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E cards-a Great Way of Sending Wish

October 24, 2011 - Posted in Cards

Wishing cards or greeting cards are a common phenomenon since decades. With the advent of modernization everything is changing with a class and sophistication tending to match up to the high levels of creation and inventions. Latest updating of greeting cards is that of E cards. E cards are similar to that of greeting card or post card abut there lies a small difference; E-card is created using digital media instead of paper or other traditional materials.

Normally greeting cards or post cards are holding various publishers but in case of E –cards there lies various publishers on several internet sites and can be sent to the recipient usually via email. The best outcome of e-card is that it is environment friendly as paper is not used at the end. It is very easy to send as one has to only select the content or the card from an online catalog of e-cards available on a publisher’s web sites. After it is selected the sender can personalize into various degrees by adding a message, photo or video and then finally specifying the recipient’s e mail address and after that the website sends it on behalf of the sender to the recipient. Easy to choose, create and send.

There has been an update of e-cards since 1984. E-cards now include categories like video e-card, mobile e-cards, flash animation e-cards, web based multimedia e-cards as well as face upload e-card etc. Video e cards are a combination of personalized text and video to convey the message to the recipient. With the advancement in the mobile technologies, Multimedia messaging Services (MMS) which is basically audio video message sending has become more popular. E-cards can be sent to mobile devices and phones. Mobile e-cards are termed as M-cards. The first company that created M-card was one of the Dutch companies called MGreetings. Similar to e-cards m-cards can contain multiple pictures, music and text messages. Flash animation e-cards are based on two dimensional vector animation controlled with a scripting language. Flash creation can be sophisticated and realistic. Flash animation e-cards are offered by almost all major e-card publishers and are consequently the most common format used. Web based e-cards are more creative in nature. In this one can create greeting cards by choosing a classic background, drag and drop images, animation, smiley’s, writing text that looks like handwriting with the implementation of music and video’s too.

Thus e-card is one of the best ways to send wishes as one can involve complete freedom in choice of each and every particular thing. Easy to select, create and design and send thisis the uniqueness of e-cards.

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Video Games and Children

October 24, 2011 - Posted in Games

Single sibling with a working mother is common in now days. Children remain at home or during their leisure time gets attracted to games, gadgets such as video games and PSP’s. It is somehow a very popular entertaining and addictive kid activity for children. Parents think of this as a time waster and root to violation as it includes games which carry anti social behavior.But many scientists and psychologists find that video games actually have many benefits such as it makes the kids smart and teach them high level thinking skills that will help the child in future.

There are both benefits and harmful effects of video games according to the child experts. Let us browse through few.

Good Effects of Video Games

. A real work out is given by video games to your children. In many games the skills that are required to pass any game level involves abstract and high thinking which helps the child to retain mental skill that is normally not taught in school or other institutions.

. Resource management and logistics is another requirement in video games that helps the player to manage the resources and best use of the resources which in real life is in the same way. This skill is honed in strategy games like SimCity, Age of Empires and Railroad Tycoon.

. Quick thinking and making fast analysis and decisions are also involved in games which help the child to gain training tool for real world. It also helps in learning team work and making quick decisions.

. Developing reading and math skills is another good benefit of playing video games for children.

. Video games introduce your kid to computer technology and online world as it helps in adapting the concepts of real sophisticated world and makes comfortable for computing.

. It helps in bonding as games involve adults too.

These were the pros of video games but the vital thing is yet to come and that is the bad or the side effects of the video games.

Bad Effects of Video Games

. Most of the bad effects of video game are the violence that they contain. Children who play more violent video games are prone to develop high aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviors and decreased prosaically helping.

. Too much playing leads in addiction of video games which has a harmful effect in the life of a child. It makes your kid isolated socially.

. Video games even give a harsh impact to your child’s eyes. When your children are playing such games his/her eyes are constantly glued to the screen of the gaming gadget that is harmful for eyes. Constant watch is not a good gesture.

. Physical disorders like obesity, video-induced seizures, postural, muscular and skeletal disorders such as tendonitis, nerve compression as well as carpal tunnel syndrome could occur.

. While playing online a kid can pick up foul or slang languages and restricted behaviors from the characters of the game which is not a good sign.

. Creation of illusion and confusion is possible as a kid gets confused between the reality and the game world which is highly dangerous.

Thus both pros and cons of video games are there. Being a mother one can’t suggest you to stop letting your child play video games but rather than maintain a particular timing for that gaming session. Let your kid play video games but in a small amount and a strict watch is also required while playing.

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After Avatar 3D movie making has become the new trend

October 15, 2011 - Posted in Movie

After Avatar hit the screens in 3D, it has started a new trend towards making 3D movies. 3D movies seem to run better in the cinema halls.

It is hard to say all the names but after Avatar, More than a hundred films have been made or converted into 3D. The experience is totally different from that of 2D films. In 3D films, the images seem to move just in front of the viewer. In these films, realism is felt more naturally and the viewer can get more involved than ever.

Now the problem is, not every movie is could be made into 3D format. But most people do not understand the fact. Even many directors run for making 3D films just to make them a hit in the box office. They do not even try to realize why their films should or should not be made in 3D. Though the fact is true that the world of 3D is still very much unexplored, it is also true that 3D films are tough to work in.

Animated movies like Bolt, Smurfs or even Avatar have reached such a level that it is hard to understand which is real and which is fake. Technology has reached such a level that entertainment is now getting a new dimension. The third dimension.

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FIFA 12- a preview

October 15, 2011 - Posted in Games

For people who are a fan of the game FIFA, FIFA 12 is the ultimate game you will ever come across. EA has just put life into the programmed players by designing them so realistically.

Starting from FIFA 97, EA has developed this soccer game gradually. The two benchmarks were FIFA 07 and 09. Though 07 was the first step to the revolution, 09 had a graphics design that no one could think of.

FIFA 12 has just kicked out all its predecessors and set a new benchmark again. If reality is what you want, then this is the game for you. Everything has been filtered. From the player graphics to the ball movement, everything feels like it is real.

When you come across the game, you begin to realize that this is not a computer game that you are playing. It is a real game that you are participating in.

The game has brought FIFA so many awards that even Maradona or Pele would feel ashamed. The game is such that no one can take their eyes off it. Apart from the most realistic graphics,the sound makes you feel that you are sitting in the field and controlling the players.

So if you are a FIFA fan, this one is a sure play for you.

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FarmVille- the reasons behind its popularity

October 15, 2011 - Posted in Games

Facebook’s free online game Farmville, which allows users to run their own virtual farm, is set to become the most popular application on the social networking site. The game allows Facebook members to plant, grow, and harvest virtual crops, trees, raise livestock, invest in farm equipment and sell their produce for profit.

Zynga’s hit Facebook game FarmVille is arguably the most widely played video game in existence. The simplest reason behind this is advertising. FarmVille is advertised all over Facebook, so people are bound to pay attention. This advertising is incredibly effective, because it is so immediate; one clicks on the ad and can play the game.

Even users constantly advertise the game to their friends through viral channels on Facebook. As one plays, the game periodically prompts you to post about your accomplishments on your Facebook wall. These posts, which are generated with a simple click from within the game, appear in all of one’s friends’ news feeds. This encourages others to play, so in this way, Zynga gets free advertising.

Getting ahead in the game depends on having plenty of Facebook friends who are also playing. The crops in Farmville wither if one does not harvest them quick enough which encourage users to come back again and again. Rewards for adding neighbors are offered to users, prompting them to invite their friends to play too. That allows Farmville to spread very rapidly, obtaining new users very fast. What keeps the new users hooked is the simple interface and easy to use options in the game.

The game has new features and items added all the time. This keeps people checking back to see what new features have been added, and attracts new users as people get curious to find out what the hype is all about.

FarmVille won an award at the Game Developer’s Conference for the “Best New Social/Online Game” in 2010. The game owes its popularity to a growing trend among urban people who want to give the rural activities a try by harvesting vegetables, milking cows, and shearing sheep.

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Why we use emoticons?

October 15, 2011 - Posted in Emoticons

An emoticon textually portrays a writer’s mood or expression. For example, , , and . A simple sentence can have multiple interpretations, if we do not convey the tone of our message with the help of emoticons. The word ‘Emoticon” has been formed by adding two words – emotion and icon.

We can derive emotional cues easily with the use of emoticons in online communication. Whenever information of personal nature is exchanged, the use of emoticons helps bringing people closer. Sometimes, the use of emoticons helps in conveying some free emotions better than what words can express.

Happy Smile is the most common positive emoticon which conveys cheer. Cheesy/toothy Grin is a very positive emoticon, but has a different connotation from the common smile icon. Cheeky/Tongue is another positive emoticon, but it tends to be interpreted negatively, especially when the message is slightly sarcastic in tone. Sad/unhappy icon can be used generally as a way to express unhappiness. Angry/aggressive icon, the frown and the curled lip is one of the most aggressive emoticons.

Emoticons have also expanded beyond simple cartoon facial expressions to a variety of still or moving images. Some of these graphical emoticons do not actually represent faces or emotions; for example, an emoticon showing a guitar might be used to represent music.

When chatting with friends, colleagues and relatives over a distance, the use of emoticons make the whole experience very lively. It is human nature that information if supported by emotional cues is retained by the mind for a long time. Thus, the use of emoticons helps in making communication more effective.

Whether we appreciate it or not, we are all influenced by the use of non-verbal cues to interpret communication in real life. The same is with the online communication as well. We always try to complete the communication from all aspects. So, apart from the informational value carried in messages, we also look for the emotional cues that lie beneath.

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Bollywood’s latest venture -animation films

October 15, 2011 - Posted in Movie

Animation seems to be the next big thing in Indian movies. While the trend in Hollywood is to make movies on the basis of comic books and animated cartoon films like Spiderman and Superman, Bollywood generally uses the ancient Indian Mythology as its basis for animation movies.

In India, the animation movie scene started with the release of Ramayana and Hanuman. Utilizing the deep-rooted respect for Hindu mythology seemed to be the safest bet for animation filmmakers, with both movies doing remarkably well at the Box-Office.

The kids and teenager segment is being perceived as the target audience. There has been an increase in the making of animation movies in Bollywood but Indian cinema is not using the advanced techniques and latest trends in animation in its movies and the result is that the final product of the animation movies are not as appealing as we see in the Hollywood movies.

The problem that the Indian animation sector faces mostly is the cost of animation projects is much more than live action projects and you don’t have those kinds of finance available in the Indian markets. Secondly, we lack the sensibilities of designing global characters and situations. Lack of finance, design sensibilities and original story ideas are stopping the Indian animation industry from attaining global standards.

Animation films take five-six years to make because it’s a very complex process of computer graphics. 2008 saw the release of Roadside Romeo—the first 3D animation movie out of India—produced jointly by Yash Raj Films and Walt Disney Pictures. The animation scene in India has also caught the fancy of celebrated filmmakers, Yash Raj Films, which introduced animation in their films with Hum Tum.

The animation sector is poised to grow at a healthy pace. As per Nasscom report, the animation industry in India was around US$460 million in 2008 and is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27 percent to reach US$1.16 billion by 2012. With this one can say that the animation sector is really on a high.

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Flickr.com – A review

October 14, 2011 - Posted in Social networking

We all know that computer is our access to the world now; it’s the time of globalization so it’s getting important to have contact with the whole world. And by internet we can do that pretty easily but how? Well of course through social networking sites and in other ways we can get in touch with many people around the word, can share our world and culture with them. Now what is this Flicker.com?  If we are talking about photo and video hosting websites Flicker.com is one of the best.

Flickr was the developed by Vancouver; Canada based company known as Ludicorp, and was launched in February 2004 and acquired by Yahoo Inc in March 2005 for a reported $35 million. In the beginning Flickr was started with a chat room where the users can exchange photos. And the features that are present today like tags, favorites, group photo pools in Flickr were absent. Flickr updated its services from beta to “gamma”, along with a design and structural inspection and repair on 16th May, 2006.
This website is available in Chinese, English (original), French, German, Indonesia, Italian, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Vietnamese; all we have to do is just to register ourselves and then we can enjoy its services.  Users can share and embed personal photographs here; the service is largely used by bloggers to host images that they use in blogs and social media. The images can be divided in “tags” and “sets”. By tags the user can search the photos by using certain search criteria like place name, subject matter. Sets are more advance and easy to handle than the old method of organizing files. By API which is a web service of programmers are allowed to create their own applications and make Flickr do whatever they want.

Flickr has a web application called “Organizr” for organizing photos. But it can be done only if you have a Flickr account. The users can modify tags, descriptions, set groupings and put photos on a geographical location on a map. Organizr also has made the batching of photos simpler than ever. One can store both private and public images using Flickr. Users have control over the images that they are uploading by setting the privacy control. People who don’t want everyone to see their images can flag their images as private to be seen either by the person who uploaded it or by family and friends if marked as visible for them.  A group can be settled as private if a user of that group wants, although the members of the group can view the photos no one else can.

A feature that has been added recently is geo-tagging tool. Its working is very simple. We just have to find a location using Yahoo maps by entering address code or airport code or city etc. or just navigate around the map to find the location and from organizers’ thumbnail bar the users can drag and drop their photos on to the map in the right location.

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Celebrating Rosh Hashanah

October 14, 2011 - Posted in Entertainment

Rosh Hashanah literally means “Head of the Year” in Hebrew, according to Jewish calendar Rosh Hashanah signify new year of the High Holy Days or Yamim Noraim (“Days of Awe”), once a year it falls during the month of Tishrei and celebrated ten days before Yom Kippur and can be observed on the first two days of Tishrei, the seventh month of Hebrew calendar as it begin with the month of Nissan which is believed to be the month when Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt but Rosh Hashanah can be regarded as the birthday of the world as it’s believed that in the month of Tishrei God created this world.

According to Jewish tradition during the High Holy Days, who will live and who will die in the upcoming years was decided by God so during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur they examine their lives and ask for forgiveness for any wrong thing they did in previous year. This repenting process is called “teshuvah”. During Rosh Hashanah Jewish are bucked up to improve their relation with anyone they have done something wrong and make plans for doing better in the coming year.

The prayer service of Rosh Hashanah is unique; it’s the 2nd longest prayer service of the year after Yom Kippur. It starts from early morning until the afternoon, Makhzor is the prayer book of Rosh Hashanah prayer service and two famous prayers of Rosh Hashanah liturgy are Unetaneh Tohkef which is about life and death and another one is Avienu Malkeinu which means “Our Father Our King” in Hebrew.

On Rosh Hashanah people greet each other by saying “L’Shanah Tovah” means “May you have a good year” and it’s believed that a person’s fate is decided during High Holy Days. An important symbol of Rosh Hashanah is the shofar which is often made of a ram’s horn, blown one hundred times during each of the two days of Rosh Hashanah. “Tashlich” which literally means “casting off”, is a ceremony that takes place usually on the first day of Rosh Hashanah in which everybody symbolically casts  off the sins of the previous year by tossing bread pieaces or another food into flowing water.

Significant symbols of Rosh Hashanah include apples, honey and round loaves of challah. Sliced apples dipped in honey, represent our hope for a sweet new year and are traditionally accompanied by a short prayer before eating and Challah, which is usually baked into braids, and shaped into round loaves of bread which symbolizes the continuation of life. On the second night of Rosh Hashanah eating a fruit which is new to Jews for the season is customary, Pomegranates are a popular choice.

Though the theme of Rosh Hashanah is life and death, it is a holiday filled with hope for the New Year. Jews believe that God is compassionate and just, and God will accept their prayers for forgiveness. Duration of Rosh Hashanah 2011 is, sunset, September 28 – sunset, September 30.

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Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation – a review

September 30, 2011 - Posted in Games

We are living in a world of computer isn’t it?  In this world, from 8 to 80 there are games for everybody and a major part of world’s population is almost like addicted to these games. Gaming devices like Play station, Xbox360 and many more are increasing this addiction tremendously. Not only youngsters but adults now  are also having fun out of these games and one of them is Ace Combat 6: Fire of Liberation.
Developed by Project Aces, published by Namco Bandai Games, Ace Combat 6:  Fires of Liberation is one of the latest projects exclusively for Xbox360 and have a massive impact on the gaming genre and minds of people. But why this game has this huge impact? Designed by Satoshi Kawase, composed by Keiki Kobayashi, Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Hiroshi Okubo, Junichi Nakatsuru, Ryuichi Takada, this game of Ace combat series follows the fictional war between the Republic of Emmeria and the Federal Republic of Estovakia on the Anean continent, north of Yuktobania. This game’s high definition graphics turned the world around us into a super realistic war zone. Massive wars can unfold on a living battle field integrated by the Dynamic Operation System where up to 6 independent aerial, ground and navel battle can break out at once between allies and enemies.

Throughout Ace Combat 6, the player must pilot a fighter jet or other aircraft to destroy enemies both in the air and on the ground. The player can be equipped with heavy gun power and in addition can use missiles and Vulcan cannons, and also heat-seeking missiles, bombs, rocket launchers, and others.  This game which belongs to Arcade or Combat Flight Simulator genre can be played by The Ace Edge, a joystick and throttle controller designed specifically for Ace Combat 6. Produced by Hori. In two different modes the game can be played, first the single player mode and the multi player mode. Not only this,but the game also includes 4 different multi player modes like  Battle Royale, Siege Battle, Team Battle, and Co-Op Battle.

First released on October 23, 2007 in North America since then this game has been receiving positive reviews from critics like Team Xbox, Xplay and as far as  video game content rating system is concerned ESRB gives this game  T (Teen),PEGI approved this for 12+,and CERO approved this with an A (All ages) .So it’s a game for everybody.

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