Ye Meri Life Hai - Chirag Mehta

Be Good & Do Good!

Month: February 2009 (page 1 of 2)

Oscars : Eight on ten for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ sweeps eight Oscars at the 81 st Academy Awards including Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Film Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Direction and Motion Picture. Indian music maestro A R Rahman brings home two awards with his Jai Ho… composition.

THE OSCAR WINNERS…
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire. “It has been collaboration between hundreds of people. All of us are here to share this moment. This was an extraordinary journey,” says the Slumdog… team.

Best Direction: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Song: A R Rahman for ‘Jai Ho…’ (Slumdog Millionarie)
The Indian music maestro, Rahman wooed the audience with ‘O Saya’ and ‘Jai Ho…’ the nominated songs from ‘Slumdog…’, as the nominees for Best Original Song were being announced.

Best Original Score: A R Rahman for Slumdog Millionaire . “I have nothing but my mother and she is there with me. I thank her for making me coming all this way with her blessings,” said a proud Rahman.

Best Film Editing: Chris Dickens for Slumdog Millionaire

Best Sound Mixing: Ian Tapp, Resul Pookutty for Slumdog Millionaire. “This is just not a sound award, but a history being handed over,” said Indian receiver Pookutty.

Best Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle for Slumdog Millionaire

Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire. “The cast and crew of the film told me so much about India and writing,” said a proud Beaufoy.

Best Documentary Short Subject: Megan Mylan for Smile Pinki

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Sean Penn for Milk.

Best Actressin a Leading Role: Kate Winslet for The Reader. Breathless Kate confessed experiencing the fainting feeling just like Penelope Cruz. She shouted onstage and waved at her father. She said, “I want to thank my family as they love me the way I am and lets me do what I want to.” By the time she finished her speech she was already in tears.

Best Foreign Language Film: Departures (Japan)

Best Sound Editing: Richard King for The Dark Knight

Best Visual Effects: Eric Barba for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Documentary Feature Film: James Marsh for Man on Wire

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight . It was a special moment for actor’s family – mother Sally, father Kim and sister Kate who came to receive the trophy on Ledger’s behalf.

Best Live action short film: Jochen Alexander for Spielzeugland Toyland

Best Make-up: Greg Cannom for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Costume Design: Michael O’Connor for The Duchess

Best Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Animated Short Film: Kunio Kato for La Maison En Petits Cubes

Best Animated Feature: Andrew Stanton for Wall-E

Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black for Milk

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. “Has anyone fainted here, may be I will be the first one,” exclaimed Penelope immediately after receiving the award.

GMail Labs : Multiple Inboxes



Octavian says …

I’m seriously into filters and labels. All the email I get related to Flash goes under my “flash” label, everything about paragliding goes under “flying,” and they all skip my inbox because that’s how I like to stay organized. But when new email arrives I have to switch to the “flash” label first, then click on “paragliding,” etc. I wanted a way to see it all at once.

So when I heard about Gmail Labs, I started implementing a Labs feature in my 20% time that would help me (and you!) spend less time monitoring important messages that may end up getting filtered away. Starting today, you can try Multiple Inboxes, a Labs experiment which makes it possible to have more than one ‘inbox’ in your default Gmail view.

An image is worth a thousand words, so here’s what my inbox looks like:

In addition to a quick view of my important labels, I also like to keep all my starred and draft messages in separate panels.

After you turn on Multiple Inboxes from the Labs tab under Settings, you can configure what you want to see, as well as set the number of messages displayed and the positioning of your panels from the Multiple Inboxes section under Settings.

However you choose to use it, let us know how we can improve the Multiple Inboxes experiment — all feedback is welcome.

Create Free Polaroid Photo Online for Orkut & Personal Albums

Here comes a small master piece from IIT’ian Ankit Jain, its a small handy pic’y tool to be appreciated and worth to be applauded

Polariod It

Polaroid-It goes online just now… It’s a free tool for creating transparent Polaroid images instantly and that also right from you browser. All it takes is to pick a photo and clicking ‘Create’ button :)

    Pros :

  1. Add caption to your photo
  2. Match the background with your Orkut profile’s theme color. This gives stunning effect right into your photo album.
  3. And the best pros is that it’s free, even without any watermarks ;)
    Con :

  1. Only Jpeg/Png/Gif files supported. This too can be considered a good pros 🙂

College Days – Will Live forever

After a long pause.

Remembering my class mates, after few years,
My eyes were filled with tears,
Everyone now is busy a lot,
No one escaped destiny’s plot

Saw the girl, whom once i thought as my best frnd,
Oops! today she is somebody else’s girlfrnd,
After months remembered about her for a little while,
Heard she is happy,that made me smile.

Project reviews to campus interviews,
Nicknames to last bench games,
Cultural rehearsals to love proposals,
Short term crushes to class room blushes.

Everything is fresh in our mind,
Wish life could just rewind,
Let’s laugh, play & rejoice,
Once again become school/college guys.

Chatting & laughing. We all were in elation,
Till the painful moments of seperation,
When it was time to part,
We returned with a heavy heart.

Today life is full of commitments,
And too many worries,
But those cherished moments,
Will live forever in our memories!!!

Ack : Vishal Shah

Strength of a Man & Beauty of a Woman

The strength of a man
The strength of a man isn’t seen in the width of his shoulders.
It is seen in the width of his arms that encircle you.
The strength of a man isn’t in the deep tone of his voice.
It is in the gentle words he whispers.
The strength of a man isn’t how many buddies he has.
It is how good a buddy he is with his kids.
The strength of a man isn’t in how respected he is at work.
It is in how respected he is at home.
The strength of a man isn’t in how hard he hits..
It is in how tender he touches.
The strength of a man isn’t how many women he’s Loved by.
It is in can he be true to one woman.
The strength of a man isn’t in the weight he can lift.
It is in the burdens he can understand and overcome.

The beauty of a woman
Is not in the clothes she wears,
The figure she carries,
Or the way she combs her hair.
The beauty of a woman
Must be seen from her eyes,
Because that is the doorway to her heart,
The place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman
Is not in a facial mole,
But true beauty in a woman
Is reflected in her soul.
It is the caring that she lovingly gives,
The passion that she shows,
The beauty of a woman
With passing years-only grows.

Hottest Vegetarian

The veggie voters have spoken, and American Idol winner Carrie Underwood and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin have been selected as PETA’s 2005 “World’s Sexiest Vegetarians”, narrowly edging out a host of other veggie Valentinos and Venuses, including David Duchovny, Reese Witherspoon, Joss Stone, Avril Lavigne, Joaquin Phoenix and Prince, as well as previous winners Tobey Maguire, Andre 3000, Josh Hartnett, Alicia Silverstone, Natalie Portman and Shania Twain.

Going green is all the rage among the red carpet set. Celebrities cite many reasons for forgoing flesh foods, from avoiding the cruelty that is inherent in all meat production to improving their health and energy levels to helping the environment by not contributing to factory-farm pollution.

Country crooner Carrie Underwood – whose single “Inside Your Heaven” debuted at number one on the Billboard charts – wore a “V Is for Vegetarian” T-shirt on American Idol, sending her popularity soaring among animal lovers everywhere.

Chris Martin and his band, Coldplay, have also gone to number one on the Billboard charts with their album X & Y, which topped the music mag’s “Hot 200” albums list. Martin and his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, are known for their love of vegan cuisine, and they made international headlines recently when they gave their daughter, Apple, a vegan birthday cake from Moby’s New York eatery called “teany”.

In India, Bollywood’s monopoly of PETA India’s most recent “hottest” poll found that the “Hottest Male Vegetarian” was the venerable Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, who continues to rule the Indian film industry. But he faced stiff competition from formidable opponents such as President Abdul Kalam, wealthy industrialist Anil Ambani, hot actor Shahid Kapoor, cricketer Anil Kumble and Simpoo, the Channel [V] mascot who kicked the meat habit and is now a vegetarian!

Long-time PETA pal Alicia Silverstone, best known for her starring roles in the films Clueless and Batman & Robin, as well as the TV series Miss Match and Braceface, made a “debut” of a different sort in India. Thousands of postcards featuring her in a curve-hugging pleather “Batgirl” suit – like the one she wore in Batman & Robin – along with a plea not to support the cruel leather trade were placed in the finest restaurants and cafés in Delhi and Mumbai by PETA India. The blonde beauty captured the title of “Hottest Female Vegetarian”, marking the first time that an international celebrity beat out competitors of the likes of Pamela Anderson.

Other top finishers in the PETA India poll included the evergreen Dev Anand, “Bond” man Pierce Brosnan and Lord of the Rings star Orlando Bloom in the men’s category and Amrita Rao, Victoria Beckham and Avanti Birla in the women’s category. Simpoo finished in the top five.

Contenders for Hottest Male Vegetarian

Abdul Kalam

Alec Baldwin
Alexander Greenwald (Phantom Planet)
Amar Deb
Amitabh Bachchan
Andre 3000
Andrew G

Anil Ambani
Anil Kumble
Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Anthony Peeler (Washington Wizards)
Ben Kenney (Incubus)
Ben Taylor

Benji Madden (Good Charlotte)
Bill Maher
Billy Baldwin
Billy Martin (Good Charlotte)
Boy George
Brandon Brooks

Brian Bell (Weezer)
Bryan Adams
Carl Lewis
Casey Affleck
Casey Kasem
Cesar López “Vampiro” (Jaguares)

Chris Martin (Coldplay)
Common
Corey Feldman
Corey Wills
Dev Anand
Damon Albarn (Blur)

Damon Dash
Dan Abrams
Daniel Johns (Silverchair)
Dave Meyers
David Duchovny
Dick Gregory

Don Imus
Ed Begley Jr.
Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
Ed Templeton
Enrique Bunbury
Eric Stoltz

Esai Morales
Feroze Varun Gandhi
Gabe Saporta (Midtown)
Gary Anthony Williams
G. Gordon Liddy
Ghostface Killah

Grant Aleksander
Greg Chappell
Greg Cipes
Harry Bliss
Harsha Bhogle
Hemant Trevedi

Ian Grushka (New Found Glory)
Ian McKellen
Ilan Chester
James Cromwell
Jatin Kampani
Jeph Howard (The Used)

Jeru the Damaja
Joaquin Phoenix
Joel Madden (Good Charlotte)
John Cleese
John Feldmann (Goldfinger)
Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Josh Hartnett
Juan Gabriel
Kal Penn
Keenen Ivory Wayans
Kenny Loggins
Kevin Eubanks

Kevin Nealon
Kristoff St. John
KRS-One
Laban Phiedias
Larry Mullen Jr.
Leonard Nimoy

Little Richard
Luke Kenny
Mahesh Bhatt
Masta Killa
Michael Bolton
Michael Franti

Mickey Madden (Maroon 5)
Mike Dirnt (Green Day)
Milind Soman
Milo Ventimiglia
Moby
M-1 (Dead Prez)

Morrissey
Mos Def
Murphy Lee
Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Noah Wyle
Omar Epps

Orlando Bloom
Orlando Jones
Pierce Brosnan
Paul McCartney
Perry Farrell
Peter Brock

Prince
Prodigy (Mobb Deep)
Q-Tip
Rajneesh Duggal
Ricky Williams (NFL star)
Rider Strong

Rikki Rockett (Poison)
Rivers Cuomo (Weezer)
R Madhavan
Robert Patrick
Rob Hitt (Midtown)
Rob Zombie

Russell Simmons
Samuel L. Jackson
Scott Bourne
Serj Tankian (System of a Down)
Shahid Kapoor
Simpoo

Steve Jocz (Sum 41)
Thom Yorke (Radiohead)
Tobey Maguire
Todd Oldham
Tony La Russa
“Weird Al” Yankovic

Will Estes
Woody Harrelson
Yash Birla
Ziggy Marley

Contenders for Hottest Female Vegetarian

Aditi Govitrikar
Alicia Silverstone
Alison Lohman
Amala Akkineni
Amber Benson
Amrita Rao

Angela Bassett
Anna Paquin
Annie Lennox
Archana Puran Singh
Ashley Judd
Avanti Birla
Avril Lavigne

Barbie Xu
Brigitte Bardot
Carré Otis
Carrie Underwood (American Idol)
Chelsea Clinton
Chely Wright

Chin-Chin Gutierrez
Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders)
Chynna Phillips
Daniele Gaither
Daryl Hannah
Esha Deol

Elva Xiao
Ember Swift
Erykah Badu
Fey
Fiona Apple
Grace Slick

Hayley Westenra
Hema Malini    
India.Arie
Isabel Roces
Jackie O
Jacklyn Lick

Jane Siberry
Jennie Garth
Jen O’Brien
Jessica Napier
Joan Jett
Joanna Lumley

Johanna Fateman (Le Tigre)
Jorja Fox
Juhi Chawla
k.d. lang
Kim Basinger
Kylie Bax

Laura Flores
Lauren Bush
Linda Blair
Lindsay Wagner
Lori Petty
Maggie Q

Mahima Chaudhary
Mandira Bedi
Manpreet Brar
Marilu Henner
Mary Tyler Moore
Mel C
Meng Tingwei
Missy Higgins

Naima Mora (America’s Next Top Model winner)
Natalie Imbruglia
Natalie Portman
Nellie McKay
Nina Hagen

Pamela Anderson
Persia White
Priya Gill
Rachael Leigh Cook
Rachel McAdams
Rachel Miner
Radha Mitchell

Rajlaxmi Khanvilkar
Raya Mananquil
Reese Witherspoon
Renee Goldsberry
Ruby Bhatia
Sadie Frost
Sarah Chalke

Serenity
Shalom Harlow
Shania Twain
Shannon Elizabeth
Sheryl Lee
Shiri Appleby

Shonali Nagrani
Simone Singh
Stella McCartney
Summer Phoenix
Tatjana Patitz
Tatum O’Neal
Thora Birch

T’Keyah “Crystal” Keymáh
Toni Collette
Vanessa A. Williams
Veruschka
Victoria Beckham
Wendie Malick

Xiao Qiang
Yana Gupta

All of PETA’s nominees are super-hot, exuding vegetarian vitality. They get their zest from aubergines and their passion from potatoes. More and more celebrities want to avoid supporting the suffering inflicted on the billions of animals who are raised and killed for food each year – and they also know that vegetarians are typically healthier than meat-eaters. Consumption of meat and other animal products has been conclusively linked to heart disease, strokes, diabetes and cancer, as well as infection by salmonella and other bacteria. Vegetarians are also hotter: On average, vegetarians are thinner and trimmer than meat-eaters and less prone to impotence – the cholesterol and saturated fat in animal-derived protein clog arteries leading to all major organs, not just the heart.

From Bollywood to Hollywood and all places in between, both famous and not-so-famous people are realising that the best thing they can do for animals – and themselves – is to adopt a healthy, humane and delicious vegetarian diet.

Subprime Crisis: Falling Like Dominos Towards Disaster

Home Buyers Go Shopping
The home has long been touted as a key to financial security. Government policy encourages home ownership by providing federal income tax deductions on mortgage interest and requiring that lenders issue mortgages in poor neighborhoods. Renters are eager to buy and many homeowners trade up several times during their lifetime.

Interest Rates Fall
Interest rates fall to rarely seen lows, allowing the same monthly payment to support a larger loan. This makes homes affordable for people who previously had rented, and it allows homeowners to move up to properties that are more expensive.

Home Prices Rise
By allowing people to borrow more, low interest rates allow them to offer more when they bid on homes, driving home prices up.

Adjustable-Rate Loans
Home buyers finding prices getting out of reach resort to subprime and other adjustable-rate loans that start with low “teaser” rates allowing a person with a given income to qualify for a larger loan. After one, two or three years, rates reset by tracking an index of prevailing rates, causing monthly payments to rise.

Appraisers Help
Before issuing a mortgage, a lender requires that a property be appraised to assure that it is valuable enough to serve as collateral on the loan. Appraisers come under pressure from lenders and real estate agents to support the rapidly increasing home values, despite a growing belief that home prices are in a bubble.

Lenders Relax Standards
As home prices grow faster than incomes, it gets harder for borrowers to qualify for loans under traditional standards. To keep the volume of lending up, lenders gradually reduce down payment requirements from the traditional 10 percent of sales price to zero. They also stop requiring that borrowers prove they have enough income to make their loan payments.

Investors Seek Yield
With interest rates at unusually low levels, institutional investors — such as hedge funds, pension funds, endowments and insurers — hunt around for higher yields with investment-grade ratings. They are eager to buy securities backed by mortgages, since these pay more than U.S. Treasuries. Securities backed by subprime loans pay even more, since subprime borrowers are charged extra-high interest rates.

Securities Firms Comply
Banks and other securities firms such as Bear Stearns feed the yield-hungry investors by repackaging mortgages into mortgage-backed securities offering generous yields. Through this process of securitization, the mortgage lenders’ risk is passed on to investors around the world.

Ratings Agencies Help
Ratings agencies work with mortgage issuers, such as banks and other lenders, and loan packagers to find innovative ways to give investment-grade ratings to risky mortgage-backed securities. While ratings involve an assessment of the chance that borrowers will default, there is little track record for gauging this risk with the new types of securities, so ratings agencies and other participants rely on theoretical computer models.

Interest Rates Rise
As rates go up, resets cause monthly payments on adjustable-rate mortgages to soar, reaching levels many homeowners cannot afford.

Home Prices Fall
Higher interest rates mean a borrower with a given income must settle for a smaller mortgage. As fewer people qualify for big loans, home prices begin to drop.

Borrowers in Trouble
Rising interest rates push up monthly payments on adjustable-rate mortgages, and growing numbers of homeowners fall behind in payments.

Securities Lose Value
The growing mortgage delinquency rate exceeds expectations in the computer models, causing prices of mortgage-backed securities to plummet. Financial institutions that invested in them suffer enormous losses.

Credit Markets Freeze
Financial-market participants worry that institutions losing money on mortgage securities – the list includes investment houses and large institutional investors – may be forced to sell securities based on other types of debt, such as bonds, to raise money. That would cause a flood of supply that would depress prices. Investors thus become leery of all types of debt securities, causing prices to drop and making some nearly impossible to trade.

The Economy Slows
As it becomes harder for individuals and companies to borrow, economic activity slows. The economy heads toward recession.

Homeowner Feels Impact
Growing numbers of homeowners find they cannot afford their higher mortgage payments, and many discover their homes are no longer worth what they owe on their mortgages. As the economy weakens, unemployment rises. More and more homeowners fall behind in mortgage payments and enter the foreclosure process. They lose their homes, their jobs, or both.

Credit Markets Freeze
Financial-market participants worry that institutions losing money on mortgage securities may be forced to sell other types of securities to raise money. That would cause a flood of supply that would depress prices. Investors thus become leery of all types of debt securities, causing prices to drop and making some securities nearly impossible to trade.

Things are to be used and people are to be loved

While a man was polishing his new car, his 4 yr old son picked stone & scratched lines on the side of the car.

In anger, the man took the child’s hand & hit it many times, not realizing he was using a wrench.

At the hospital, the child lost all his fingers due to multiple fractures. When the child saw his father….
with painful eyes he asked ‘Dad when will my fingers grow back?’

Man was so hurt and speechless. He went back to car and kicked it a lot of times.
Devastated by his own actions…… sitting in front of that car he looked at the scratches, child had written ‘LOVE YOU DAD’.
The next day that man committed suicide. . .

Anger and Love have no limits, Choose the later to have a beautiful & lovely life….

Things are to be used and people are to be loved,
But the problem in todays world is that,People are used and things are loved

Now Where Was I? Gmail Labs Adds Location to Signatures

gmail_nov_08.jpgLocation is the feature du jour at Google as of late. First they released, Latitude, a new location sharing service. Now, the Gmail team has announced a new Labs feature that allows you to automatically append your location information to your signature.

Why would you want to do this? Maybe you want to highlight your jetsetting lifestyle. Maybe you want to remind the recipient that you’re in a different time zone. Or you might just want to use it as a mnemonic device for searching sent email based on the location from where it was sent.

If you want to try it, don’t forget that it takes two steps to activate the feature. First, go to Labs and enable the feature. Then, go to your signature settings and check “Append your location to the signature.”

gmailLocation.jpg

Bear in mind, it’s a Labs feature, so it’s not without foibles. The location, for example, is based on IP detection. So it may not be as accurate as you would like – like if the corporate IP address of the connection you’re using is attributed to a different location. Want more accuracy? Install Gears so the location module can use wi-fi access points to hone in on your whereabouts.

Don’t want that certain someone to know that you’re not where you’d said you would be? Simply delete the location line before sending the message. (The signature and location are appended to the message when the composition window opens.)

VentureBeat and its readers were wondering why Google didn’t tie this feature to Latitude. We were, too. But we’re guessing that – given that this was a Google 20% project – the two were on separate trajectories. Perhaps if “location in the signature” ever makes it out of Labs, it will leverage Latitude.

If you’re into testing geolocation features – or letting people (and Google) know where you are – this could be the Gmail feature you’ve been waiting for.

Presentation: Barack Obama’s Internet Strategy

We’ve written a lot about how Barack Obama’s Internet strategy was a significant reason for his success last year – first in the Democratic nomination, then the Presidential election. We’ve analyzed how the Obama campaign made masterful use of social media and we’ve commented on Obama’s use of the Internet as President – not to mention the rise of the goverati. Tonight we came across an extensive presentation about Obama’s overall Internet strategy. We think it’s well worth a read, so we’ve embedded it below.

This presentation was done by Igor Beuker of viralblog.com, with research by Paul van Veenendaal – who apparently used over 250 different sources to create this impressive slideshow.

The presentation lists the following ways that Obama was “everywhere” in social media during his campaign:

  • Obama has gained 5 million supporters in third party social networks.
  • Obama maintained a profile in more than 15 online communities, including BlackPlanet, a MySpace for African Americans, and Eons, a Facebook for baby boomers.
  • On Facebook, where about 3.2 million (during the campaign) signed up as his supporters, a group called Students for Barack Obama was created in July 2007.
  • It was so effective at energizing college-age voters that senior aides made it an official part of the campaign the following spring.
  • And Facebook users did vote: On Facebook’s Election 2008 page, which listed an 800 number to call for voting problems, more than 5.4 million users clicked on an “I Voted” button to let their Facebook friends know that they made it to the polls.

Also check out these statistics from Obama’s main website / social network, My.BarackObama.com:

  • On MyBarackObama.com, Obama’s own social network, 2 million profiles were created
  • In addition, 200,000 offline events were planned
  • About 400,000 blog posts were written
  • And more than 35,000 volunteer groups were created – at least 1,000 of them on Feb. 10, 2007, the day Obama announced his candidacy

Here’s the full presentation, with many more interesting facts and figures, via the wonderful SlideShare:

Case Study: The Barack Obama Strategy

Older posts