Vishwaroopam - Teaser Trailer (Tamil)

Drive through Sichuan roads...

Drive through Sichuan roads... a small video compilation of roads in Sichuan province from my previous China trips...

Total Lunar Eclipse

The total lunar eclipse that occurred in Dec 2011. The last such astronomy marvel until the next one in 2014.

Tea House

iPhone display message

Intelligent Explorer - IE

How? Let's take an example with Google site (try with any other or even complex URL as well). While the full address is 'http://www.google.com', omit the first letter 'h' and input 'ttp://www.google.com' in the address bar.

Result? While all other major browsers including Chrome, Firefox and Safari throw "Unable to recognize the address or 'ttp:' protocol" message, only IE opens up the Google page.

Ofcourse, it's as simple as to automatically prefix the missing 'h' in the URL that begin with 'ttp:'. But isn't it nice to see that IE can handle even such simple things?

Cool!!

Ken & Esther to climb Everest...

As most of you know that I keep track of the happenings on the great Mt.Everest every peak season out of my huge passion for the mountain, I've got a special reason to do so this year. My good friends and Mt.Chola expedition mates Kenneth Koh and Esther Tan are all set to begin their two months long expedition to Everest this spring season. Both of them are climbing from North side (Tibet) and when they finish that successfully they would become the first Singaporeans to do so from North side.


To say a few words about them, Kenneth is an adventurer, freelance writer, photographer and an ex-pilot from a reputed airlines in Singapore while Esther, who works in Singapore Navy, is also an adventurer, athlete and one of the top finishers of her grade in the recently held Aviva Iron Man 70.3. Looking at their hard works, trainings and determination, I'm sure they deserve all the good wishes on their attempt.

Good luck both Ken & Esther.

Super 8 - Trailer

Eagerly waiting for it's release in June 2011!!

Earth Hour 2011

Earth Hour 2011 - 8:30 PM, Saturday 26 March, 2011

It may look crazy to switch off lights just for an hour in a year. In today's fast moving life, we are surrounded by electrical and electronic stuffs every here and there. Mobiles, TVs, PCs, ACs, music systems, fridge, washing machine and the list goes on. We have been contributing everyday much towards the carbon emission in one way or the other. Result? Heat is getting trapped in the atmosphere, warmness is increasing, climate is changing and the Earth is heading towards disasters.

This Earth Hour is an opportunity for us to realize the importance of nature and the environment. Each one of us has to understand our responsibilities towards the Earth and contribute something constructive from our part. Remember that Earth Hour is only an event to create awareness among people. Switching off the lights for this one hour alone will not help. We can and MUST do even beyond that. Many of us have already been doing that even before the very concept of Earth Hour was initiated. So continue your good work and spread to others.

Btw, there is a page called BEYOND THE HOUR where you can post your action in few words or see what others have posted about saving environment.

This action is one of the few contributions towards the environment from my side. Just go and take a look on what people have posted and what you can do.

indian skies

Mount Chola or Que'er Shan basecamp

Drawing - Singapore Skyline

UNSTOPPABLE - trailer

Wow! Another wonderful fast paced movie releasing in Nov. That's Cool!!

Rupee Font

While it may take months for the new Rupee symbol to appear on the keyboards due to involved technical procedures like Unicode Consortium approval, etc., the Rupee font is already out now in the market which is created by Foradian.

You can visit its website directly (click here) and follow the instructions given.

The steps are pretty simple.
1) Download the Font from the above site
2) Install it in your PC
3) Open the word document and type grave accent symbol i.e "`" (without double quotes). The font is mapped to grave accent symbol
4) Block the symbol ` and change the font to 'Rupee Foradian' from the drop down. And there you see the new symbol! Cool!!

Good work by Foradian!

Indian Rupee Symbol

Finally the world's fourth largest economy got a new symbol designed for its currency, Rupee. The new symbol of Indian Rupee, designed by IITian Udayakumar, was selected from over 3000 entries. The symbol will see its presence all over India in next six months and globally in next two years.

Jai Ho!!

beautiful Crow

Raavanan

The story is simple and based on Ramayan which is clearly evident in the movie. However it's shown in a difference angle and that's director Mani Ratnam's style. The screenplay is not great. Vikram in a lead role proves again that he is an amazing actor. The getup and costume suit him good. Ash is 'shown' beautifully. Privthiraj shows good performance. I guess he'll appear in next couple of Mani's movies. Other actors like Prabhu, Karthik and Priyamani have performed good. But am disappointed that Karthik's and Prabhu's roles are wasted or not used fully. It's good to see Karthik after a long time.

The film is shot in various lush green forests like Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashatra ghats. Some parts were also shot in Rajasthan and West Bengal. The movie is a real visual treat to the audience and huge junk of credits go to the technicians like Santosh Sivan & Manikandan for cinematography and Samir Chanda for art work. Ancient temple like settings amidst thick forest is beautiful. Climax fight's picturisation is extraordinary. Needless to say about A.R.Rehman for his background score. It's fantastic.

Enter the cinema hall without any expectations and you'll feel it's worth your money. However the movie did not impress me the way Mani Ratnam's other movies like Agni Nakshatram, Thalapathy, Roja or Bombay did.

MY OPINION - WORTH YOUR MONEY

Orchard Road included in marathon

Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore (SCMS) 2010 has included new landmarks in their routes for this year's marathon event in December. It is first time ever that these routes are included in any marathon in Singapore. Full marathoners get to run through the famous Orchard Road admiring the beautiful Christmas lights decorations on the street while half marathoners get privilege of running through recently opened Universal Studio theme park via Sentosa Bridge. The 10kms runners too have a reason to cheer as they'll be running through the newly opened beautiful Helix Bridge.

SCMS 2010. Way to go!!

Mt.Everest 2010 - statistics

The latest statisics on Mt.Everest is out now. Alan Arnette, a speaker and mountaineer, has posted in his site statistics details based on report from Ang Tshering Sherpa, a famous expedition organizer from Nepal. The report is extracted from the database maintained by the famous Himalayan journalist Ms.Elizabeth Hawley.

The total number of summits on Mt.Everest has crossed the 5000 mark this year to stand at 5070. However the actual number of persons who climbed are only 3431, which means the remaining 1639 are repeat climbers.

The number of summits this year, 2010, alone so far is 513, of which 268 are first time summiteers while the rest are repeat summiteers. Of the total 513, 347 climbed from South side or Nepal (of which 190 are sherpas & rest are foreigners) and around 165 climbed from North side or Tibet.

A final note. Although there is no official list or figure or whatsoever of Mt.Everest summits with anyone, the database maintained by Ms.Elizabeth Hawley is considered by many to be more than 90% accurate.

from the sky...