Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Dasavatharam for Pongal

Kamal Haasan's much-talked about Dasavatharam was expected for a Deepavali release. But the latest rumors doing rounds is that its release would be postponed and the movie may hit the screens only for Pongal.

With the shooting for the talkies portion of the film and a couple of song sequences completed, two songs remain to be shot. The crew is expected to wind up shooting soon.

The post-production work, including graphics, is likely to stretch out for the next three months. Being the top-notch perfectionist, Kamal said to have insisted on high-quality graphics work and fans could be in for a visual treat.

Featuring Kamal Haasan in ten different roles, the movie features Asin, Mallika Sherawat and Nelpolean in prominent roles. Music is by Himseh Reshmaiyya and direction by K S Ravi Kumar.

Kamal’s plans for Dasavatharam

Kamal Haasan is now fully immersed in the post-production works of Dasavatharam.

One of the much-expected films of Tamil Cinema, the shooting for Dasavatharam is almost completed and the dubbing works have commenced.

Kamal Haasan is keen to ensure that he try novel methods in post-production especially in dubbing and getting the computer graphics works right.

Dasavatharam features Kamal Haasan in ten roles and directed by K S Ravikumar. The movie was shot for almost a year and the cast and crew have expressed confidence that the movie would bring laurels to Tamil cinema.

Plans are on to release the movie this Deepavali. Asin, Mallika Sherwat, Jayapradha, Nepolean among others are in the cast.

Monday, August 27, 2007

css

External stylesheets contain cascading stylesheet, or CSS, information used by a browser to display your web page with the styles you intended to use. These styles can be as simple as defining the font and font color, to as complex as layouts with three column without using tables.
There are four different ways CSS information can be supplied. See cascading order of CSS for more information.
The most efficient way to supply a browser with CSS information is by using an external css stylesheet.
What is an external CSS stylesheet?
An external CSS stylesheet is a separate file containing all the style information for a web site. These files have a .css extension and are commonly named style.css. The name of the file is irrelevant.
Why use an external CSS stylesheet
The benefits of an external stylesheet are:
Reduced bandwidth. Browsers typically only request one copy of your external CSS stylesheet, then caches that copy and won’t request your server for another copy for a certain period of time. The cache can be over written by refreshing the page. If this doesn’t work, try refreshing the external stylesheet itself.
External CSS stylesheets also reduces bandwidth by enabling your html code to be a clearer and contain less redundant style information. The smaller your file size, the less bandwidth is required to send the file out to the browser. For example, if wanted all tags of your web site to be vertically aligned in the center, instead of using for every single tag in your html document, simply define the vertical alignment in the external stylesheet and in your html document, all you will need to use is and all will be vertically aligned.
Easier to maintain. Instead of defining a style for a particular element over and over again, you only need to define it once in external stylesheet. External stylesheets also enable altering the whole look of a web site by changing one file, the .css file.
How do I create an external CSS stylesheet
External CSS stylesheets can be created using a simple text editor. Most PC’s have Text Pad which is the standard text editor, Mac’s have TextEdit which is the standard text editor. I recommend BBEdit on Macs as a text editor as it has many features a standard text editor doesn’t usually have.
To create an external CSS stylesheet, open up a new file and enter in the style information for that site. For example (as taken from Zann Marketing’s Developer blog styles):

Saturday, August 25, 2007

measles

Measles is an infection caused by a virus (a viral infection). The virus is called Pramyxovirus. In the developed world it used to be very common. However, thanks to extensive immunisation programmes the number of children infected has gone down considerably. Many health care professionals are concerned that the numbers of infected children has recently started to rise. The main reason being that some parents are scared of immunizing their children as they are worried about the vaccine's safety. How do you catch measles? If you have never had measles before and were never immunised you can catch it. It is a very contagious virus. If you live in a house with someone who has measles you run a 90% chance of becoming infected. The infected person transmits the virus through the nose and mouth - the virus is carried in tiny droplets in the air. Infected saliva and nasal secretions are also a source of transmission. Measles and PregnancyIf you have measles you should stay well away from pregnant women as the disease is especially dangerous for the unborn child. If you know of any pregnant woman who has been in contact with an adult or child infected with measles you should advise her to see her doctor immediately. What are the symptoms of measles? The patient will have a general feeling of being unwell (initial symptom). He/she will have a runny nose, a hacking cough and red eyes. His/her temperture will rise to over 40C and he/she will complain of body aches. Some children will suddenly become sensitive to bright lights. The patient will have small, red, irregularly-shaped spots with blue or white centres (Koplik's spots). These usually start inside the mouth a couple of days before the person comes out with a measles skin rash, which normally starts around the head and neck - gradually covering the whole body. Within three days the person has a rash which covers from head to toe. This rash starts off with small red spots, later on they join up and the patient has large blotchy red areas on the skin. The blotches can also be brownish in colour, but are more often red. The rash lasts just under a week. Measles is easy to diagnoseA measles rash is quite unique and easy for a doctor to identify. In the UK every case of measles must be reported to the HPA (Health Protection Agency). When you take your child (or adult or yourself) to your GP (Primary Health Physician, Family Doctor) you should phone first so that they can arrange for you to sit in a separate waiting area from other patients. How do you treat measles? There is no treatment for the virus, you have to let it run its course. However, there is treatment for some of the symptoms. Antibiotics will not treat the virus (antibiotics are for bacteria). However, if the patient develops an eye or ear infection an antibiotic may then be indicated. Make sure the infected person, especially children, take plenty of fluids (measles patients become dehydrated quickly). Drinking plenty of fluids is much more important than eating solids. If your child is not hungry for a couple of day, don't worry - but make sure he/she drinks a lot. OutlookMost people recover completely. A small number may go on to develop complications, such as encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), pneumonia, croup, bronchiolitis and hepatitis. 5% of measles patients may develop otitis media or pneumonia. One in 1000 develops encephalitis. How to protect yourself and your children? There is a vaccine, called MMR (Measles, Mumps Rubella). In the UK most children are immunized with the MMR vaccine. The first shot is given when the child is 14 months old, then a booster is given at the age of 4 or 5. Some people fear the MMR vaccine may cause their child to become autistic and decide it is not worth the risk. Nearly all health care professionals throughout the world believe the MMR vaccine is completely safe.

mums

What is Mum to you?
Thursday, 22. March 2007, 08:54:55
Dear Mother:It's Thursday. It's raining hard. It's dreary outside. I woke up this morning with a sense of dread. You've been gone for 18 years. I last wrote to you 17 years ago. After we seperated, I wrote to you every day for a year, then I stopped. Today will be the day I write again.The beauty I find in a graphic designer is something I like about myself. It's the deeper part of who I am, and maybe this has something to do with you. I wasn't always like this. There is written proof in my diary, my 14-year-old mind was soaked with thoughts of teenage boys:Wednesday, April 29, 1997. I had so much fun at school. Tonight, A called again, and so did this guy named B. We talked for over an hour. He's an A+ doll. A's been mean lately. I don't know what's wrong, but I like him muchly.Friday, May 8, 1997. Tonight I had a party. There were 16 kids. It was really blasty except for the fact that C kept bothering us. One of the guys, is named D, and now I have a crush on him--he's so darling. I like A, too, but after 16 months I can't help my crushes on other guys.Reading my diary entries written, I see a picture of a self-absorbed adolescent. I read page after page hoping for some modicum of self-examination. Of course, back then, my somewhat steady boyfriend A would try to read my diary, and I do remember writing only good things in case he got his hands on it. Because I was so self-conscious that someone might find my unhappy thoughts, I occasionally wrote them on separate pieces of paper then clipped them to the diary. They were my removable truths. If A ever said, "If you love me, you'll let me read the diary," I could easily unclip these private entries.So I wonder now how much of my diary is what novelist Tim O'Brien calls "happening truth" (the indisputable reality of what happened) and how much of it is "story truth" (the personal colorized version of what happened)? Memories, with or without diaries, that supposedly record the past, are generally colorized versions of the past. That's something I've learned in spades through my work. But there I go, digressing, trying to busy myself with work matters.It's hardest for me to reread the diary entries written before you left.Nothing much happened today. Just usual stuff. Tonight my dad called and we were very happy. My mother and I had a long talk until midnight about her childhood and other things. I was really happy because we'd never been too close before, and now we were talking like we really were.And then the worst happened.Today, July 11, 1988, was the most tragic day of my life. My dearly beloved mother, whom I had just gotten to be really close with, left. Only God knows what happened. I know that life must go on and that we all must be brave. I try to tell myself that she is gone only physically and that her soul and her love remain with us. Now that she is gone, I realize how very much I love her and how hard it will be to carry on. I feel so empty inside, like I lost a big part of me. If my mother could hear me I would want her to know that she has all my love and always will.The day after you left, I began to write to you. I wrote to you every day. "Dear Mother" or "Dear Mom." Signed "Love, EeLeen" or "Lovingly, EeLeen." And sometimes "Love forever." I wrote to tell you that "you were, and still are, the kindest, most wonderful person who has ever lived."But the diary reveals that my teenage self-absorption returned. I'm embarrassed to read how few days had passed before this happened. A month had hardly gone by, and I'm telling you which boys called me that day. I even wrote to you about a New Year's Eve party I attended:December 31, 1997. Dear Mom--I was with E all night. We went to a party.. Some girl got drunk, passed out and barfed all over her date. Poor guy. At twelve, E kissed me, we were watching TV, and everyone threw streamers. It's sort of sad to leave this year behind, it was such a wonderful year for me. Goodbye, 1997! Love, EeLeen.Wonderful year? Who was I kidding? It was an awful year.From the diary, there were only a few signs of pain, of depth, and these are mostly in the removable notes. In one of them, stained by a rusted paper clip, I wrote:MY GREATEST REGRET: Many nights, such as tonight, September 23, 1997, I lie awake and think about my mother. Always, I start to cry, and my thoughts trace back to the days when she was there. She would be watching TV and ask me to come sit by her. "I'm busy now," was my usual reply. Other times, she would be in my room, and we would get in fights because she wouldn't leave. Oh, how I hate myself for that! With a little bit of kindness from her only daughter she might have been so much happier. Why wasn't I nicer to my mother, whom I loved and love more than anyone else in the world? Why wasn't I?Today, I still regret that I wasn't nicer to you, but it is not my greatest regret. It's just one of many. I see now that you left wasn't my fault. Intellectually, I do know that's true, although the 6-year-old EeLeen perhaps did not. I thought then that eventually I would get over that you left. I know today that I won't. But I've decided to accept that truth. What does it matter if I don't get over you? Who says I have to? David and Robert still tease me: "Don't say the M word or EeLeen will cry." So what if the word motheraffects me this way? Who says I have to fix this? Besides, I'm too busy.I went on to become a college student and major in graphic design, devoting my life to the study of design. I've discovered some difficult truths: namely that memory can be changed, inextricably altered, and that what we think we know, what we believe with all our hearts, is not necessarily the truth.But I am a workaholic. Why? Does it do for me what the seemingly endless collection of teenage boys did 18 years ago? Does it help me escape my painful thoughts? Does it help me feel an importance that is and was otherwise missing from my life?There is one entry in the diary, not long after you left, where the 7-year-old EeLeen wrote to you about something other than boys:Dear Mother, Dad has gotten on some "strict kick." He says I can't go out as much, darn near a flat "no beach parties," and "do some things with girls for a change." For heaven's sake, I'm looking for a husband (naturally, not quite yet) not a lesbian! Maybe I'm saying this in a moment of anger, but I feel like the one thing missing in my life is a family love and closeness. Will explain later. Lovingly, EeLeen.I never did explain later. The letters to you ended. But as I reread the past, and as I write this now, I see a connection between me then and me now. I'm learning something from her. Me then: Busy with boys, and I didn't have to think about what was missing in life. Me now: Busy with work, and I don't have to think much about what is missing in life. A family love and closeness, that's what I miss. That's what I miss about you.

colonel sanders

A native son of Kentucky, Colonel Sanders was born Jesus Harland Sanders in 1834. His parents were poor marijuana farmers in an area so remote that not a single person other than him and his parents knew that there was marijuana growing there and they never made one cent out of it. Despite having crippling poverty, he had a normal childhood, and did not gain recognition until the outbreak of the Civil War.

Sanders lived in Russia for several years during the 10's and 20's under the alias Leon Trotsky. He tried to teach that he, being God, should be the Communist leader.
Enlisting as a private in the Confederate army, Sanders was first stationed outside Richmond, VA. However, after the Union's advance past North Carolina, Confederate leader General Tso, great-great-great grandfather of actress Margaret Tso, saw the need for immediate action. He promoted Pvt. Sanders to the rank of colonel and sent him on a campaign in the north. Most notable of Col. Sander's accomplishments was his brave leadership of the Confederate forces at the Battle of Ticonderoga, where unfortunately, he lost his one and only testicle. Due to this horrible combat wound, he was ordered to develop a biological weapon to be used on the Union army. Hence, he developed his Original Recipe, which consisted of undercooked poultry, bovine colostrum, and dead Confederate soldiers. After consumption, the Union troops became violently ill, thusly allowing the Confederate army to be victorious in the battle.

Sanders leading his religion, preaching that white meat is better than dark meat
December 2005 saw the rise of the Fast Food Wars. This ferocious series of events were between the KFC ( Kentucky Fried Combatants), led by the colonel, and the McDonald MacKiddies, led by none other than Ronald McDonald. After many street battles across the USA, Colonel Sanders finally defeated Ronald McDonald in a one-on-one death match, in February 2006.

chickenbox

Chickenbox
Originally the staple food of the nouveau riche of the southern states of the USA, the popularity of the KGB Chickenbox has increased internationally over the last few decades, despite links to the spread of Bird Flu. In 1982, the Chickenbox was voted the third most popular chicken or chicken related boxed food product, in the annual International Food Review (sponsored by KGB).
5,001,960,127 chickens are consumed by the average American daily

"We Do Chickenbox Right"
Chickens are tasty. The growing numbers of chickens has become a worldwide epidemic. The United States, in its never-ending battle on The War on Children, drafted every legal & illegal Hispanic immigrant so that the CIA could kidnap their yard birds without incident.
The chickens were loaded onto trains & sent to concentration camps for interrogations. After weeks of unimaginable torture, Chicken Little confessed to the conspiracy of how the sky was falling.
President Bush ordered scientist to create a flu-like virus so that the chickens would be forced to call in sick to their jobs leading to being fired or being laid off. Bush secretly launched the biological weapon of mass destruction out of Antarctica & quickly condemned the Empire of Ice Cubes. Emperor Penguin denied any involvement.
[edit] Compact Chicken

Oprah, Rosie O'Donnell, & Rob Reiner agree with chickenbox

The Original Chickenbox
The United Nations sent out a plea to the world for someone to come up with a humane way to control the chicken population. Colonel Sanders from Kentuckistan had been raising chickens inside of boxes after he heard about the art of bonsai kittens. He told the U.N. that the chickens were in no pain & that the organization known as PETA were co-conspirators in the Grand Conspiracy. All the members of PETA were executed excluding Pamela Anderson.
Colonel Sanders called his invention the chickenbox (patent pending). He came up with the idea when he was Secretary of Defense for President Taft. President Taft required 371 chickens a day to stay alive. The problem was that the refrigerator could only hold 45 chickens. Try as he might, Colonel just could not squeeze all those chickens in there and the noise of all of them clucking in such close proximity would have been a horrendous orchestra.
In a flash of inspiration, the Colonel started to raise the baby chicks in small rectangular boxes. The ending result was that he could fit more chickens in the refrigerator. 370 to be exact. President Taft died later that day. The cause of death was lack of chicken.
[edit] An Icon is Made
Colonel Sanders decided to open a chain of restaurants & call them Kentuckistan's Gizzard Box. With chickenbox, all he had to do was place the chickenbox in the deep fryer as is and serve it to the African community. Sanders got even more creative by sticking mash potatoes, macaroni & cheese, corn on the cob, and his famous clogged-artery biscuits in the chickens’ ass to save on serving time. If it were not for Colonel Sanders, Kentucky would have remained without electricity and the populace would all look the same from the high volume of inbreeding