Sunday, November 29, 2009

Best Tv Shows

I am big fan of the following tv sitcoms which  i started to watch with my friends in hostel during my engineering days. Since the most tv serials are not aired in India usually it takes a year or so for the tv series to air in  India:(

Torrent websites like priate bay and minniova(sad that it has been shutdown now ) saved the day for us


1.Prison Break 
 This was my first serial i watched and it had a good concept and script  and it kept us in suspense week after week. It ran for 4 seasons the story of Micheal Scolfield  who has greately gifted brain who sees things differently plots his escape plan from a prison along with his brother. The actors were great with their respective roles. It is an edge of seat thriller the runtime of each episode is  around 40 min

more info prison break story



2.Lost
This is another best tv serial which is still continuing and is slated to end in next year. The sixth season is scheduled to premier in  feb 2010. A  group of survivors who crash landed on a island find themselves  not alone on the island. They are many interesting things keep happening around in  island the director JJ Abrams manages to keep the viewer in suspense for each  new episode  the director also successfully manages to incorporate the element of time travel. This show has won many emmy awards.Runtime is 40 min

more info on lost story   




3. 24
24 is story of Agent Jack bauer who is the head of CTU a counter terrorist organization who foils terrorist attacks on us soil The story takes place in 24 hours of the day  the us president and his staff are also actively involved and a interesting aspect of  the series is that it is  shown in real time , with each minute of airtime corresponding to a minute in the lives of the characters. It has finished seven seasons and the season eighth season is scheduled  in jan 2010. Runtime of 40 min   

more info on 24 






4.Heroes
This similar to x men  series humans are evolving and with supernatural powers and there is a organization which trying to put an end to their powers this has a global flavour as the characters are from different parts of the world. There is also a Indian connection to the story.The powers are  good thought provoking. Runtime 40 min


more info on Heroes.





5.How i met your mother 
 This is one of the best comedy serials i like very much it is similar to Friends. It tells the story of Ted who tell his kids how he met his mother.It is going on still and we have still not seen his wife. His friend antics are the best especially Barney played by Neil patrick Harris. Runtime 20 min

more info on the serial




6.The Big bang theory 
 This is another comedy serial is about a group of nerds, the jokes are funny scientific in nature  it has also lot of slapstick humor.It has also an indian playing in the lead.


more info of the big bang thoery





 

Monday, November 9, 2009

Sunday, November 8, 2009

REVIEW OF UBUNTU 9.10 KARMIC KOLA

Well it has been 10 days since  i installed ubuntu 9.10 and i must say i am quite impressed with it compared to its earlier versions



1.Installation 

The previous versions required a clean install by  downloading a iso file(700Mb)  and burning it to a disc but with the version  it can be upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10 directly. You can download it from http://www.ubuntu.com/

While installing it displays a overview of what you going to experience while using ubuntu  similar to the one which we encounter while installing xp.
er.o
My advise is to install via WUBI so that you  need not have  to back up any data or go through the partion problems it installs inside windows like any other software  you can remove it from add/remove programs later on if you  don't like it. You need to specify the amount of space required for ubuntu  the minimum is 5Gb. The best thing about ubuntu is that you need not have  require a new computer having a better system configuration.




It  takes about an hour or so install no need to install drivers later on:)
When you restart the system it gives the option of windows and ubuntu select which ever your  want and proceed




2.Improvements

It comes bundled with firefox 3.5, Openoffice 3.1(equivalent of Ms office ),and a software center from were you can download which ever software  or remove it also.





Here is a wonderful link about what softwares you need to install it depends on


your interests

There is a big myth that windows favorite applications won't work in ubuntu  


MY  Recommendations and Alternatives

Web browsers: Nothing Beats Firefox 3.5.3  in terms perfomance and speed and variety of different  plugins.  You have Epiphany Web browser based on Gnome and you can install Google Chromium web Browser. You can download them from Synaptic manager ,Software centre  or from websites.

Players:Ubuntu offers wide variety applications that will blow away your mind in terms of video and audio editing so throw away your windows media player

Video files

You can install Vlc for ubuntu as it plays wide variety of formats with ease. Mplayer is another player which can play all formats this player has won many awards in Europe. Pitivi Video Editor is the best for editing some videos or making as short film





Audio Files

 
Audacious ,Xmms ,Banshee are the best players for playing your music
collection

   
These players will give Winamp a run for there money.


Internet applications

Chat : Pidgin 2.6.3 is the best Messengers  software if you have differnet  accounts (gtalk,facebook,yahoo,twitter,Windows messenger etc etc) it runs different protocols in one window.It has a wide variety plugins.Gtalk looks outdated  if you start using it. It supports differnet protocols




Empathy is default messenger software program in ubuntu 9.10 eariler pidgin used to be there.


Twitter Applications : Gwibber is used widely for updating your tweets or messages to your facebook,myspace and twitter accounts

But if your are a big fan of tweetdeck then Seesmic is the best version of tweetdeck  Here are the  download instructions for Seesmic 







Bitorrent Torrent applications and Download mangers 

Kget is the Best download manager available they are many but kget offers the best interface and download speed. So forget IDM and FDM





Deluge Bittorrent  in ubuntu is closest to  Utorrent(popular version) in terms of  usage.





Archive Manager is used for Zip files and compressing them



Cloud Computing 

Ubuntu One offfers to store a space of 2gb free. It is similar Drop box


Graphics 

Gimp and Inkscape are the best Picture editing tools in ubuntu so can leave your Adobe photo shop





So Go Ahead and try something alternative other than windows

and there is no fee or cost to use ubuntu it is absolutely free