Archana Online.com

Yes, I did it. Last week I accomplished part of one of my new year resolutions. To publish a blog post daily. As I look back, I feel some of them could have been better if I hadn’t written in haste. But I couldn’t delay it. I just need to improve myself under the pressure.

It all started when I was asked to guest post for Fashion Film Review within one day. I needed to see a film and then write review on it. Not just a simple review, but a more serious one, considering the fact, that there was never a funny post in that blog! And I was shattered to pieces by seeing the diffidence in me, and the way I struggled to write it down at a stretch. Hence I had decided that time itself to increase the frequency of the posts in this blog.

Lack of topics and words outflow from my mind  constrains the goals. Though already late, I plan to continue this mission as long as it goes. I need all of you reader’s support and hope that you bear my rants and my perfection deficiencies.

Happy Reading!

Are you one of those who are lazy to upgrade to WordPress 2.7? You are missing a lot many features then.

After I upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.7, blogging has been much easier. If one of the useful features I use is the comment reply from within the admin panell, then the other is the installation of plugins. You can search and install within the admin panel, without any ftp client. I have now been frantically trying out various plugins, activating and de-activating them. Earlier the number of plugins I used were very few, say 6 to 7. But now, the number has gone upto 16. I wonder is there any limit to using the number of plugins. There maybe few plugins which may increase the load on the server or takes huge time to load the blog page, but I am not sure which one. Everytime, I try to beautify or add new feature to the blog, there is an associated plugin available online. But I think, rather than messing up the code, its better to play with plugins and widgets as it is very easy to maintain.

Do you want to know the plugins currently being used on this blog? Here they are : Read the rest of this entry »

During Christmas holidays, we had been to Goa. It looked its best with all the Xmas colors of red, green, white and yellow.

The beaches were extremely beautiful. We were in Goa for around 4 days. So we could cover most of the beaches in North Goa. The Goa tourism and its beaches have been written by many and I suppose descriptions are not that required. Initially I thought of writing the travelogue, but then so much is written about the beaches of Goa n all. So thought of just sharing the pictures.

The happy news for me is that the random photos I took, came surprisingly well than I expected. Below are some of the few : Read the rest of this entry »

Few weeks ago, I had been loving foreign food. Maybe it was the Christmas seasonal effect. The Italian pasta’s, lasagne, macaroni, steaks, cheese, toasts with butter, fine apple or orange juice, cakes, waffles, pancakes,..the list goes on.

The one dish I couldn’t had enough of was the pancake. It was too expensive at the restaurant where I had it. To shake off my cravings, I searched Google for vegetarian pancakes.

The original pancake with eggs is good, but what if you want to be a strict vegetarian sometimes. Its just that I don’t mind having blended eggs as in cakes, waffles, etc though I don’t have it in direct form. Confused? Never mind. Read the rest of this entry »

The streaks of the sun said good morning to me through the window. The kitchen was now brightly lit. It looked like one of those photos taken by the professionals. Everything was perfectly arranged in the cupboards. Except for the few dishes in the sink.

I went to the dressing wardrobe and picked up my diary from beneath. The environment was perfect for unloading the words.

“This is my daily job. To get up early in the morning, prepare the tea and breakfast, and then this dish cleaning after he left to office. Sometimes, I start on the laptop before i wash the dishes. They can wait, but not my parents. It would be late night for them. Just delaying their early sleep and sitting by on the machine, waiting for their daughter to call up. Then around 11, I take my bath and have to prepare for lunch. The timings of both were never consistent. The latter would be skipped sometimes, if at all he never knocks the door at noon. And then, the whole of the afternoon dedicated to myself, my thoughts and just me. It had become my routine.

The afternoon thoughts have now blended into my mind and body. It was the same everyday. As in the famous film Zanjeer, what is it that I don’t have? I live in an average rented house. I have a  loving husband who takes extreme care of me, and who earns dollars and takes me out on most nights and weekends in our car. I have a bunch of friends who keeps asking about me and the luxuries I enjoy at this abroad home. The missing of parents and relatives is natural for a newly married woman as the pains during the childbirth. What then is missing? Read the rest of this entry »

Amazing screenplay. Best background music. And a simple storyline. No wonder Slumdog Millionaire bagged 4 awards at the Golden Globe.

The film is based on the Indian book, Q&A. In short words, its just a love story, mixed with the life struggles which hints the answers to the lead character (Jamal Malik) to win the millionaire TV series. But the photography which tastes the slice of India, the screenplay, which fits perfect and makes us glued to the end, though we can anticipate the end and the freshness of the new actors, is what made me see through the film, before it got released in India. I had downloaded the music first, but other than great beats, I didn’t find it much interesting as a casual listener initially. The “Ring Ring Ringa” song reminds you of the famous “Choli ke peeche” track, and is pictured on the prostitution in Mumbai. But after you see the film, the song, “O Saya” keeps ringing in your mind, which enhanced the spirits of the lead characters. Like other A.R.Rahman’s songs, I guess the music catches on you, very slowly and gradually. Read the rest of this entry »

This was the day I yearned for months. I am so happy that I can’t express my happiness out to all and thank each one of you who made this possible.

Now I am excited to wait for the day, when my cheque arrives at my door step. I have already started dreaming about it! Read the rest of this entry »

Clearing out Google Reader is a mess. Especially if you are checking them after the vacation. There are 1000+ items in my reader now, to be read by me.

You can easily escape saying, why did you subscribe to them first of all. But that’s where I store all my sources of good read. Just the source. It may or may not contain the best sources. But the journey mostly starts here, if its a blank slate. It then accelerates through clicks and many other interesting websites.

On an overall peek, I found, most of the posts are collections of the past year 2008. The best posts, the popular posts, the top posts, and so and so. Gradually I started making note of all of them one by one, Then suddenly it struck me, why not create a post on it. Rather an aggregated version of all the best collections from various websites. So I started writing this, to form another post of webscape series.

Webscape was started to share off my link love and also to make note of any good links. To read other posts on webscape, click here. Read the rest of this entry »