Filmfare 20091125 Scan06 Sonam Kapoor

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In this scan, all three snaps are candid moment captures and each is interesting, but what makes Sonam take the cake is her zulf - earring - neck combo accentuated by the background blending. Despite that bedsheet of an evening dress (toga?), she is looking nearly perfect. A keen Photoshopper could extract Sonam's head and shoulders and make a darn good poster out of it.

Filmfare 20091125 Scan05 Bipasha Basu

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This scan is an example of the power of photography. The same subjects, the same camera, the same photographer, the same editors and yet photo 1 scores 60, photo 2 scores 50 and photo 3 scores a whopping 95. And all because of the way Bipasha's hair and shoulders have come across. The phrase "Elegance, she was..." comes to mind.

Filmfare 20091125 Scan04 Sonam Kapoor

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Indian celebrities are still much too conservative in their dressing and looks, which is what makes this image a keeper. Here Sonam Kapoor is providing a hint, though only just a hint of grunge. In fact, we all need to let our hair down a lot more often and to a far greater degree. Meanwhile, what sort of designer would try to pass off a bedsheet for an evening dress (toga?).

Filmfare 20091125 Scan03 Katrina Kaif

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In general, I like images where the subject is looking away from the camera. Here, the hair, not quite managed, actually enhances the candidness of the snap. And purple does indeed suit Katrina. How is it that even such top notch publishing houses don't seem to be using Fluid Mask? Looks to be some sort of a roadmap issue.

Filmfare 20091125 Scan02 Karan Johar

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From this photo, it may not be at all obvious but dear old Karan Johar HAS actually started graying. In a way, it's good because it lends authority to his multi-faceted persona. For that matter, also check out Vikram Bhatt.

Filmfare 20091125 Scan01 Salman Khan

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Even though that particular bracelet (Feroza stone for relationships?) is all the rage nowadays, it is the only thing I don't like in this image. Maybe because I don't like bracelets in general, especially loose fitting ones. Otherwise, excellent toning, composition, expression, hair and dress. Sallu bhaiya, hats off to you.

Chip 20091101 Scan04 Thin Clients

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The only downer is that if the main PC conks off, all others go down as well. And also the fact that thin clients are usually priced not on the basis of how much they cost to build but on the cost of the PC they help replace.

From Wikipedia: The combination of NComputing hardware (access devices) and virtualization software (vSpace) use the excess computing capacity of one PC to create multiple virtual desktops. The vSpace software allows multiple simultaneous user accounts to run on a single computer. The access devices connect each user’s keyboard, monitor, and mouse to the shared PC. Each NComputing access device has ports for a keyboard, monitor, and mouse, but does not contain a CPU or memory. NComputing’s vSpace virtualization software, included with the hardware, creates the virtual desktops in the shared PC by dividing the computer's resources into independent sessions that give each user their own PC experience. The vSpace software uses the company’s proprietary display and communications protocol ("UXP") to communicate between the shared computer and the user stations. UXP serves a similar purpose as Microsoft’s RDP and Citrix’s ICA.

Chip 20091101 Scan03 Blogging

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There are a number of free hosts which offer sub domains and blogging scripts like Wordpress. But why WordPress.com has more traffic than all those put together is because of the integration between the blogs and also the optimization for Google crawling. Same applies to Blogger and Typepad. These specialized blogging platforms provide well integrated and detailed stats too. But just PULL does not cut it any longer, we need to actually go out and seek traffic. In a sense we need to PUSH content. That's where RSS, Twitter, social bookmarking, newsletters etc can help out. Also personal blogging might not be lucrative. Few people are interested in why we chose to wear that purple dress yesterday. Professional blogging is all about being able to ease the search process for people looking for information. Or to caution people going to the wrong sources for information. It requires constant inspection of traffic and refinement of strategy.

Chip 20091101 Scan02 Home Automation

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Home automation is gaining ground because labour is becoming expensive and technology is getting cheaper. Another reason is that machines are more reliable than humans and cannot have malicious intentions even if they want to. Home Automation is relatively new in India in the sense that the products and services available have not yet matured enough. So the best way to go about it is in baby steps. First concentrate only on home security solutions. And even among these, start off with motion and noise detection backed up with SMS notification.

Chip 20091101 Scan01 Digital Cameras

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One way to go about selecting a digital camera is to look at all the features, give them weightages then zero in on the highest aggregate score. In such an approach, I would personally give the highest weightage to the number of service centers the brand has simply because a digital camera is not only very costly and very delicate but also very "handled". So it is extremely important to avoid grey market cameras or even Indian distributor cameras that lack an extensive after sales service network. If the above method is too much trouble for you, head over to Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/cameras/), which provides what could possibly the most relevant and real time survey of digital cameras in actual use. Sadly my most favourite camera the Casio FS-10 (http://exilim.casio.com/products_exfs10.shtml) does not seem to be in wide circulation among Flickr users and Casio as a brand never really took off as much as I would be liked it to.