “tinymce not defined” which is an error related to the tinymce text editor plugin used in the wordpress blog software by default.

When I dug my hands into the support forum of wordpress to get some details about the error message, I found out that I was not the only one having the rich text editor problem and lot of people out there have the same issue. Even the moderators of the support forum found it difficult to give us a good workaround and they told me that this is a php related issue in some specific hosting servers.

So waiting till the next version 2.1.3 of wordpress is the only option for this problem and I was forced to find an alternative text editor plugin to use in my blog until the next version releases. Because I don’t have the time and patience to do the formatting html stuff manually for each post.

After all the hassles, thankfully I found a powerful, easily installable and free rich text editor plugin FCKEditor suggested in a blog for wordpress. I uploaded the plugin, activated it and it works like a charm.

I almost spent 4 to 5 hours to get around the issue, but it takes just a couple of minutes to get the alternative plugin to work. If you have the same problem as I had in your blog, better you go for the alternative editor option straight away rather than wasting your precious time to search for a fix. I’d recommend you to install the FCKEditor plugin which worked for me as expected.

While everybody is addicted to blogging, I don’t know why it didn’t create any interest in me. Only an year ago I made up my mind and started a simple blog in blogger. But due to my busy work I couldn’t add more than two - three posts.

As everyone is raving about blogging these days, I’ve decided to give it a try this time. Now comes the questions , "where to blog?", "Should I continue blogging in blogger from where I left off?".

Well, I don’t want my blog to be in the hands of a third party like Blogger and need total control over it, so I chose the Wordpress blog and installed it in my own hosting account. I’ve heard a lot about wordpress and its flexibility but knew nothing about it. I’ve just installed the software and writing this first post. I’ll go through the features and make this blog more powerful and userfriendly in the coming days.

You may wonder, what I going to blog about here? Yes you’re right, I’m going to tell the exact words what a first time blogger would tell; "I’m going to blog about what ever interesting things I come across in my life".

It may sound very usual, but it won’t be. Recently I read an interesting line in a blog that says, "First post of a blog always sucks, no matter who writes it". Hope you’ll have a good time here.
Thanks for reading my first post.

Happy blogging,
Karthik Nataraaj