Microsoft shift key

The other day I held the shift key continuously. And it suddenly made a beap, and it told me that it would activate a toggle key setting. I don’t remember the exact word. But something like sticky keys. The keyboard started acting very abnormally. And then I did not know what to do. Somehow on a blog I found a help article regarding this. And it said that I have to hold both shift keys together to de activate that settting. Finally I came out of this annoying feature. Unfortunately this simple solution (holding both shifts)of coming out of this setting was not provided in Microsoft help! But it explained about the sticky keys feature in a lose unclear manner. So all of you, next time, do not hold shift key for long periods!

My love with photoshop

I started using adobe photoshop since 2001. Those were the days when I got my PC freshly. And I had seen some image manipulations on times of India newspaper. And I wanted to do something like that. I did not have any knowledge about which software to use. I asked my computer admin to install that software which allows photo manipulations.

He installed me photoshop 4 I feel. Then I started using photoshop. I had no idea about image formats, sizes, quality or any other things. I just started importing some film actor’s images and started experimenting. I could not learn anything worth in the starting days. The features I was not good with. I would want to do some action. But I dint know how to perform it. At times, the history brush tool annoyed me. I dint know the real use of eraser. Then the history brush was replaced by eraser. I realized the use of layers.

By some one or two months, I was somehow ok with painting on the photos and adding text on the photo. Later in next 4-5 months, I accidentally discovered the layers effects which are now termed as layer style. In old photoshop, we had very less effects and less options.

Then I upgraded to photoshop 5 where I got many more functions. Then came a significant version of photoshop 6. There was a new feature called liquidify. And there were many added layer effects. And the terminology for render layer was changed as rasterize layer.

Now I am using photoshop 7 which I feel has better brushes. And one more feature which caught my attention was the extract feature which can extract the object from its backgrounds. Surely a great tool for those who mix photos. Now I use photoshop for almost everything. For improving the quality of my photos to getting photo prints, banner making, greetings, wallpaper creation. Creating favicon. Creating png icons. Photoshop is the best tool on earth for photo manipulation.

Corporates kill creativity in bollywood

There was a boom in Bollywood some 6 years ago. This was due to the expansion of the markets. The markets opened up to England and America due to the increase of Indian population in those areas. And more than the increase in population, the Indian people in those places wanted to watch hindi films.

But they did not have access to it. Yash Raj films were the first people to attract the NRI audience by making a NRI based story DDLJ (dilwale dulhania le jayenge). Then the film ran very well in India. The VCD’s and VHS were very well marketed in other parts of the world. But the markets truly opened up when kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was released. It was released in many places outside India. (Now they are releasing DVD ) . And also satellite rights now fetch lot of money.

Due to the difference in value of tickets outside India, this acted as an advantage to the Indian producers. And with the markets doubling, they could recover the money very easily. And with the opening up of multiplexes in all metro cities, the film makers can recover their amount in a week.

This profit motive brought many corporate into film making to bollywood. The first entrant I think was the Pen video people. And they were followed by others. I think the biggest entrants were the eros and edlabs. Now almost one out of 4 films belong to eros and adlabs. And now Adlabs has been acquired by reliance. And reliance also holds BIG fm. Hence adlab’s songs are coming across all Big fm’s of major cities.

Big fm has been used by reliance to advertise its reliance phones and its mutual funds and insurance policies.

With all these corporates flowing in, they are not bothered about creativity. It has become common or adlabs , eros and Yash Rajs to sign in an artist for 3-4 films together. Dint you see Rani Mukherji repeatedly in Yash Raj Banner. And priety zinta doing Kal Ho Na Ho, Salam Namaste. And saif ali khan doing Kal ho na ho, Hum Tum, Salam Namaste etc. And latest Konkona sen doing aaja nachle and even laga chunari me dag. And Kunal kapoor doing aaja nachle and laaga chunari me daag.

When the actors have already been signed by the producers, where is the scope for the director to choose the correct actor to the role. And the director has to weave the story to suit those actors!

And now the formula seems to be.. sign a person who is riding high due to media hype. If there is no media hype for that person, go pay some money and create media hype for him! And make a hip hop type of song. And make a glamorous video with all types of African and American models and remix it. Play it repeatedly on Mtv. The main intention is to create a hype among the people unnaturally. Then release the film. Even if the film is worst and it runs for one week, it gains the money spent.

And if the film runs for 3 weeks, it is a hit! How can we consider Don film to be a hit? And now the definition of hit has changed. If the film sustains for 3-4 weeks at a theatre, it is a hit!

This doesn’t mean that creativity has completely died in bollywood. Some small film makers are making good efforts like Khosla Ka Gosla and Nagesh kukunoor movies. And the film Life in A metro was a totally different movie starring shilpa shetty and directed by some person I don’t remember his name :)

Legal process outsourcing

Legal process outsourcing will soon be the next thing after BPO (Business process outsourcing). Already this sector is gaining momentum. Indian laws are all based on england’s laws. And English law serves as the basis for many other countries’ laws. Hence law which is taught in India is similar to that of England and our law graduates can handle the law of other countries.

The nature of work in LPO includes giving solutions, and suggestions and preparing drafts and writing. And filling up forms.

Indians have a good chance to try at LPO. I have seen many firms already taking in law graduates as its employees.

news channels of today

In India, we earlier had very less news channels like NDTV. But now we have channels like CNN IBN, Headlines today, aaj tak, zee news, star news, Times now.

I feel that today’s news channels are nowhere near the reality. The problem is that there comes in a major news of the day which they follow all the day. They do not reflect all that is news. Like a kid who holds a teddy bear and plays all the day fascinated, these news channels go behind a news all the day. And why do those correspondents stand at some place and keep on saying all useless things.

The Mumbai molestation case was being shown all the day in times now, headlines today, ndtv, and ibn. Dint they have any other news to telecast? Mumbai police officer rightly reacted: “please do not blow everything out of proportion. Compared to other cities, Mumbai was peaceful enough. Didn’t you reporters go along Mumbai. Do not blow everything out of proportion”

And today’s news channels are all about promoting films. I was watching a report on ndtv about heroines of 60-70s era. The reporter saud: “those were the days when scripts were written based on a heroine. But now that trend is lost. So heroines do not have importantance. And now comes madhuri!!! And the director wrote a special script for her” . So the correspondent’s love for heroine’s in this male dominated industry was to promote madhuri’s aaja nachle film!

And every time a film releases, that particular actor, director comes on all news channels and gives interview. I was laughing after seeing SRK’s interview for 3rd time in the same year on times of India. And remember how all the news channels covered the release of Om Shanti Om and said that it was a Bollywood bloackbuster and all.. But the film turned out to be an inspiration of Karz and a worst script. And a model who knows no acting called Deepika Padukone.

If you watch today’s news channels only as a source of information, then you will be somewhere in a dream ad world created by our news channels. What is the real news is not at all covered. We do not get what we really need from these news channels. There is no content at all.

And come to hindi news channels like aaj tak and zee news. You can call them as masala news channels. If a star celebrates a birthday on a day, that whole day will have special programmes.