The Wareblog

I remember reading in my school books how mankind was helpless with no cure for the condition caused by AIDS. Today, as we find people and celebrities, alike, falling prey to one fatal disease after another - well, I present here some text towards the big one - AIDS.

With all the AIDS-awareness drives worldwide notwithstanding and the clinically proven effectiveness of the antiretroviral drugs, Dr. Boyd Graves chose to differ.

If one were to go by his findings and recommendations, AIDS would eventually be proved to have been synthetically manufactured with suggested intentions of bringing down the third world population. AIDS, as per his research, has its roots in the United States of America’s The Virus Cancer Program which synthetically produced the HIV in its laboratories. The validity of such claims can always be contested and often dismissed as conspiracy theories but the fact remains that if such apparently biological warfare has actually been resorted to by supposedly responsible governments (not to be confused with these as reported here), perhaps it wouldn’t be out of context to mention here that they also (in black & white) harbour the cure in their backyards.

At the end of the day - I leave it to the Almighty to preside over.

I experienced this peculiar problem today when trying to activate the Power notification icon after it mysteriously disappeared from my system tray. To my amazement, the Power checkbox had become frozen and therefore I could not select and get my icon back.

When I opened the Customize Notification Icons dialog box, I found plenty of other icons lying there for applications I had removed long back – but no signs of my dearie dear Power..!

The reason behind this is the Explorer caches a list of every icon that appears through its interface and over a period of time this list could go up to hundreds or more.

The other issue is that Explorer keeps these items in memory somewhere, so it also causes bloat, but we can reset this list through the registry and by restarting Explorer. Note that this will remove any settings you had set for the icons.

To get to the dialog we are talking about, right-click on the notification icon tray and select Customize Notification Icons or go to the same through the Taskbar properties -

Run regedit.exe through the Start Menu -> Run command, and then browse down to this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\LocalSettings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify

Now you will see two entries in the list: IconStreams and PastIconsStream. Select both of them and delete. (You may want to take a backup with the export function before doing this) -

That’s it, done..!

All we need to do now is to restart Explorer.exe through Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc).
In order to do so, we select explorer.exe from the list and choose End Process and subsequently click on the File menu (Alt+F) and click on New Task to specify explorer.exe in the same and then press OK.

Now your Customize Notification Icons dialog box should show you a very clean list of items, but note that any settings you had will be reset to default. 

Please note that some icons might disappear entirely until you reboot your computer.

I have always loved this browser and will never forget falling back on the same to get me there - faster & safer..!

Here’s a snapshot though of what the current build has rolled out in the language we’re all tied together with-

Apple & Microsoft (not necessarily in that order!) undoubtedly have some of the best brains working in their innovation labs. It is therefore no wonder that when they go ahead and toss up concepts and perceptions of how the future of computing would be like - it is often unbelievably awesome..!!

Microsoft Office Labs showcase their prophecies in this short-n-slick clip.

THE PLOT –

Delhi-6 takes a socio-cultural-political-umpteenical take on India and the domestic situation through the eyes of an Indian – Born (and brought up) in the USA.

After R.O. Mehra’s hugely successful and awe-inspiring Rang De Basanti comes Delhi-6, full of anecdotes from our daily lives shot amidst old Delhi’s backdrop and brought to life by quite a few creditable performances.

Abhishek Bachchan is born to parents who married outside their caste and settled in the USA. After several years he returns with his ailing grandmother (Waheeda Rehman) to get a feel of where his roots lie. He immediately starts taking a liking to the place despite its shallows of logic and monopoly of faith and the culturally spun-off politics.

If not for the social messages, you can watch this one just for the director’s intent and the protagonist’s unshakable faith in the adage – Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani..!

THE CAST –

Sonam Kapoor is so wow.!

Absolutely mint fresh and almost picture perfect – no less.

The rest of the cast, including Abhishek Bachchan are very true to their roles and deliver according to the asks of the screenplay.

The two actors that stand out though are – Divya Dutta (Jalebi) & Atul Kulkarni (Gobar).

THE MUSIC –

While A.R.Rehman struck gold with Rang De Basanti – Delhi 6 is sadly a consolation prize at best.

Most songs just have a few keys of notes and pronounced background scores – so characteristic of Rehman’s songs that lack melody or magic.

Except a few occasional sounds here and there – a very forgettable album.

THE VERDICT –

A movie that has pure intentions and they alone are reason enough to sit through this one.

Not a must-watch though.

THE SCORE –

6.00 / 10.00

THE PLOT –

The movie deals with modern-day trysts of the everblue Devdas portrayed superbly by Abhay Deol. Now this has been a trend for quite some time – Abhay Deol is to be found in movies which either have a great screenplay or a tight storyline : this one carries the trend forward.

Our Devdas (DevD) falls in love with Paro and shies away from marrying her thinking about whether the same would justify his family’s social status only to find out later that his family indeed wanted him to get married to Paro. With blues filling his life, DevD takes to alcohol and customary accompaniments as his last straws only to chance upon Chanda.

What does destiny have in store for Dev? What happens to Paro? And what’s the story behind Chanda?

All these and many more answers open up gradually in this entertaining saga of DevD.

THE CAST –

Mahi Gill & Kalki Koechlin are quite natural in their portrayal of Paro & Chanda respectively.

The support cast just about sticks to it. The Brass Band – Patna Ke Presley are one of the high points of the movie.

However, Abhay Deol, without doubt, is superb and often too real than reel. This is definitely one of his better acts till date.

THE MUSIC –

All the songs in the movie are good and extremely easy to relate to the situation in the plot.

But Emosanal Atyachar definitely calls for the once-more vote.!

Amit Trivedi deserves two thumbs up for this one…Well done.!

THE VERDICT –

Let me summarize what this movie is not –

Not an Indian family movie.

Not a movie (let alone the public) every critic will find peace with.

And not a movie you should miss out in favour of an Oscar winner..!

THE SCORE –

7.50 / 10.00

THE PLOT –

The movie takes a potshot at several professionals in the Indian Film Industry even exploiting anecdotes and incidents from the yester-years.
Although seemingly slow-moving at times, debutante director Zoya Akhtar gets full marks for exploring definitive and fresh angles on taking shots and also for keeping the on-screen drama realistically subdued.
The story as such, meanders from one point to another without giving you much clue as to where it actually wants to go – but ends up at a beautiful juncture.
Don’t miss this one if you are one who admires the subtle nuances of film making.

THE CAST –

Farhan Akhtar and Konkona Sen Sharma share the role of the protagonist and do every bit of justice to the same.
Dimple Kapadia shows her acting prowess in all flavors while Rishi Kapoor, Juhi Chawla and Sanjay Kapoor are apt in their performances.
Hrithik Roshan and Isha Sharvani are appreciable and the whole ensemble of actors and actresses are pretty much to the demand of the script.

THE MUSIC –

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy again come up all trumps with this score and make you wonder if the portrayals on-screen were thought of before or were they tuned to match the scores?
With all the hoopla surrounding the Slumdog score by Rehman, folks, even this soundtrack will make you realize the fact that the Indian Music Industry is leap years ahead of ordinary scores that are getting global recognition this year.
Pyaar Ki Daastaan and Sapno Se Bhare Naina are standout numbers.

THE VERDICT –

It’s not a movie every cine-goer will like – especially those who look for more twists and turns and umpteen stories in a single script.
If you long for a taste of a well made film – watch this one..!

THE SCORE –

6.50 / 10.00

My fascination with Strings, the band, dates back to my school days. Never before had I heard something so delicately simple yet so soulful. With one hits after another, they soon became a band with following spread across seas.

But, it was with this one song, titled ‘Beirut’, that they married an aspect which is of very high importance to me in my journey through time – To pause and help for a cause.

It hardly matters what you get from your fans or admirers – what matters is what you give back to the greater mass.

Faisal & Bilal – This one’s for you..!

Keep strumming..!

THE PLOT –

The movie is an adaptation of the novel by Vikas Swarup and has already shot into top slots on IMDb.

Jamaal Malik is our slumdog who treads on the finest of coincidences as he meanders his way through the questions on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” – connecting each question he comes across to an anecdote in his life.

As he progresses further on the show, he is suspected of cheating and hence sent into police custody.

Amidst all this, he is also out to unite with his brother and lost love for a better tomorrow.

Will he beat all odds to conquer the show and redraw the landscape of his life?

It’s all there for you to find out.

THE CAST –

Dev Patel, as the grown up Jamaal Malik, is definitely the stand out performer.

Frieda Pinto and Anil Kapoor do justice to their roles. The entire arrays of actors, in fact, have put up good performances.

As for the best performances though – I would personally rate Ayush (youngest portrayal of Jamal) and Azharuddin (youngest portrayal of Salim) as the deserving ones.

THE MUSIC –

There has been a lot of talk about A.R.Rehman coming up with a score worth an Oscar nomination. In my humble opinion, neither do I have any clue what Oscars look for in a candidate nor do I subscribe to the opinion of Rehman deserving an award at all for this score.

The music seemed very stereotypical of a movie of this genre and in no ways was novel. In a nutshell, just about supporting the screenplay.

THE VERDICT –

With all the hue and cry surrounding this one – I actually found the movie pretty watchable and would definitely rate it as a film well made.

The elements are very true to a movie of this genre. Go ahead, watch this one..!

THE SCORE –

7.00 / 10.00

THE PLOT –

The movie is a remake of the Tamil movie by the same name where the main protagonist was played by Surya. The film is said to also have been ‘inspired’ by the 2000 Hollywood movie Memento directed by Christopher Nolan.
Sanjay Singhania (Aamir Khan), who is the MD of AirVoice Cellphone Company, falls in love with the bubbly aspiring model Kalpana (Asin Thottumkal) primarily out of his admiration for Kalpana’s just too excessive pro-active helpfulness towards others. However, Kalpana knows Sanjay as a common man named Sachin who is struggling to be a model/actor just like her.
All hell breaks loose in due course, again courtesy of Kalpana’s helping hand and she gets murdered in front of Sanjay’s eyes, who is also attacked severly by the goons and becomes a patient of anterograde amnesia thereafter.
Will he be able to battle all odds to secure the victory of good over evil and avenge Kalpana’s death?
It’s all there for you to find out.

THE CAST –

Having not seen either the Tamil version or the alleged English inspiration, I would say the director delivered a cross-bred movie with both Bollywood and Tamil elements.
Aamir Khan (Sanjay Singhania) & Pradeep Rawat (Ghajini Dharmatma) do justice to their roles. Asin (Kalpana) & Jiah Khan (Sunita) though are two major painpoints in the movie and are extremely passable, Asin in particular.
Aamir Khan, almost single-handedly, carries the whole film with his near-perfect portrayal of the character and shows why he is the nearest thing to perfection when it comes to acting.

THE MUSIC –

Like any other A.R.Rehman album, again, not all scores are hummable or come with prolonged shelf life. Guzaarish and Kaise Mujhe Tum are the better scores. On a personal note, Lattoo was a pretty refreshing number. On the whole, an average album.

THE VERDICT –

The movie is definitely worth a watch although some action sequences are not advisable for children (note to the parents). If not for anything, Aamir Khan is reason enough to watch this one.

THE SCORE –

6.00 / 10.00