Is this Shilpa's Mr. right?

So, finally there is some confirmation from Shilpa about her Mr. Right or is it Wrong??...she is rich, beautiful, single, a star both in India and UK (bcoz of Big Brother)..and more over aged 32 years...the last thing she needs was a good friend and husband...she finally ends the speculations, that she is now dating with one of the richest Indians in UK..one Mr. raj Kundra...his profile is looking like rich, good looking, healthy and divorced very recently...:(

Now its looking very interesting...why Shilpa is going after a divorced man in UK...??? then comes the question why Raj is divorced 6 months back with his wife Kavita and forgot about his 15 month old baby..?? If you can relate these two questions together, you will defenitely get the answer...

Shipa and Raj seen together...


Raj is the same man who is running business in Jewellery and also involved with films...he was seen accompanying Shilpa during the inaugural of the perfume, branded S2 in London...They were together again at the IIFA awards, the Bollywood "Oscars" held in Leeds. Then, as the months went by, they seemed inseparable.

God knows where this relation is going to end..lets hope for the best...For celebreties anything can do...if today its Raj...tomorrow it can be someone else...thats what we are seeing in Bollywood or Hollywood...

For more information and videos, visit
Daily Mail

Muthiah Muralitharan bagged his 700th victim and still looking for many...

Yesterday (14-Jul-2007), Muralitharan bagged his 700th Wicket, that of Syed Rasel (of Bangladesh) and became the second cricketer in history to reach the milestone. Shane Warne is leading in front with 708 wickets.

What's great about these 2 players is that, both are spin bowlers, who made the art of spin bowling to such higher levels. Earlier days of cricket, bowler means fast bowler. Spinners are only meant for bowling the slog overs. Now the scenario changed a lot. Even in one-day international matchesspinners are holding a key role to win the match.

One is a classic leg spinner while the other one is a wily off spinner. Both are hard workers and always experiment new variations. Both are masters of googly, flipper, staright balls, quicker ones. Its very difficult to predict their ball until the ball reaches the hands of the wicke keeper or it takes the bail or it will land in the hands of a fielder or abtsman's leg to be LBWed. Each single ball they bowl is a treat to watch. Even the most dangerous batsmen in the world will be watchfull against these bowlers.

But, both these players are the companions of controvery always. Shane Warne for his personal life and Muralitharan for his bowling action.

Muralitharan's bowling action had been a hot issue in cricketing arena. Umpires notified him of a chukker. The infamous Sri Lanka - Australia test match in 1995, where umpire Darryl Hair judged his bowling as no ball. But, the whole Sri Lankan team and their cricketing body stood behind him. And the ICC conducted lots of bio-medical tests on him. Finally it was revealed as, he is having some disablity in his right hand and he is not a chukker.

Also, the law of ICC regarding the chukking is changed as stating a bowler can bnd his arm upto 15 degrees. By that, Muralitharan came inside that limit and automatically his bowling action also became legal.

As Murali is taking more and more wickets, ICC will be under pressure.

Whatever may be the case, the fact is that, Murali is a great bowler and a true sports man and a good human being. He is cool guy, always smiling.

Increase the speed of torrent file download with utorrent... by optimizing the settings..

Pls visit my previous post for basic idea about the bittorrent file sharing @ http://new-kerala.blogspot.com/2007/07/basic-knowledge-about-torrent-file.html

Note: The settings are based on 256kbps broadband internet connection and uTorrent 1.7 version (which I'm using.. :). Pls make proportionate changes according to your internet speed.

First go to Options>Preferences>Downloads

Under Other Settings,

1. Append .!ut to incomplete files: UNCHECKED

2. Pre-allocate all files: CHECKED

3. Prevent standby if there are active torrents: CHECKED (if unchecked, system will go standby mode before completing the download).

Go to Options>Preferences>Connection

1. Under ‘Port used for incomming connections‘ enter any port number. It is best to use a port number above 10000. I use 54322.

2. Randomize port each time µtorrent starts: UNCHECKED. I leave this unchecked because I have a router. If you do not have a router or a firewall, and want extra security,check this option.

3. Enable UPnP port mapping (Windows Xp or later only): UNCHECKED. I leave this unchecked because I have experienced it slowing down speeds. It is not needed if you manually port forward.

4. Enable NAT_PMP port mapping:CHECKED

5. Add µtorrent to Windows Firewall exceptions (Windows XP SP2 or later only): UNCHECKED (do this only if you have windows firewall disabled)

Under Global Bandwidth Limiting/ Upload,

6. Maximum Upload rate : 9 (for 256 connection)

Note: If you use your Maximum upload speed there’s not enough space left for the files you are downloading. So you have to cap your upload speed.
You can calculate the optimal upload speed…by actual upload speed * 80%

7. Alternate upload rate when not downloading : UNCHECKED

Go to Options>Preferences>BitTorrent

1. Global Maximum Number of Connections: 90 (for 256k connection)This number should not be set too low or the number of connections made to your torrents will be limited. Setting it too high may cause too much bandwidth to be used and can cause slowdowns.

2. Maximum Number of connected peers per torrent: 60 (for 256k connection)If you see that the peers connected to a specific torrent are exactly this number, or very close, increase this number to improve speeds.

Optimize this setting by, calculating upload speed * 1.3

3. Number of upload slots per torrent: 3 (for 256k connection)This depends on how much you want to upload to other users. Do not set too low or it may affect download speeds.

4. Use additional upload slots if upload speed <90%: CHECKED

5. Enable DHT Network: CHECKED. This is recommended to be checked to improve speeds. More people will be available for sharing if this is checked.

6. Enable DHT for new torrents: CHECKED

7. Enable Local Peer discovery: CHACKED

8. Enable Peer Exchange: CHECKED

9. Ask Tracker for scrape information: CHECKED

Go to Options>Preferences>Queueing

Under Queue settings,

1. Maximum number of active torrents(upload or download) : 1 (for 256k connection)

2. Maximum number of active downloads : 1 (for 256k connection)

Go to Options>Preferences>Advanced

Set the value of net.max_halfopen: 50

Maximum download speed
Setting your maximum download speed to unlimited will hurt your connection. So use this to calculate your optimal setting.
download speed * 90%

Basic knowledge about torrent file sharing.. uploading and downloading..

Now a days its common knowledge that, if you have a broad-band internet connection at home, you can download full length movies and videos. And its free. You can enjoy watching rare videos, some of your old favourites, the movies which is very difficult to get from even a video library(I am not recommending anybody to download the pirated movies or videos or softwares or anything from internet and I myself is not doing the same..So, make sure that the file you are downloading is an authorized one, otherwise you may get into some serious problems).

I am just passing some tips on how to increase your torrent file download. Before that, I will just explain you about, whats this torrent files and why this is very popular.

Previously, we were using http file transfer technique to download and upload files from one system to another. We used to download some songs and videos which are in the size range of 5-10 MBs or at the most 20 MBs.. If you are trying to download bigger sized files, say a movie, which will have a size of 1-1.5 GB, you know the difficulty..rt..??? It will take lot of time, sometimes, if the connection is lost in between the download, you have to start all over again. Its painful..rt..??

So, there comes how torrent file sharing is dominating the normal file sharing.

In traditional http file sharing, the file will be transferred as a single unit. But torrent is relying on the devide and rule policy.here in torrent technology, the file, say of 2GB size, will be devided into smaller ones, say of the size of 512KB each (with a larger no of files of about 2000...). So, there should be some tool to manage downloading all these individual pieces and then join it together to make the original file.

There are lots of such torrent file downloader tools available from internet, like, bitcomet, bittorrent, azureus, bittornado, utorrent etc. I feels utorrent is better among all the clients available.

Unlike the normal way of downloading, here, each downloader has to do the uploading also. The client which you are using for downloading will take care of uploading also. The torrent tracking sites will insist for a download/upload ratio of a minimum of 1. By such a mechanism , what will happen is that, its not from a single machine that you are downloading. You may be downloading from another 20 machines. The downladd client will show you even the IP address of each of the peers from where you are downloading and to which you are uploading.

For a 256kbps speed broadband connection, you can get a maximum of 30kb/sec download speed. You can reach upto this speed if you can fine tune the settings of your torrent file downloader client.

Some of the most popular torrent file downloading web sites are, http://www.torrentportal.com , http://thepiratebay.org/, www.bittorrent.com/, http://www.demonoid.com/ etc..

In the next article I will give you tips on how to increase your download speed by optimizing the settings of your utorrent file.

Apple iPhone is ready..

Apple's eagerly awaited and (grossly) over-hyped iPhone has finally arrived as promised on the 29th of June, 2007. Love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. The iPhone will hit Indian shores in early 2008 though

The Apple iPhone is not just a phone - it is a phone, music player, video player, internet device, and camera all in one. Like its Apple iPod Nano and iPod video cousins, the iPhone is slim and sleek at just 11.6mm thick, 2.4-inches wide, and 4.5-inches tall.

Steve Jobs has such confidence in the new iPhone that he has said he wants to sell over 10 million of them by 2008. I think he's setting his sights a little low, and project that Apple will sell over 10 million iPhones in less than 6 months. With the following that Apple has, and the fact that this device has been rumored about and anticipated for almost four years now, it shouldn't be too far out of the realm of possiblity.

iPod Features:

The Apple iPhone is a widescreen iPod that features touch screen controls that allow you to enjoy all your content, including audiobooks, music, TV shows, and movies. It features an amazing 3.5-inch widescreen display, and allows you to sync content from your iTunes library on your PC or Mac, making that content also accessible with just the touch of a finger.
iPhone users will be able to scroll through songs, artists, albums, and playlists with just a flick of a finger. One cool new feature of this function is the display of album artwork - you can now use Cover Flow to browse your music library by album artwork for the first time on an iPod.

Phone Features:

Using the phone function of the Apple iPhone, you can calls by simply pointing your finger at a name or number in your address book, a favorites list, or a call log. All your contacts from a PC, Mac, or Internet device are also automatically synched, you can select and listen to voicemail messages in whatever order you want — just like email. Calls can easily be merged together with just the touch of a button to create a conference call. Conference calling has never been easier!

A demo of the iPhone is attached below (from YouTube..)

Courtesy: YouTube....

SMS Text Messaging:

Using the iPhone, you can send text messages withan SMS application with a predictive QWERTY soft keyboard that prevents and corrects mistakes. This makes it easier and more efficient to use than the small plastic keyboards found on many smartphones.
Camera Function:

The Apple iPhone also features an amazing 2-megapixel camera, as well as a photo management application unlike anything available on a phone today. Users can sync photos from a PC or Mac, browse or email them with just a touch of the screen.

Internet Device:

The iPhone features a rich HTML email client as well as the Safari browser, which automatically syncs bookmarks from a PC or Mac. The Safari browser has built-in Google and Yahoo! search. You can also multi-task by reading a web page while simultaneously downloading your email in the background via WiFi or EDGE. Safari also includes built-in Google and Yahoo! search. You can even display Google Maps as they were meant to be seen, and zoom in to view specific points.

E-mail:

The iPhone is great for multi-tasking, so you can read a web page while downloading your email in the background over Wi-Fi or EDGE. Its e-mail client fetches your email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services, and then displays photos and graphics along with the text.

Widgets:

Extend your iPhone with widgets, small applications that give you helpful information like stock reports, weather reports, and more in real time.

Touchscreen:

The iPhone features an amazing 3.5-inch widescreen display, and has one of the most revolutionary user interfaces since the mouse. The interface is unlike anything you've ever experienced on a phone, with a large multi-touch display and innovate new software that allows you to control everything with the touch of a finger.

Intelligent Keyboard:

The iPhone features a full QWERTY keyboard that allows you to send and receive SMS messages, email, etc. It is predicitive, and therefore prevents and corrects mistakes.

Built-in Sensors:

The iPhone incorporates an accelerometer, which detects when a user switches from holding the phone in landscape to portrait mode, and automatically updates the image on screen to fit the mode. The sensors also detect when you put the iPhone near your phone, and automatically shuts off the display screen until you move it away to save on battery power. An ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the screen's brightness to the appropriate level for the current ambient light, which enhances user experience and also saves on battery power.

Accessories:

As of now, Apple has announced a Bluetooth headset that will work with the iPhone, as well as new headphones that incorporate a small white box in the middle of the cord. This box has a built-in microphone and a switch to answer and hang up phone calls.
The phone is expected to come out in June 2007 in USA, Europe in the fourth QTR and Asia in 2008 and it will be available exclusively on Cingular for $499 on a two-year contract for the 4GB version and $599 for the 8GB version.

iPhone Specs:

• Screen size: 3.5 inches
• Screen resolution: 320x480 at 160 ppi
  Input method: Multi-touch
  Operating system
  OS X- Storage: 4GB or 8GB- GSM: Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
  Wireless data: WiFi (802.11b/g) + EDGE + Bluetooth 2.0
• Camera: 2.0 megapixels

• Battery: Up to 5 hours Talk/Video/Browsing, 16 hours Audio Playback
• Dimensions: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches / 115 x 61 x 11.6mm- 4.8 ounces / 135 grams

For more info, visit http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Sivaji is Rocking...Some facts about the movie...

Sivaji: The Boss -- is directed by S. Shankar and produced by AVM Productions. Rajinikanth stars in this film as Sivaji Arumugam. Shriya Saran, Vivek and Suman also portray pivotal roles. The film's score and soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman.

The release of films starring other major Tamil actors was postponed to release much after Sivaji. It is the costliest Tamil film venture to date with an estimated cost of Rs. 80 Crores. It was dubbed into Telugu language and released simultaneously.

The movie was released on June 15, 2007 in over 2,500 theatres worldwide, after several postponements.

Plot

Sivaji is a Software Systems Architect who returns home after working hard for many years in USA. With a Rs.200 crore budget he wants to setup a charity medical college and hospital. Adiseshan is a politically influential businessman who plots his downfall and Sivaji ends up losing all his money. The rest of the movie revolves around how he starts from scratch to get back his money and resume development of his foundation.

Casting

For his crew, Shankar picked his preferred technicians; with Sujatha as the dialogue writer, K. V. Anand as the cinematographer, Peter Hein as the stunt master, Thotta Tharani as the art director, Vairamuthu as the chief lyricist, Manish Malhotra as the costume designer, Prabhu Deva as the choreographer, Anthony as the editor and J. D. Jerry of Pavithra fame, Balaji Sakthivel of Kaadhal fame, Hosimin of February 14 fame and Gandhi Krishna of Chellamae fame as the team of assistant directors. Also, despite receiving rave reviews for the music composing in Anniyan, Harris Jayaraj was dropped as the music director and Shankar's orthodox music composer, A. R. Rahman was chosen, creating great expectations for the project.
In late 2005, Shankar and Rajinikanth announced officially that Shriya Saran had been selected to essay the role as Rajinikanth's love interest.

Shankar and his crew opted for Manivannan, Livingston, Vadivukarasi, Pyramid Natarajan, Uma Padmanabhan, Solomon Pappayya, Muthukaalai, Nellai Siva, Bose Venkat and M'Sia Prabhu to play supporting roles.

Another key role of a doctor played by a guest actor was given to Raghuvaran,. Another guest role was supposed to feature an actress in the form of an item number for the song, Balleilakka, a range of heroines were considered for the role and Nayanthara paired with Rajinikanth for the second successive time after their pairing in Chandramukhi.

Publicity and Release

Ratings India: U[20] United Kingdom: 12A[21]

As the Rajinikanth-Shankar combination has raised great expectations of the film, almost dozen other Tamil films that were ready for release were postponed due to pressure by risk-averse distributors viz. Pirappu, Satham Podaathey, Oru Ponnu Oru Paiyan, Kaanal Neer, Unnale Unnale, Ninaithu Ninaithu Paarthein , Solli Adippen, Chennai 600028 , Thoovaanam , Kannum Kannum and Koodal Nagar.

From early days, the film had been expected to rewrite records set by the previous Rajinikanth starrer Chandramukhi as it saw the combinations of all the biggest stars in Tamil cinema. The production house AVM, owned by M. Saravanan and M. S. Guhan was the largest, oldest and most successful to date production house in Chennai. Shankar, the director, had delivered eight back-to back hits and had worked with all the major technicians in the industry. The music director, A. R. Rahman was one of the big names from Indian music industry and had claimed several international honours with his work in The Lord of the Rings Musical. While as, Rajinikanth was undoubtedly Tamil cinema’s most prominent figure, earning him the title Superstar among his fans. After the announcement several infamous brands including, Coke, Hutch, Aircel and Reliance roped in as brand sponsors to the project.

Sivaji's chances at the box-office were set to be hampered by the ICC Cricket World Cup initially and the film was postponed again to sort out post-production work. The delay continued, when A. R. Rahman, claimed he was disappointed of his background score and planned to re-do it, delaying the release finally to June 15, 2007.

The film's distribution rights, as distributed by AVM Productions to various companies are - 3.5 crores for the selling of rights to Kerala, 14 crores for Andhra Pradesh and 13.95 crores for the rights to Ayngaran, an international Tamil film distributor. Sivaji was given the rating Universal by the Censors Association, only cutting three scenes - a double meaning dialogue by Vivek and two scenes of close up views of Shriya Saran's naval and cleavage.

A pre-teaser trailer was released by CNN-IBN on May 30, 2007 lasting for three minutes. The official trailer was released by AVM to Galatta.com, the official online sponsor and Ayngaran International..

Soundtrack

A. R. Rahman was paid Rs. 2 Crores for the project, making him the highest paid Indian music director. He re-recorded the entire background score in London. The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and some choral singers have rendered out moments in a background track.

For the trailer and more details, visit the official web site http://www.sivajitheboss.com/

For more stills, visit http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/tamil/moviegallery/7911.html

For review of the movie, visit http://www.rajini-in-sivaji.com/

Sunita is Back Home...

Atlast, Sunita returned to earth in Atlantis..after days of uncertainity and bad weather...Thousands prayed to god for a safe return. Everybody was fearful about what happened to Kalpana Chawla some time back.

This time also, the space shuttle got damage in the heat resistant outer tiles. But, this time NASA didn't attempt for a chance. The damage was corrected before the return journey. Then, the computer system (Russian made), which was supplying the oxygen to the astronauts, stopped functioning. It was a serious problem. Normally, when such a problem comes, rebooting of the system would resolve the issue. But, this time it didn't help. Engineers in Houston and Moscow worked around the clock to come up with a fix. It took some 2 days to fix this damage.

Finally, Sunita and her team (pilot Lee Archambault and mission specialists Patrick Forrester, James Reilly, Steven Swanson and Danny Olivas) started their journey back to home. This time around, it was the turn of bad weather to delay their come back. And finally, today shortly before 1.00 pm (US time), they successfully landed at the Edwards Air Force Base (Mojave Desert) in California (earlier they planned for Kennedy Space Station Cape Canaveral.)

Now, Sunita Williams holds the record for stay in Space by any woman (195 days). She also set the world record for a female astronaut on spacewalks, totalling 29 hours and 17 minutes. She also proved that, she can not only walk, but run too, in space. During the Boston Marathon, she completed her race in a tread mill.

After the landing, 41-year-old Sunita was chosen Person of the Week by the ABC Television Network.

We, the Indians can celebrate this moment as she is an Indo-American.

About Sunita Williams...

Sunita Lyn Williams, born on September 19, 1965 in Ohio . A NASA astronaut, she is the second woman of Indian origin after the late Kalpana Chawla to go into space after being selected by NASA.

Married to Michael J. Williams, her family roots go back to Gujarat from her father's side. She carried a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a small statue of Ganesha and some samosas into space. She completed her Masters in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Her stint with NASA started in 1998. She flew into space on Space Shuttle mission STS-116, aboard the shuttle Discovery, on 10 December 2006.

Hamilton Creates History in F1...

The Formula 1 circuit in Canada will be better known for the fact that Hamilton lifted his first F1 win. Now, Hamilton is the First Black Driver to clinch this prestigeous car race. Those who watched the race are lucky to see one of the finest F1 races, where Ferrari was crushed, McLaren team mate Alonso taken over by Sato(cpmmentattors told that, even sato has overtaken Alonso), Raikonen struggling (I don't know whats his problem..he may be under pressure to perform), Massa getting Black signal (due to the stringent rules of F1, he was forced to stop his race in between), and some amazing accidents (really I likes accidents in F1 race..I dont know why..). Because of the frequent accidents, Safety car was in place 4 times and Hamilton was lucky in that, just after he took his pit stop, safety car was imposed.

BMW Sauber's Kubica met a very serious accident. He has collided with Toyota's Jarno Trully. By the time I'm writing this post, he has been released from Hospital. There is nothing to worry, he is perfectly fine. He is looking for driving the Indianopolis GP next week.


But, all these times, there was one guy, the wonder boy from UK, without making even a single mistake, looking for the checkered flag. I think, now Mclaren cannot consider Alonso as their leading driver and Hamilton as the supporting driver. In the points tally, Hamilton is leading with 48 points, so is the case with the McLaren in the constructors championship.

Hamilton got one more recognition now. Going to the podium in his first 6 races (including sundays Canadian GP win). I doubts Hamilton will be the next champion and he will fill the gap left behind by the all time champion driver Michael Schumacher. Till last year, it was Alonso who was supposed to be predeccessor to Schumi.

Hamilton is only 22 years now. He should not get carried away by what he achieved in the yearly stages of his carrier. He should concentrate on his driving and his first target should be to win this years championship.

I seriously doubt, there is some problem with Ferrari cars, because, see the way Raikonen is driving (by the way, he is my favourite driver). Last year, he had some last lap car crashes and forced to stop the race just before 1 or 2 laps to finish (he was leading in all those races). Alonso became champion with very marginal advance over Raikonen. But this year, Raikonen is driving just like any other ordinary driver.

Year 2007 for Hamilton

Australian	18/03/2007	McLaren-Mercedes	4	3	6	6
Malaysian	08/04/2007	McLaren-Mercedes	4	2	8	14
Bahrain	15/04/2007	McLaren-Mercedes	2	2	8	22
Spanish	13/05/2007	McLaren-Mercedes	4	2	8	30
Monaco	27/05/2007	McLaren-Mercedes	2	2	8	38
Canadian	10/06/2007	McLaren-Mercedes	1	1	10	48

Battle for the Title @ "Tournoi de Roland-Garros" (French Open)

Now, the only point of discussion among the tennis lovers around the globe is who's gonna win the French Open Title, whether its Rafael Nadal or the elegant Roger Federer. Before putting your predictions, it will be good to know the history behind the prestigeous Grand Slam Tennis Tournament and why its special.

Roland Garros, also known as the French Open, is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks between mid-May and early June in Paris, France. It is the second of the Grand Slam tournaments on the annual tennis calendar (Australian Open is the first one) and is the premier clay court tennis tournament in the world.

Roland Garros began as a national tournament in 1891. In 1925, the French Championships opened itself to international competitors with the event held on a grass surface alternately between the Racing Club de France and the Stade Français. For the 1928 Davis Cup challenge, a new tennis stadium was built at Porte d’Auteuil. Named for a hero of World War I, the new Stade de Roland Garros, and Court Philippe Chatrier, was built with a red clay ("terre battue") playing surface. In March 2007, Roland Garros announced that it will provide an equal amount of prize money for both men and women in all rounds

Why Pete Sampras(total 14 grand slam wins) could not win French Open. Why Jimmy Connors (won all the other grand slams) could not win at Roland-Garros.

The reason, clay courts slow down the ball and produce a high bounce when compared to grass courts or hard courts. Clay court specialists have evolved who often succeed here while many higher ranked players struggle.

The last 7 French Open Titles were won by men who did not win any other Grand slams. So, this will tell story, right..???

This years final is the carbon copy of yester year where these 2 players clashed against each other and Nadal was crowned. One more thing, in 2005 also, Nadal was the champion (defeated Marianofrom Puerta Argentina) here and now he is looking for a hat-Trick at Roland Garros. From April 2005 to May 2007, he won 81 consecutive clay court matches. He is currently undefeated in the French Open.But, at the Hamburg Masters (last month), Nadal's clay court winning streak came to an end, when he lost the final to Federer 2-6, 6-2, 6-0.

For Federer has already won the three Grand slams except French Open. So, he has a point to prove to the critics that, he is the greatest tennis player by winning all the French Opens and more number of Grand slams. In his current form, he can easily defeat Nadal. The pressure will definitely be on Federer to win the match. But, we all know how cool this guy is when it comes to handling pressure.

So, all the tennis fans can expect a Royal Fight @ Roland Garros, tomorrow(10-Jun-2007) @ 15.00

Player Profiles



Singles performance timeline


Tournament 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Career SR Career Win-Loss
Australian Open A A 3 R 4R A QF 0 / 3 9-3
French Open A A A W W 2 / 2 14-0
Wimbledon A 3 R A 2R 0 / 3 9-3
U.S. Open A 2R 2R 3R QF 0 / 4 8-4

Tournament 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Carr. win-loss
Grand Slams
Australian Open A A 3R 3R 4R 4R W SF W W 6-5
French Open A 1R 4R QF 1R 1R 3R SF F 20-8
Wimbledon A 1R 1R QF 1R W W W W 2-4
U.S. Open A A 3R 4 R 4R 4R W W W 1-4

A = did not participate in the tournament.
SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.

For more details, logon to http://www.rolandgarros.com/

Should Orkut be banned in India ...?????

Today in news papers, I came across a news that, in Mumbai Shiv Sena supporters had destroyed some ciber cafes protesting against some hate comments against Chhatrapati Shivaji that appeared in an Orkut community. And subsequently, the Maharashtra police recommends to the Union Government for the banning of the site, Orkut (http://orkut.com).

In fact, this is not an isolated case. There are n number of the so called hate communities in orkut, which are not under the scanner. They will be posting all sort of nonsenses and hate messages. You can find lots of Hate India communities also. Orkut should take some stringent steps to stop all such abusive groups. Now, the situation is like anybody can create a group and all like hearted people join it.

But, banning orkut is not at all a good idea. Its like banning the freedom to express. There are millions of groups which are really helpful, like higher education, migrating to US, UK or any other country, etc etc... Orkut is the biggest Social Networking site, which is connecting Billions of people through out the world. You can always end up in meeting any of your old friend to whom you lost all the contacts.

Rediff (http://rediff.com) discussion forums are coming with the feature of Report Abuse section, where users can straight away report an abuse against any hate/abusive/pornographic comments. I am recommending such type of proactive steps from Orkut in this regard.

The protest from Shiv Sena is more like a Political drama to get public attention. Indian govt should not ban Orkut. The govt can command the Orkut people to take some stringent action against this anti social elements.

Testing the speed of your broadband internet connection

There are lots of speed testers available on the internet. I am mentioning about one which is reliable to test the speed of your broad band connection.

Eventhough your subscription scheme may be 256 kbps, the actual speed will be very less (somewhere around 60-80). You can find the real download and upload speed of your connection by going to the web site, http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest. From this site, you can click on the link Flash 8 plugin based speed test, which will open a flash page (wait for some time for the page to open). This page will list down some six or seven servers to which you can connect to and test your connection speed. Note: Select the server with more free connections available.

It will give you almost correct download and upload speeds at that point of time.

Gilchrist may retire from One-Day cricket

Gilchrist has hinted out to the media that he may consider retiring from One-Day cricket soon. The statement came after the birth of his third child. He is stating like he need to spend more time with his family.

But, he will continue playing test matches.He will be remembered by all the cricket fans throughout the globe, except his last one-day innings (World cup cricket final) in which he has used a squash ball under his glove. That incident is considered as an act of cheating. The ICC has to clear the issue.

one thing the Indian cricketers should copy from these Australian players is that, most of the world class palyers are retiring from the game at their peak performance, to give chance to the younger players. Here in India, the selection board has to throw them out, then only they will retire.

Gilchrist Profile:



Full name Adam Craig Gilchrist
Born November 14, 1971, Bellingen, New South Wales
Current age 35 years 200 days
Major teams Australia, ICC World XI, New South Wales, Western Australia
Nickname Gilly, Churchy
Playing role Wicketkeeper batsman
Batting style Left-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm offbreak
Fielding position Wicketkeeper
Height 1.86 m

Batting and fielding averages

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	90	129	19	5353	204*	48.66	6505	82.29	17	24	652	97	344	37
ODIs	268	261	10	9038	172	36.00	9351	96.65	15	50	1099	136	388	51
Twenty20 Int.	4	4	0	65	48	16.25	48	135.41	0	0	5	5	1	0
First-class	182	269	45	10002	204*	44.65			30	40			714	55
List A	332	320	18	10591	172	35.06			17	58			496	60
Twenty20	4	4	0	65	48	16.25	48	135.41	0	0			1	0

Bowling averages

	Mat	Balls	Runs	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Ave	Econ	SR	4	5	10
Tests	90	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	0	0	0
ODIs	268	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	0	0	0
Twenty20 Int.	4	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	0	0	0
First-class	182	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	0	0	0
List A	332	12	10	0	-	-	-	5.00	-	0	0	0
Twenty20	4	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	0	0	0

Career statistics
Test debut	Australia v Pakistan at Brisbane - Nov 5-9, 1999
Last Test	Australia v England at Sydney - Jan 2-5, 2007
ODI debut	Australia v South Africa at Faridabad - Oct 25, 1996
Last ODI	Australia v Sri Lanka at Bridgetown - Apr 28, 2007
Twenty20 Int. debut	New Zealand v Australia at Auckland - Feb 17, 2005
Last Twenty20 Int.	Australia v England at Sydney - Jan 9, 2007
First-class span	1992/93 - 2006/07
List A span	1992/93 - 2006/07
Twenty20 span	2004/05 - 2006/07

Notes

Wisden Cricketer of the Year - 2002

One-Day International Player of the Year - 2003

One-Day International Player of the Year - 2004


For more details, visit http://content-www.cricinfo.com/australia/content/player/5390.html

Kerala Film producers to strike from Aug 1

The film producers association in Kerala has announced an indefenite strike from Aug 1,2007 onwards, objecting against the proposals made by the MACTA(malayalam Cine Technicians Association). Eventhough I'm against the concept of strikes, in this particular case, my moral support is with the producers.

The demands from the MACTA includes salary hikes for all the technicians, by more than double (for eg, they demands the drivers salary to be increased to Rs 350 from Rs 150). If you analise the profit made by the Malayalam movies which are released in year 2007, only 2 movies were hits, only 3-4 movies were average hits(minz, no loss to the producer) and the remaining were all flops. In such a scenario, if the production cost also is increasing, there is no other way for the Producers, rather than stopping the production itself.

Why malayalam cinemas are not becoming hits? the technicians should answer this question. If you observe, you can see, when malayalam cinemas are flopping, tamil/hindi and english movies are collecting big money from Kerala. So, this means that there is no shortage for the movie lovers in Kerala.

The govt has reduced the tax imposed on movie production.

After the Rishiraj singh encounter against the piracy, pirated CDs are not available and people started coming to theaters to watch movie.

All these factors were boosting the movie industry and still mallu movies are not doing good. So the only reason for failure is that, not many good quality movies are coming to theaters. Malayalees have accepted good movies all the times. There are no experiments coming from our technicians to attract the people.

If the things are going like this, its not so far that Malayalam movie industry will be no more, one day.

For more information, visit http://www.dailyindia.com/show/145279.php/Kerala-film-producers-to-strike-from-August-1

Suspension for V S and Pinarayi...

Finally...they got what they reserved...both V S and Pinarayi are suspended from the CMP pulit-beuro for breaching the code of conduct.

But I don't think the punishment is that serious, since both are allowed to continue with the current posts what they are holding. Infact it was Pinrayi who deserves severe punishment than the innocent V S. Pinarayi started all these allegations out of jealous the publicity and people support v S got after the Munnar demolitions and Smaret city.

Pinarayi told the press people that V S is a fool to believe that the Munnar operation is a credit of the V S government, rather than it is a credit of CPM (internally means the credit should go to Pinarayi). V S replied very decently saying he is also not believing that all the credit is his own.

Then Pinarayi and his team started the demolition of V S group members; from all the districts. They will raise some issues and finally throw the V S camp memebers. I think this act has provoked V S and he decided to give proper reply to Pinarayi. But, instead of replying Pinarayi publically, he could have raise a complaint to the PB.

Pinarayi is still not understanding the mass support V S is having. If V S is be the CM candidate for the next assembly elections, CPM can defenitely win and they can change the system of alternate congress/cpm ruling in Kerala.

As an opposition party, Congress is dead. Oommen Chandy is raising some issues which are not at all relevent and sigificant. One thing we have to accept about the Congress party is that, they are giving full support for all the good reasons for the CPM govt, which you cannot expect from the CPM party when they will be in the opposition seats.

Kudos to V S Achudanandan and his (special) team

Kudos to Mr. V S Achudanandan and his team (of three) for the brave step they have taken forward. The demolitions in Munnar is continuing today also; in full strength.

The effect of Munnar Demolition is evident as in other parts of kerala, where the same encroahments are happening, also the officials are going to take strict actions. Notices are being issued to the encroached building owners in Kallai River, in Cochin MG Road, in Vayanad, in Kollam...throughout Kerala.

Till now, where were these officals...? Hiding or sleeping..? Whatever it may be...now they are forced to do their job. I think, what V S told about the govt officials is correct. More than 60% of the govt officials are not doing their job.

Now, the govt should start an enquiry into the wealth made by all the officials who worked in Munnar. Don't spare even those who retired from the job. Criminal cases should be charged against who are all involved. These resort owners should also be executed. It should be a message to everybody, who may think that with money and power they can do whatever thay want.

Land encroachment is not the only problem what Kerala is facing...govt (V S) should start doing a clean-up operation in all the govt departments.

India: About to win Series Victory outside India

Todays India-bangladesh match is officially called-off due to heavy rain....Otherwise, it could have been a wonderful chance for India to defeat bangladesh... Indian team management is hoping for the next matches to win and register history...a Test Series win outside India...Great achievement..isn't it..:)

After bangladesh tour..India will grab one more Series Victory outside India...Series against Scotland..:) Critics may opinion that Scotland are minnows...
who cares...A series win abroad is a win (according to Dravid and co..) it doesn't matter against which team...I think thats all for this year...Means...these cricketers will be busy with their advertisement commitments..after all they won 2 series wins..rt?..Nobody can blame them for earning some extra money...again the same reason..they won 2 series victories...

Poor Sree Santh...Eventhough he is not getting any chances to play...he is still in our hearts..why..?? Just turn on your TV sets...Sree with 180 degree smile will appear...in the ads...

I'm recommending him to get into a contarct with Close-Up...for his Mouth-Wide-Opened smile...he doesn't require any rehearsal for such a smile..ha...ha..ha...

SSLC results

Here are some of the links from where you can check your SSLC results

1. http://www.keralatelecom.com

2. http://www.kerala.bsnl.co.in

3. http://www.kerala.gov.in/

4. http://www.mathrubhumi.com

5. http://www.manoramaonline.com/advt/specials/sslc2007/index.htm

Hot Topic of this Month....Munnar Demolition

Today also the demolitions continued... Kudos to Suresh Kumar, Rishi Raj Singh and Raju Narayana Swami (Courtesy V S Achudanandan..)

At last..a govt understood its power..and taking actions against the encroachers on land...
We..all the keralites should encourage and support the govt (Not Pinarayi Vijayan..)...Lets pray that V S will live long...after his time...the kerala CPM will just be like the current opposition (Congres..)..a party for the upper class and business men...Common man will suffer like anything...who ever is ruling..whether it will be Congress or Communist...

V S is a gem...

The people feared V S , thinking that he is against development...smart city will go from Kerala...and all..

But, wat happened in reality is that..we got Smart City..that too..after removing the dangerous conditions put forward by the Smart City officials...Congrats to V S and his govt...And Wishing you all the best on the completion of your 1 year....