The new brand 'endorser' for Vodafone

No, they aren’t animated characters. They are human beings who were made to wear body suits. “The design of the characters is such that one gets fooled into thinking it is animation,” shrugs Rao, which was indeed the very illusion that had to be created. “In a sense, it is ‘live’ animation!” he quips, referring to the fact that it was all shot live.


Prakash Varma, ad filmmaker, Nirvana Films, has directed the commercials, and reveals that the Zoozoos were a big challenge to create. The practical aspects of how they will move, talk, gesticulate and emote were very important. Essentially, costume design and artwork were crucial elements.

“It took me three weeks of pre-production to understand how it will work,” says Varma. There were two fabrics that were considered for the body suits, and one was rejected for it had too many wrinkles and was shiny. The wrinkles would have shown when the characters moved, thereby shattering the illusion of animation. “So we chose the more practical, thicker fabric,” Varma explains.

The production team divided the outfit into two parts: the body and the head. The body part of the outfit was stuffed with foam in some places, while the head was attached separately. To make it look bigger than a human head, a harder material called Perspex was used, which in turn was stuffed with foam (with scope for ventilation).

How To Prevent Swine Flu

If you have been following the news from across the world lately, you have probably heard the words ‘swine fever' or ‘swine flu' or ‘swine influenza' several times over the last few days.

As of last week, a high degree alert has been sounded by the World Health Organization

(WHO), which has escalated the threat level of this virus to that of a pandemic - in other words, the outbreak of swine flu is now prevalent across many parts of the world.

As you may know by now, swine flu is a contagious respiratory disease causing acute distress, usually caused by a variant of swine influenza ‘A' virus. Until now, this virus was localized among pigs, but it has begun to affect human beings, sometimes in a fatal manner across parts of the United States, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, China, Japan and some other parts of Eastern Asia.

Quite alarming, but swine flu is definitely preventable. Learning how to prevent swine flu from spreading among human beings and how to take precautions against the virus will be of help. Here are some steps to prevent swine flu:

If you are a healthy person, then -

• Avoid contact with anyone that appears to be suffering from symptoms akin to common influenza or fever.

• Avoid remaining in closed environments for long periods of time, or within closed groups of people, especially if any one or more of them appear to be ill, tired, fatigued, etc.

• To the best extent possible, avoid traveling to any of the regions mentioned above that have already had an outbreak of swine flu. If you have recently returned from a trip to these regions or anywhere nearby, then get a general check-up done by your physician, including some tests done to rule out the possibility of the swine fever virus affecting you.

• If you need to head into an area with a swine influenza outbreak, consider wearing a surgical face mask as you may have seen people wearing for the SARS or avian flu outbreaks.

It may be helpful to know that physicians and health authorities in the United States are recommending measured dosages of the anti-virals Oseltamivir or Zanamivir for the treatment of swine flu.

If you are in regular contact with pigs, or live in areas where the population of pigs is high, then watch your animals for sick pigs, separate them from the healthy ones, and report them to your local health authorities. On your own part, minimize contact with sick pigs.

In general, it is highly advisable to maintain the highest levels of hygiene and general health possible:

• Eat fresh cut vegetables and fruits after washing them thoroughly, and only consume nutritious food.
• Wash hands regularly with soap.
• Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. But it is always good practice to ensure that meat is freshly procured, or if stored, it should be stored in frozen compartments.  In any case use it immediately -- cooking it well and at temperatures high enough to kill any virus -- for example, swine fever virus is killed if pork is cooked at 160 degrees Fahrenheit - of course, this does not mean you can eat contaminated pork, but cooking healthy meat at that temperature is advised.

If you suffer from any symptoms akin to common flu, including fever, then consult your physician immediately. As with any medical condition, prevention of swine flu is preferable to treatment.

Source: Howtodothings.com

Marble Picturization

This is the a very funny video. Watch it!

Using twitter on cellphone

I have been using twitter from last week and its great way to communicate with friends and relatives. If you do not know what is twitter please go to http://twitter.com web page.

Initially I had problems in adding my cellphone. I am from India and I am using Vodafone connection. Twitter used to give information that I have to send verification code to "5566511". But my repeated attempts went in vain. Messages never got delivered to this number. Then I tried to send verification code to International number "44 762 4801423". But even this message got failed. Then I realized that I had to prefix "+" sign to "44 762 4801423". Thts it my device got verified. :)

After my cell got verified I could see following message:



Now I'm able to update twitter by sending text to +44 762 4801423. Network carrier(Vodafone India) is charging 50 paisa for each message sent to this number.

Google Basic Search Techniques

Use the following basic search techniques to get better Google search results.

• Use the plus sign (+) to force a search for an overly common word. Use the minus sign (-) to exclude a term from a search. No space follows these signs.


• To search for a phrase, supply the phrase surrounded by double quotes (" ").


• A period (.) serves as a single-character wildcard.


• An asterisk (*) represents any word—not the completion of a word, as is traditionally used.

Google advanced operators help refine searches. Advanced operators use a syntax such as the following:

operator:search_term

Notice that there's no space between the operator, the colon, and the search term.

• The site: operator instructs Google to restrict a search to a specific web site or domain. The web site to search must be supplied after the colon.


• The filetype: operator instructs Google to search only within the text of a particular type of file. The file type to search must be supplied after the colon. Don't include a period before the file extension.


• The link: operator instructs Google to search within hyperlinks for a search term.


• The cache: operator displays the version of a web page as it appeared when Google crawled the site. The URL of the site must be supplied after the colon.


• The intitle: operator instructs Google to search for a term within the title of a document.


• The inurl: operator instructs Google to search only within the URL (web address) of a document. The search term must follow the colon.