What Is the Best Stock Photo Site for Beginners?

If you are trying to get into stock photography you probably have some hard time getting accepted as a contributor by stock sites or getting your photos not rejected and listed for sale. The bigger sites already have a large base of contributors with even larger selection of pictures. Most of them have implemented entry tests requiring new members to send a certain number of photos for preview and approval before accepting them as contributors. This approach has its merits but can be frustrating for the aspiring stock photographer who can't boast a big enough pre-existing portfolio.

The3dStudio has initially begun in the world of microstock as a marketplace for 3d models. It has consequently expanded into images as well. So here are a few reasons why The3dStudio might be one of the best options for starting up. Of course, this doesn't mean experienced stock photographers and artists won't benefit form listing their stuff there:

• First, there is no initial approval required. New members can upload pictures immediately after registration.
• In a somewhat unique fashion amongst stock sites, newly uploaded images are instantly listed for sale with a limited editorial license. The license is extended to full commercial use once the image has been previewed for conformity with rules, etc. by the site staff, which happens quite fast.
• The relatively smaller database of the site as compared to the bigger players suggests less crowded categories and easier approval of individual images. This obviously doesn't mean that a disastrous image will be accepted and striving for quality never hurts. But a lot more images will be accepted even if other sites refuse them.
• A major plus is the flat royalty rate. Most sites pay higher percentage after you get to a certain amount of sales. Or if you grant them exclusive rights over your images; that is, not sell them on other stock sites. It's different at The3dStudio. You not only get 60% royalty no matter how much you sell. But you can also instantly enter the loyalty program and increase that to 70%. The loyalty program only requires you to leave your images uploaded there for 5 years with no exclusivity required whatsoever. As far as I am aware, this is probably the highest royalty rate on a stock photography site.
• The site allows you to set your own prices (above a predefined minimum), so you can list a higher price for a work you consider outstanding.
• There is a clean, straightforward and no-nonsense user interface. No endless forms and whatnot.
• As an added bonus, if you happen to shoot or draw textures, they will be immediately exposed to lots of potential buyers, considering the site is used by modellers to sell their 3d models.

Going exclusive makes zero sense when you are starting up, and besides, The3dStudio does not require or encourage exclusivity, so you should try to get your images listed on other sites as well. Two other beginner friendly sites with no entry test are Dreamstime (it does require submitting some sort of id scan/picture in order to be able to list your files, though) and Fotolia. Note that it will be harder to get individual images approved at these two, and especially at Fotolia, but one should nevertheless try them out and work towards expanding to even more sites after building a decent portfolio of stock images. Stock photography is a long term investment and not a way to make some fast cash. Be patient and keep adding images. Good luck.

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Rough Silk Band - The Obscure Gem

Rough Silk is a very melodic heavy metal band from Germany. It has been a favorite band of ours for quite a long time and having in mind that it is undeservedly unknown especially compared to many others not so gifted and unique competitors, we decided to write a few words about it. Rough Silk present a very unique sound by playing heavy metal with a variety of melodic parts. One could describe the band as a heavier version of Queen - it is easily recognizable, yet it has a pretty varied catalogue of songs. It's a band with a rare name that completely suits its style.

Rough Silk Biography

Rough Silk has been founded in 1989 by Ferdy Doernberg, a skilful keyboard and guitar player who has played or still plays (on stage or in studio) with many famous musicians including Axel Rudi Pell, Uli John Roth, Destruction, Gamma Ray, Jeff Scott Soto, etc. Since 1989 the band has changed several line-ups (with Doernberg being its only constant member) and it has released 8 studio albums of original material.

Rough Silk's founding members apart from Ferdy Doernberg playing keyboards, slide-guitars and vocals were Jan Barnett (lead vocals and guitars), Hilmer Staake (guitars), Ralf Schwertner (bass and vocals) and Herbert Hartmann (drums and vocals). During the years, the band built up some reputation touring a lot and supporting rock acts like Deep Purple, Whitesnake, DIO, Helloween, Accept, Savatage, Saxon and some others.

The band first two albums were Roots of Hate and Walls of Never issued in 1993 and 1994 respectively. While being quite a good heavy metal records on their own, they still were not displaying the band's full potential. After their release, the line-up changes started and there were not 2 consecutive albums with a same line-up anymore.

The subsequent 2 efforts Circle Of Pain... ...Or: The Secret Lies of Timekeeping and Mephisto brought Rough Silk to a new quality level with each of them presenting a different face of the band. While Circle of Pain released in 1996 showed their masterful melodic side with a variety of memorable songs, Mephisto released in 1997 displayed the band's more experimental side. Both albums contained a number of well-crafted songs and gained new followers of the band. About this time, the band had its first European tour with Savatage.

The next album Beyond the Sundown was recorded and released in 1998 with a new lead singer after Jan Barnett left the band and was substituted with Thomas Ludolphy. The album continued to be somehow experimental in the vein of Mephisto and also included some nice melodic (and slow) tracks. Their first (and currently last) "Best Of" album followed in 1999. It was titled Wheels of Time and comprised of 2 discs containing the majority although not all of their most appealing songs. The 6th studio album Symphony of Life was released in 2001 and its musical content was closer to Circle of Pain than to the last 2 more experimental efforts. It was more in the vicinity of the classic heavy metal and it included a guest appearance on the song "Lucifer" by Jon Oliva from Savatage who also co-produced the album. Rough Silk supported Savatage again in Europe upon their special request.

In 2002, the lead singer Thomas Ludolphy left the band because of personal reasons. The rest of Rough Silk's members decided not to look for a new lead vocal. They released their 7th studio album End of Infinity with Doernberg, Hartmann and Wunderlich sharing the lead vocals duty. The album was not so bad but it lacked the quality of the previous 4 studio records. Probably, the musicians felt the lack of new ideas and song craftsmanship also because after the release of End of Infinity, the band was put to an end. At least for some time...

After playing for several years on numerous studio records and live shows of various performers as well as continuing his long-term participation in Axel Rudi Pell's band, Ferdy Doernberg started to look for new musicians in order to create a new metal outfit. He teamed up with Mike Mandel (guitars), André Hort (bass) and Alex Wenn (drums) and as you might guess the new band was called Rough Silk. But this said, the succeeding album was titled A New Beginning, an appropriate title for the new reincarnation.

Rough Silk Discography

Roots of Hate '93

Walls of Never '94

Circle of Pain... ...Or: The Secret Lies of Timekeeping '96

Mephisto '97

Beyond the Sundown '98

Wheels of Time (Best Of album) '99

Symphony of Life '01

End of Infinity '03

A New Beginning '09

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Cyberlink's PowerDVD 10 Mark II

For a review of 2012's PowerDVD 12 Ultra check here: CyberLink PowerDVD 12 review

Update:
For a more recent PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D Mark II review check our 2011 article: Cyberlink's PowerDVD 10 Mark II Blu-ray player software. Also have in mind that CyberLink offer a new major version PowerDVD 11 as of April, 2011.

The update to CyberLink's PowerDVD 10, the expected coming of which we mentioned in the Windows Blu-ray Players Comparison article, has been released some time ago. The updated version called Mark II is free for PowerDVD 10 owners. It improves on the 3D features. The new TrueTheater 3D feature allows for converting not only good old DVDs to 3D, but also various 2D file formats. As a somewhat exotic feature PowerDVD will now support 3D video footage from the FujiFilm FinePix REAL 3D W1 camera. And more 3D display technologies are supported: some 3D ready HDTVs and passive polarized displays in addition to 3D Vision.

And there is also support for HDMI 1.4. Despite the fact that HDMI 1.4a (a superset of HDMI 1.4) and DisplayPort 1.2 have been officialy specified, HDMI 1.4 is probably going to be the de facto standard for 3D TVs for some time, so that's a good thing. nVidia even released a free solution for their 3d Vision kit in order to make it HDMI 1.4 compliant. 3D Vision originally used DisplayPort or dual DVI for 3D. At the time being there are no HDMI 1.4 capable ATI cards, so this feature is limited to high end nVidia graphics hardware (GTX 460). ATI claimed earlier this year that they are going to add HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2 support to their drivers before the end of 2010, but it has not come out yet. It is supposed to cover both the upcoming 6000 Radeon series and the previous 5000 generation, plus some selected high-end 4000 series cards.

Cyberlink have also released a free software to help check if your system supports Bluray and BD 3D playback.

There are often promotions of some CyberLink products including PowerDVD. You can check for eventual discounted prices here.

Update:
If you want to read our recent Windows Blu-ray player reviews follow the link: 2011 Blu-ray player reviews. You may also go directly to our Blu-ray player download page, if you prefer to make a quick purchase of particular Blu-ray software player. Or you may just explore the Review Maze to come across other software reviews.

John Lennon: A Short but Extraordinary Life

If John Lennon was alive, he would become 70 years old today. Unfortunately, he had only 40 years to live but what an extraordinary life it was. You can hardly find many people having more sterling lives and achieving so much as John Lennon did. He was a very bright star for the half part of his existence and he continues to be so bright even 30 years after his death. To show that he really had an exceptional life, let's write about some of its most prominent aspects.

Undoubtedly, if we should point just one thing about John Lennon, it would be his participation in the Beatles. He was the founder and together with Paul McCartney one of the two most important members of the band. How immensely crucial were the Beatles for the development and success of pop and rock music has been constantly discussed by analysts for several decades already and you may also read about the greatest achievements of the Beatles by following the link, but in brief: the Beatles were responsible for establishing the pattern of self-contained rock band (writing their own songs); transforming the rock music into an international phenomenon; introducing many technical innovations in the studio recording; experimenting in new musical directions and making new pop and rock styles popular; and as a result of everything becoming the most successful pop/rock band ever while simultaneously gaining the all-time biggest sales numbers and universal critical acclaim. If John Lennon was not there, all of that fascinating story would not happen.

The Beatles broke up before John Lennon had even turned 30 years in 1970. After their split, John was arguably the most critically respected member although not as productive as, e.g., Paul McCartney. John created a good portion of famous and well-crafted songs during his solo career, some of them becoming eternal anthems of peace, love or personality.

John Lennon was an activist of the peace movement and used his celebrity status together with his wife Yoko Ono to promote peace messages to broad audiences. Instead of using a standard intellectual approach and writing manifestos or articles on the subject, he used his honeymoon to talk about peace while staying in bed with his wife. He used his sense of humor to attract more people to anti-war ideas. He wrote lyrics on peace themes. Imagine, Give Peace a Chance, etc. are still songs remembered by millions of people. Happy Xmas (war Is Over) sends an anti-war message while at the same time remains as one of the best Christmas songs ever.

Besides being a peace activist, John Lennon issued one of the most personal albums Plastic Ono Band that reached such a broad audience. It is often voted in different polls to be amongst the best albums of all time. While being not commercial at all, the album reached many people due to Lennon's celebrity status and showed some of the most personal messages John had shared with us throughout his fruitful career. He sang about Mother, Isolation, God and Love along very touching lyrics and simple but memorable melodies. He continued his strong works with the album Imagine, which while not being such a personal effort, still contained some of his greatest songs, e.g., the title track or Jealous Guy.

For the exceptional presence of John Lennon could be also judged by Paul McCartney's respect concerning John. Although being often blamed for the ending of the Beatles (which is not very precise) by many people including Lennon, Paul has been always sympathetic to John showing his respect in various songs or interviews. But how could you not like the man singing "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". Paul even sang John's song Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) containing that famous quote on an occasion to show his esteem for John Lennon.

At the end, we must point that even John Lennon's death has been extraordinary in terms that not everyone dies by murder. Sure, it was quite ironic, the person that was fighting against killing people to be killed. Life is often unfair to its greatest men. But fortunately, people remember geniuses long after their death.

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Sporting Goods and Sports Memorabilia from FansEdge.com

I've recently come upon FansEdge.com - one of the online sports shops, offering thousands of products related to the sports memorabilia industry. I don't know if it is the largest amongst the sporting goods stores but it offers a lot of sports products - NFL jerseys, NBA jerseys, MLB and NHL jerseys, sports apparel, hats, jackets, jewelry, watches, etc. There are all kinds of accessories and sports merchandise.

I've been quite interested what are the comments about FansEdge online sports store so I've made some research on the Net and from the reviews and people opinions I've read it seems that FansEdge.com is a pretty decent sporting goods store. Yet, I've found some criticism about it. There are some complaints that it is not possible to change your order after you've made it and also that sometimes sold out products are not marked properly and it's possible to order them. Apart from that, it seems that people are quite happy with FansEdge's sports products and shipping times.

One thing that I like about FansEdge is that it consolidates several sports shops in one place. These include NFL shop, NBA store, MLB shop, NHL shop, NASCAR store, soccer, golf, tennis and other sports memorabilia products. There is merchandise for several hundred teams and more than a thousand of players. There are all kinds of sports apparel - jerseys, sweatshirts, hoodies, jackets, polos, gloves, hats, etc. There are sales with huge discounts, up to 75%, on all of the sporting goods and sports memorabilia. And there is a possibility to buy a gift certificate for someone you want to surprise.

The delivery times are short and people at FansEdge.com claim to ship on the same day. There is also an international shipping possibility and although it does not cover all of the countries worldwide, it's still a good option that is not offered at many other online sporting goods stores. The site provides also size charts so it could be easier for us to make the correct choice. In case something with the products is not as expected, I've read on several places on the Web that the returns are really no hassle ones, exactly as advertised on FansEdge's website.

The site also offers several Facebook extras like exclusive coupons or some possibilities to win a gift certificate if you like them on Facebook. While this is a standard advertising trick and thus not so interesting, a better section on the site is the one that shows you the most popular searches. You are able to see that NHL Shop or NFL Store are among these searches or that Lebron James Jerseys, Carlos Boozer Jerseys or NFL Jackets are very popular so if you are a more eccentric person and you want to be more original in your sports apparel you should look for some other product.

The good news is that there are so many sporting goods and sports memorabilia at FansEdge that most probably you will not be disappointed. If you don't have a favorite NFL shop, MLB shop, NHL shop or NBA store but you are in love with some of these sports, give FansEdge a try. The prices are competitive and the variety of sporting goods is really outstanding.

Update:

Wanting to provide as accurate information as possible, I've made some further searches and it seems although the majority of FansEdge customers are really happy there are still some 5-10% that are not so pleased and complaining mainly about FansEdge.com customer service. It's not a big percentage but still I want to point it out in order to be precise.

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Led Zeppelin - Interesting Facts about the Band and Its Members

Led Zeppelin is a band with tons of writings about it. You can read about their history, discography, band members' personal biographies, etc. on variety of places, both online and offline. Still, we want to publish something about the legend on our site, that's why we will make 5 short lists with 5 interesting facts each about Led Zeppelin and its famous members - Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham.

Led Zeppelin

- The band's name did not become Led Zeppelin until after the guys returned from their first tour that was in Scandinavia under the name of The New Yardbirds. The Yardbirds was the name of Jimmy Page's previous band. He rendered to be the last remaining member of the Yardbirds with a contractual obligation to fulfil. Well, you should know the rest...

- The boys from the band became friends with Elvis Presley in the 70s. They attended not less than 2 Elvis' shows and they met with him on numerous other occasions also.

- The band's last album released before the death of John Bonham In Through the Out Door was recorded in Polar Studios owned by ABBA.

- Led Zeppelin's longest studio track is In My Time of Dying. They have also a lot of other songs longer than the long Stairway to Heaven. Some of them are Achilles Last Stand, Tea for One, Carouselambra.

- The first album released on Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label was Bad Company - the debut album of Paul Rodgers' band Bad Company.

Jimmy Page

- Jimmy Page left his first rock band Neil Christian & the Crusaders in 1963 because due to poor travelling conditions and Page's weak organism, he thought he was not suitable for touring. He switched to the less exciting session work in the recording studio for the next several years before hitting the road again.

- Jimmy Page known with his skills in the studio, invented the Reverse Echo sound effect.

- Not only Bonham had a nickname in Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page also had one and it was Led Wallet. Page was legendarily tight-fisted.

- Jimmy Page owns much of the property around the famous Loch Ness in Scotland, UK.

- Jimmy Page stated that Bert Jansch was his all-time favourite guitar player. Bert Jansch is famous for playing acoustic guitar with virtuosity and being one of the British folk's most influential figures in the 20th century. It's often considered Led Zeppelin's song Black Mountain Side is a Bert Jansch rip-off.

Robert Plant

- Robert Plant was the only Led Zeppelin band's member with a name not starting with the letter 'J'.

- Led Zeppelin's song All of My Life was dedicated to Robert Plant's late son Karac.

- Robert Plant was in a wheel chair during the recording of Presence.

- The song Kashmir was influenced by Plant's travels in Morocco.

- Apart from his lead singer role, Robert Plant often played harmonica for Led Zeppelin.

John Bonham

- Bonzo was not the only nickname John Bonham had. He was also known as The Beast at the time he was drinking.

- John Bonham left a well-paid touring job with Tim Rose in order to join and play for Led Zeppelin.

- John Bonham began his learning to play drums when he was five years old, using a drum kit made just out of containers and coffee tins.

- Jimi Hendrix once said that if Bonham was ever going to leave Led Zeppelin he would take him in his own band even if he had to play with two drummers.

- John Bonham never took any formal drum lessons.

John Paul Jones

- Jones asked Jimmy Page to join Led Zeppelin after playing with him on various session recordings in the past.

- John Paul Jones singed Sandy Denny's part of The Battle of Evermore when the song was played live.

- John Paul Jones played the wind instrument in the beginning of Stairway to Heaven. It is a recorder and it has been often incorrectly identified as mellotron.

- Jones was not part of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page tour in 1998. The role of bass player was given to Plant's son-in-law.

- John Paul Jones has been often referred as one of the most underrated musicians in the rock music history. Yet, this is quite a recognition on its own.

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Buried (2010): Good Idea, Bad Implementation

Have you ever imagined that you can wake up inside a sealed coffin buried in the middle of nowhere. If you haven't, imagine it. It should be really frightening. When you think about some further complications due to the lack of space, food, water and most importantly fresh air, it should look even more dreadful. This is the situation which Ryan Reynolds's character Paul Conroy wakes up in. With the limited help he can get from a lighter, a foreign language cell phone and a few additional items appearing to be of no great use, Paul has the heavy task to release himself from the trap while time and environment are working against him.

Unfortunately, as good as the premise of Buried is, its implementation is quite flawed unless we are supposed to think that the whole story is about some twisted, life-threatening scoff at Conroy. But because there is not any apparent reason why a group of random people would want to treat an ordinary American truck driver the way they do in Buried, it's hard to believe this is the case. And if it's not a mockery, the other option is to think that all involved in the plot are idiots or near idiots. It maybe acceptable that the buried man behaves inadequately under the circumstances he is put in but it's not likely that all of the rest do not know what they are doing also. Now, to back this statement up I will probably have to use some spoilers, so be warned about this.

To begin with, why would you bury your hostage if you want to get ransom for him? You risk killing him without a reason. You make everything harder for both sides. You can't control him or directly force him to do anything. You're not sure if the hostage is going to make a video to announce his situation and your ransom demand. And you limit your potential to harm him and to communicate with any eventual negotiators. According to Buried's narrative, this is not the first case of the same hostage situation so the kidnapper (although there is probably not only one of them) seems even more ridiculous due to his repetitive unsuccessful attempts to achieve his goal. And to make his actions looking extremely stupid, the moviemakers have decided to give the hostage only a couple of hours to get the ransom which is incredible to happen even if there has been someone wanting to pay the money. To finish with the kidnapper, he expects that a family of a truck driver will have 5 million dollars which are eventually lowered to 1 million in the middle of the movie as if there is any actual difference under the given time limitation.

The commander of the American Hostage Working Group is not any cleverer than the bad guy. He would not even think of taking some pictures with him when on a search of missing people. In his position, he should have been able to obtain a photo of Paul Conroy but at the very least he should have pictures of formerly vanished hostages. Another hardly believable part is the conversation between Paul and his company's representative which he is fired in. I'm not sure that such an act will be taken into account in court. Finally, the hostage himself behaves pretty unreasonable. He constantly wastes air, phone battery life and light sources. At least we can assume that he is under enormous stress in the situation. Frankly speaking, I'm not sure that Paul would not be able to release himself without any help if he had used all the available items at his disposal and having in mind the coffin seems rather unstable. At least, he could try (with good chances of success, I think).

Now, I understand that the idea of filming a man buried in the ground is quite restrictive and it is bounded with making some compromises if you want to create a watchable movie out of it. Yet, I don't think most of the faults in Buried are due to limitations of the premise. To be honest, the film is not all bad. There is a lot of tension. The ending is good. And the whole experience is different from the one offered by the majority of Hollywood movies. But it could've been a much better movie if the script has been improved and the characters' behavior made to be less serving the only purpose of devastating Paul as miserably as possible.

The Grifters (1990): A Critically Acclaimed Movie You Can Skip

The Grifters is a movie with strong acting. Among the actors and actresses listed in its cast, the film has names like Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening and John Cusack. Certainly, the movie does not sport the best performances ever but its 2 Oscar nominations in acting categories could give you a hint about this aspect of the film. The Grifters has also 2 other Academy Award nominations, for Best Director and Best (Adapted) Screenplay. Now, these two have not been deservedly given. But before we go in details, let's make a brief summary of the plot.

The Grifters is about Roy Dillon (John Cusack), a small-time grifter, his alienated mother Lilly Dillon (Anjelica Huston) and his girlfriend Myra Langtry (Annette Bening), the latter two being grifters themselves but on a far higher-stakes level. Lilly accidentally visits her son only to find out that he has been beaten in a result of an unsuccessful job. She hospitalizes him and saves his life but Roy is not happy to see Lilly even after her good deed. His mother does not like Roy's girlfriend Myra and that additionally strains their relations. Because of the spent time in the hospital, Lilly fails to fulfil a job for her boss, a big-time bookie. Subsequently, this leads to serious problems for her too. Myra tries to convince Roy to become a bigger swindler but he has some reservations about it. As a result everyone becomes suspicious of everyone and additional complications follow.

The plot outline of The Grifters may seem interesting and in fact, it is, for an hour at least. But as the film progresses everything become a mess not only in the characters' relationships but also in the movie itself. The actions of the protagonists and especially the Dillons become more and more chaotic and not well motivated. The son begins to wonder whether to drop cheating or not without any strong reason. The mother that has faced serious consequences because of saving her son, all of a sudden, starts treating him almost like an enemy. Some incest insinuations appear without any good explanation or confirmation. And finally, The Grifters reaches almost to a dead end for both, the characters and the audience. We will skip any deeper criticism of these issues because to elaborate more upon them will mean to completely ruin the movie for you.

Another issue of this film is that Anjelica Huston, although acting very well and in reality being at the right age for the role of Lilly in the movie, seems, for whatever reason, a bit older in The Grifters, which is not good having in mind Lilly is supposed to be a glaringly young mother. Additional problem could be that some of the con jobs seen in the movie are not explained well enough in order even people without an idea about that kind of stuff to get effortlessly their meaning.

As a whole, The Grifters appears somehow pointless. There is not real character development. There is not a message. If the purpose of the movie is to show us how several supposed to be strong criminals transform themselves in a bunch of unhinged people, the goal is not achieved. If the intention of the film has been to announce that shit happens, then it could be deemed successful but still, it does not make the movie any better and there are a lot of other movies that deliver it in a better way.

We can see where the critical acclaim of The Grifters comes from. The acting is good. The film has a very potent premise and during most of its time span the movie and characters are interesting. There are also some plot twists although they are pretty much forced and not very believable. Maybe The Grifters is even based on a good novel (unfortunately unknown to us). But although the film is not all bad, chances are high you'll feel like being grifted after the ending.

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Generic Domains Vs. Local Domain Names

Generic domain name or local domain name? It's a question that appears every time you start a new site. Or when you invest in domain names. Or when you want to switch to your own domain when you're using some service like Blogger (thus having a name for your site like yourname.blogspot.com). Here, we list some advantages and disadvantages of both generic domain names (.com, .net, .org, .info) and local domain names (.co.uk, .ca, .de, .fr) also known as domains with ccTLD extensions because as always there is not a universal solution.

Pros of generic domain names

- If you're building a new website that is going to target users all over the world then you better buy a generic domain name. Extensions like .com, .org and .net are recognizable everywhere so you will not make your visitors to wonder if yours is some kind of a spammy site. If you target visitors in the United States then still your better option is to buy a .com domain name since .com domains are more popular in the USA than the "local" .us names.

- If you already have a site of type yourname.blogspot.com or yourname.wordpress.com and you want to switch to your own domain then if your visitors are coming from various countries and continents, you better get a generic domain name. .com or .info domains most probably would be a good choice in this case.

- If you're buying domain names for investment then probably you have better odds for a nice future sale if your purchase generic domain names with extensions like .com, .net, .info, .pro, etc. Since such names have proved to be more universal. The potential market for them is bigger than the one for local domains. Then on the other hand, if somebody targeting a local market is looking to buy a particular domain name and it happens you own exactly that one, chances are you may get a lot of money for it if you play your cards right.

Pros of local domain names

- Most naturally, if you target visitors from a specific country then country code top level domain (ccTLD) extension would be more appropriate for your website compared to a generic top level domain name. If you want people from Germany to find and use your site when they search for something in search engines then if it ends with .de they are more likely to visit it since the site would seem to be German judging by its extension.

- Apart from users' behavior, using a local domain name sends are signal to search engines that your site is related to a specific country so it may perform better in results listed for a particular search made by a user in that specific country.

- Various local online guides, references and directories will accept your site more easily for listing if it ends with a particular local domain name extension.

- You may also want to buy a local domain name ending with some interesting extension like .me or .co, for example. Domain names like love.me or find.us have some appeal due to nice phrases they form. And you might want to buy .co domain name as a typo of a particular .com domain name. E.g., cars.co may get some of the type-in traffic intended for cars.com when people make a mistake while typing.

If you want to buy generic domain names like .com, .net, .org, .info., etc. and you're not very experienced domain buyer, our advice would be to visit GoDaddy.com. It's probably the best place for a novice domain player. If you're looking for a local domain name (ccTLD) like .co.uk, .de, .fr, .co, .me, etc. you may visit EuroDNS. It's a nice destination for registration of various international domain names.

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Clerks. (1994): The Definitive Kevin Smith's Comedy Movie

Similarly to Mel Brooks, Kevin Smith has its own signature style when it comes to movie making. Although being rather different than Brooks' approach, Smith's one punchs you in the face with the same intensity and genuineness. Almost all of his movies are easily identifiable either by the kind of jokes they offer, by having Jay and Silent Bob couple in them or by something else. Each of Kevin Smith's films is entertaining to a certain degree but the movie which could be considered his greatest achievement and presenting his natural feel of comedy in the best possible manner is Clerks.

Clerks. is about two New Jersey's convenience clerks, Dante Hicks and Randal Graves, and the way they spend a day of their lives. Dante is a convenience store clerk who reluctantly has to work on his day off. He faces a variety of problems both personal and at his workplace. His ex-girlfriend is getting married but Dante is still in love with her. His present girlfriend constantly persuades him to study in a college and she has just recently acquainted him with juicy details of her past. Dante's boss pushes him to work on his day off. There are various technical problems in the store. Dante is about to miss a hockey game and a dead friend's wake during that day. His customers are annoying. Randal is a friend of his, a clerk working next door to Dante's in a video store. He finds his clients to be even more annoying than Dante's but he does not care a lot about his job. He regularly irritates both his and Dante's customers and he loves talking about movies. With this outline as a background, the day gradually turns into a nightmare as many unexpected events happen.

Although all of the described stuff might seem like a bunch of unpleasant doings, everything in the movie is presented with enormous dose of humor so at least the film's audience is well entertained on account of Clerks' characters. From the tagline of the movie "Just Because They Serve You... Doesn't Mean They Like You." to the appearance of Clerks' final credits, everything is hilariously funny. Most of the jokes are witty and chances are many lines will stick into your mind for quite some time.

You will find many of Kevin Smith's trademarks in Clerks. The movie is primarily based on talking. There is a weird, yet magnificent dialogue. A series of not impossible but very unlikely incidents happen. There is a Star Wars trilogy discussion (a classic one). There is a lot of explicit sex-related language. The "famous" drug dealers Jay and Silent Bob appear in Clerks (as in many of Smith's subsequent films). Similarly to other of Kevin Smith's movies, Clerks makes you feel like making a motion picture is not such a difficult job.

Having in mind the limited budget Clerks has been created with, there are naturally some issues that might or might not bother you. The movie is black and white but most probably you will find this bothering only in the first several minutes. The cast does not sport any famous actors or actresses. In fact, Clerks is a debut film for most (if not entire) of the cast but the great dialogue compensates for it if there is anything to be compensated. There are no great special visual or sound effects but they are not needed anyway.

Clerks is the movie that has brought Kevin Smith a considerable cult following. It has also given a good start to the careers of many people involved in its making. If you've watched and you've liked some of the other Kevin Smith's film(s) but you've missed Clerks, you must see it for Smith's genuine style is all over the movie. It is still the best film coming from this director and most probably it will stay his best effort ever. It would be really hard for Smith to better it. Because the first time it happens, it comes out most naturally.

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Windows Blu-ray Players Comparison

For 2012 comparison of Windows BD playback options check here: 2012 Blu-ray player software reviews

For our 2011 Windows Blu-ray player reviews follow the link: Windows Blu-ray player software 2011

Introduction

So you've got a Blu-ray Disc drive and are now looking for software to play your bluray disc collection. The first thing you'll notice if you do some research: there are no free players for blu-ray playback. That's because there are license fees to be paid to the patent holders (Sony, Philips and Panasonic) for each BD playing unit made, both software or hardware. For obvious reasons, the possibility of a legit free Blu-ray player software is made redundant by this requirement for the time being. The focus of our article is to review Blu-ray players that are currently available for computers running Windows.

There are 4 commercial packages offering BD playback on Windows. These are CyberLink's PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D, ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum, Corel's WinDVD 2010 Pro and Roxio's CinePlayer BD. Note that all four companies offer their video playing software in various packages with different options missing in the lower-end versions, but for BD playback you will invariably need the corresponding high-end package in order to be able to play Blu-ray discs. The shorter brand names will be used below for clarity but keep in mind that in all cases the high-end versions of the software are being addressed. For example, PowerDVD will be used instead of PowerDVD 10 Ultra3D, TotalMedia Theatre instead of TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum, etc. Also, only 3 Windows Blu-ray player reviews will be listed below because CinePlayer BD does not have a trial version.

Shared Features and Limitations

Before delving into particulars about each Blu-ray player software let's have a look at the features common for all of them. All competitors:

• Run on Windows 7, Vista or XP.
• Are BD-Live compliant (player profile 2.0).
• Offer excellent video quality. Picture quality is virtually undistinguishable on a full HD display between the different players.
• Play AVCHD files. That's the most common HD video format used by consumer camcorders.
• Utilize the available Graphics Card to offload calculations from the CPU which should improve performance on lower end systems. In fact, all players will enforce the utilization of the graphics card. As a side effect this hardware acceleration will render some video processing options unavailable during BD playback.
• Upscale DVDs and non-HD video files.
• Handle Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio.
• Support Remote Control.
• Allow for a limited amount of region setting changes (usually 5).
• Enforce content protection and disable frame capture when playing Blu-ray discs. Same with clip capture where applicable. Other features may also be disabled for Blu-ray disc content.

Cyberlink's PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D

PowerDVD is the oldest in the pack being around since 1996. The latest installment is PowerDVD 10 offered in three versions: Standard, Deluxe and Ultra 3D. Ultra 3D is the version capable of BD playback. The flagship feature, suggested by the name (previous high-end installments were called just Ultra), is Blu-ray 3D support. PowerDVD is the first, and currently the only, Blu-ray software player certified by the Blu-ray Disc Association under the Blu-ray 3D standard established in the end of 2009. To fully take advantage of this you will need 3D capable graphics card, display and glasses: for example a NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready kit. And, of course, you will need 3D movies. Some of these are supposed to come out on home video media later this year. A related feature is the ability to transform good old 2D DVDs into 3D with some control over the strength of the effect. An upcoming update is supposed to add the same functionality for more 2D file formats.

PowerDVD is integrated with Cyberlink's online service MoovieLive. MoovieLive is free and acts as both a movie database and community portal. If you are connected to the Internet you can get more info on the movie currently in your Blu-ray drive, write reviews, rate movies, organize and sync your movie collection with your MoovieLive profile, post live comments on MoovieLive, Twitter and/or Facebook while watching and share information with other users. The short live comments feature is especially appealing as it is perfectly in tune with the Twitter paradigm and effectively allows for live online commentary. As PowerDVD keeps track how many times a movie has been watched, sharing this information online allows a global counter to be kept and displayed per title thus serving as a popularity meter amongst PowerDVD users. The related MovieMarks feature allows for bookmarking, playing and sharing scenes in movies (currently not available for BD movies; working for DVDs, though). Another community-oriented feature allows you to upload videos to YouTube, converting them to a YouTube compatible format if necessary and providing a form to fill meta information in.

Home theater enthusiasts will appreciate the seamless integration with Windows Media Center. WMC comes with no native BD support so this is a welcome feature. PowerDVD is integrated with WMC through its Cinema Mode which is essentially a minimalistic version of the interface. In Cinema Mode the color scheme changes to match WMC and the interface is simplified and designed to be remote control friendly. Switching between Classic Mode and Cinema Mode is accomplished through an icon on the title bar. Continuing the Windows 7 integration is the full support of the Windows 7 Music Library. PowerDVD also supports HDMI 1.3 pass-through for audio output through receivers.

Last but not least: as expected, movie playback is smooth; loading times are pretty good and both video and audio quality are excellent.

ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum

TotalMedia Theatre 3 also comes in three versions: Standard, Gold and Platinum. The Platinum edition is BD playback enabled. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of PowerDVD feature-wise but it does the job.

TotalMedia Theatre comes with a Windows Media Center plug-in exposing Bluray playback functionality and Remote Control compatibility. As is the case with PowerDVD, HDMI 1.3 pass-through for audio is supported enabling 192 KHz 24-bit audio to be transferred to receivers for exceptional sound experience. Additional features include: 3 different Power Management profiles for perfect balance between power saving and performance; direct playback from camcorders; a time-stretch function to ensure you won't miss the end of the movie you are watching while traveling or under time pressure. There is also a Parental Control. Some rudimentary Disc Library management functions are available, plus the option to bookmark scenes in videos, including Blu-ray movies.

ArcSoft also seems to have technology for transforming 2D videos and photos into 3D, probably similar to the tech included in PowerDVD Ultra 3D. It is called Sim3D and is in the form of a plug-in for TotalMedia Theatre but is only available for OEM licensing. Too bad, apparently they don't want to give it to you unless you own selected 3D hardware.

Blu-ray Disc playback is smooth, picture quality is great, loading times are perfectly acceptable but a bit on the slower side compared to PowerDVD and WinDVD.

Corel's WinDVD 2010 Pro

WinDVD is the oldest competitor of PowerDVD dating back to 1998. It is currently being offered in 2 variations: WinDVD 2010 and WinDVD 2010 Pro, the latter being the Blu-ray playing version.

WinDVD is quite barebones compared to both PowerDVD and TotalMedia Theatre. While it offers different video processing options and enhancements, they are all disabled when hardware acceleration is turned on, which is always the case for HD video playback. It does have some power management options to squeeze more battery life for longer playback on mobile computers. There is a time-stretch function similar to the one in TotalMedia Theatre. Direct playback from camcorders will work. A parental control option is also available. Windows 7 Touch is supported in the interface but there is no Windows Media Center integration. Bookmarking is disabled for Blu-ray disc content.

Video quality is excellent, loading times are good, a fraction slower than PowerDVD.

Comparison table and conclusion

The performance of each PC Blu-ray player was tested on a system with an Intel i5-430m CPU, 4GB DDR3 memory and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics card, running Windows 7.

	PowerDVD	TotalMedia Theatre	WinDVD
CPU load1	8.5%	12.1%	13.2%
Loading times2	7:73s	13:05s	9:02s
Blu-ray 3D	Yes	No	No
2D to 3D	Yes	Yes3	No
Upscale to HD	Yes	Yes	Yes
WMC integration	Yes	Yes	No
HDMI pass-through	Yes	Yes	No
Online features	Yes	No	No
Time stretch	No	Yes	Yes
Matroska .mkv support	Yes	Partial	No
Built-in updates check	Yes	Yes	Yes
Free trial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Price4	$99.95	$89.99	$99.99

1. Average CPU load during MPEG-4 AVC stream playback.
2. Blu-ray disc loading times averaged over 5 measurements.
3. For OEM licensing only.
4. Listed price; discounts or promotions may apply.

On a funny note, PrintScreen doesn't work for screen capturing while WinDVD is running. Same with TotalMedia Theatre. It does work with PowerDVD though. And that's why you get to see a screenshot from PowerDVD here and not from the other two, ha.

In conclusion: PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D is, no doubt, the best Blu-ray disc playing software available at the moment. Its feature selection is the largest, Blu-ray 3D support makes it future-proof, and it outperforms the competition. It is the only one offering online features to feed any movie fan's addiction. And it is also the closest to a general media player. ArcSoft and especially Corel surely need to do some catching up in terms of both performance and features.

Look for other software reviews in the Review Maze.

Il piccolo diavolo (1988): Roberto Benigni's Little Devil

Have you ever thought what you are going to do if the devil comes to your home? I have not but I guess I'll be quite confused. I would be even more tangled if I were a priest. But frankly speaking it might be somewhat interesting. It seems such an idea has been visiting the head of Roberto Benigni for quite some time cause twenty years ago he created another one of his funny even though not so original movies. Il piccolo diavolo (The Little Devil) is not very popular around the globe or at least it is not so famous as Benigni's 1997 multiple Oscar winning film La vita è bella (Life Is Beautiful) but it is still a signature effort of the Italian director.

The story of Il piccolo diavolo (The Little Devil) is about Father Maurice / Maurizio (Walter Matthau), a priest in Roma who recently has fallen in love with Patrizia (Stefania Sandrelli) and who is confused about his feelings for her. While he tries to clear up his relation with Patrizia, they call him to exorcise a demon from a woman. While Father Maurice is not completely convinced he has just exorcised the devil from that lady, he is soon forced to believe by the "dark" creature himself. He is called Giuditta and he's in the form of a naive, laughing and funny looking man (Roberto Benigni). The last thing you'll think about him is that he is the devil. Or a devil. But he is although he's a young and inexperienced one. Maurizio has no choice except to believe what he sees and soon that little devil is going to change Father Maurice's clerical life.

While Il piccolo diavolo is not the most original film and it bears the signs of a typical Roberto Benigni's comedy, it is still a very funny movie with lots of comical situations. The easy-going, fun-loving and disastrous little devil is a perfect counterpart for the steady, respected and helpful Father Maurice. Still, we have to believe that a stoic priest could live together with a clownish devil at least for some time. Matthau and Benigni are a great choice for the parts and their interactions are incredible. From their every day look to their acting abilities the cast hardly could have been bettered.

You are not going to see any devil's horns, tails or other specific attributes in Il piccolo diavolo. There are no money wasted in glossy special effects and there is not any need of such. All of the film's devilish features are presented through dialogue, acting and a couple of mirrors. In fact, the movie needs no devils to entertain but the presence of a "hellish" creature brings some fresh nuances to the plot.

The film shares the common "problems" of Roberto Benigni's pictures. His acting is not the most varied and if you've seen a movie made by him you know what to expect. And of course, Benigni's real life wife Nicoletta Braschi is as usual here. To be honest, Braschi does quite a good job in the role of playful Nina and Benigni is born to perform parts of little devils like Giuditta. Add Walter Matthau and you'll get another reason to see Il piccolo diavolo. Finally, the ending is moderately surprising giving this balanced movie a good finish.

Il piccolo diavolo could be also looked at as a subtle satire of religious and other social beliefs and habits but it is better appreciated for its fun side. The movie by no means is a must see feature and it is clearly not in the league of Benigni's La vita è bella, yet it is enjoyable effort and brings plenty of laugh if you are in a mood for a comedy.

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US Pets: Pet Supplies Online Shop Offering Dog Supplies, Cat Food, Etc.

I came across US Pets online shop several days ago and since I had read somewhere that between 30% and 40% of households in the United States own at least one dog or cat I decided it might be helpful to write a few words about this pet supplies online source. My decision was further motivated by an online search I made that did not find almost any useful results for USPets.com pet shop but this was not so strange having in mind their website had not been around for too long. So, what were my first impressions about US Pets?

This pet shop seems to be a relatively new one but still offering hundreds of products. You may find various cat and dog supplies, dog and cat food, pet medications (over-the-counter and prescription ones), pet toys and so on. US Pets mission statement also sounds promising: To provide the best cat and dog supplies, in the fastest online way, at the biggest possible discount! Well, to see if it is completely true, one should shop pet supplies there for quite some time but at least it sounds nice enough in order to make you try this pet supplies online shop.

Some of the dog supplies shopping categories you will find at US Pets are Allergy, Antimicrobial, Anxiety Relief, Digestive Care, Dental, Ear and Eye Care, Flea & Tick, Nutritional, Skin Care, Dog Toys, First Aid, Cough, Dog Accessories. In regard to cats, except for cat food, you will find pretty much the same shopping categories as for dogs (with Bone & Joint, Grooming, Heartworm, Hormonal, Training Aid, Treats, Urinary / Kidneys, Shampoo / Fur, Wormer not mentioned but also valid for dogs) and in addition Cat Litter.

US Pets offer next day free shipping for orders that are $39.99 or more. Priority or overnight shipping options are also available although they are charged separately. The pet shop offers up to 50% discount on their pet supplies and in addition there is almost constantly a promo code of some kind that usually gives you another discount of 10% or so on all kinds of dog supplies, cat food, etc. When you create an account at the pet supplies online shop, you may enter information about your pet(s) thus helping the site to serve you with better selected pet supplies.

With US Pets' no-questions-asked return policy you have 30 days since your original purchase to return cat food or any dog supplies you have purchased. So, if you are one of the many proud owners of dogs and cats in the United States, you may safely give this pet supplies online shop a try and see for yourself if it'll become your favorite place for online pet supplies shopping.

To read other product reviews go deeper into the Review Maze.

Head above Water (1996): Is the Movie above Water Too?

While it is easy to understand why Cameron Diaz would participate in a movie like Head above Water at the dawn of her career, it is not so easy to explain what Harvey Keitel is doing there. Because Head above Water is not a good film. It's boring, alienated and even predictable despite its numerous twists. It's a decent movie to watch on the TV but it's hardly a deserving feature to see in a movie theater.

The 3rd effort of Jim Wilson as director sports a small cast: the complete credited cast consists only of 5 actors. And while there are great movies with even smaller number of people participating in them, it is not the case here. The movie is about Nathalie (Cameron Diaz), an ex-drug addict and his husband George (Harvey Keitel), a famous and respected judge. They are on vacation at her summer house on an island where also lives Nathalie's childhood friend Lance (Craig Sheffer) who is not indifferent to Nathalie either. Suddenly, Nathalie's ex-lover Kent (Billy Zane) arrives while George and Lance are on a fishing trip and after some obscure circumstances, Kent turns out to be naked and dead in Nathalie's bed on the next morning and at the same time her husband and friend return from their trip. A series of messy events begins and everything becomes just more complicated and confusing towards the end of the movie. Thankfully, the number of characters and thus also the relationships between them decrease progressively so at least this is a relief.

The movie is billed as comedy / thriller and while it is a thriller, it can hardly be called a comedy, even a dark one. There are only occasional funny moments and even the funniest parts are mainly in the vein of weaker dark comedies. Head above Water tries to set several records: for a number of times a woman sets her free from fastening in a single movie; for the greatest number of lame fastenings; and maybe it also aims at the record for most unconvincing twists. That the film is not amongst the most believable ones should have become already well visible.

The acting is not necessarily bad although there is not much room for showing incredible acting abilities in Head above Water. Harvey Keitel has had definitely better roles and Cameron Diaz is not as beautiful as in other movies. Billy Zane's short screen appearance is also not among his most memorable performances. The direction is decent although far from perfect and the screenplay could be much more interesting and feasible.

If you catch Head above Water accidentally on the television and you don't have anything better to do, you can watch it. But then again, think how to avoid situations like this. Watching a second grade movie should not be your best occupation at any time.

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EuroDNS Discount Codes, Voucher Codes, Promo Codes 2010

Hi folks,

For 2012 voucher codes follow the link: EuroDNS voucher codes 2012

For 2011 voucher codes follow the link: EuroDNS voucher codes 2011

The most recent discount codes from the domain name registrar EuroDNS are available below. Since often there are several promo codes for a certain domain extension you should check the whole list in order not to miss some of the voucher codes you need.

Here are the latest EuroDNS promo codes valid as of 20/11/2010:

Code TLD Type Discount Expires on

LUX15 LU ANNUALPRICE 55.88 % 01/12/2010

ORG2010 ORG ANNUALPRICE 66.68 % 30/12/2010

FR2009 FR ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 01/01/2011

NL2009 NL ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 01/01/2011

PL2009 PL ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 01/01/2011

DE2009 DE ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 01/01/2011

IT2009 IT ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 01/01/2011

ES2009 ES ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 01/01/2011

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DK2009 DK ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 01/01/2011

IMMOBI20 MOBI ANNUALPRICE 20.00 % 01/01/2011

DMAT10 AT ANNUALPRICE 55.00 % 01/01/2011

GETACO CO ANNUALPRICE 14.30 % 01/01/2011

3COM9 COM ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 09/01/2011

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10EU11 EU ANNUALPRICE 72.20 % 01/04/2011

GOME08 ME ANNUALPRICE 20.00 % 01/05/2011

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GOMOBI9 MOBI ANNUALPRICE 62.00 % 01/05/2011

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GOBE4 BE ANNUALPRICE 75.00 % 01/05/2011

GOAT8 AT ANNUALPRICE 66.00 % 01/05/2011

GOAT4 AT ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 01/05/2011

GODE4 DE ANNUALPRICE 75.00 % 01/05/2011

GOME15 ME ANNUALPRICE 40.00 % 01/05/2011

GOCN10 CN ANNUALPRICE 10.00 % 01/05/2011

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GOCONL20 CO.NL ANNUALPRICE 20.00 % 01/05/2011

GOTEL12 TEL ANNUALPRICE 33.00 % 01/05/2011

GOME40 ME ANNUALPRICE 40.00 % 01/05/2011

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DTDE4 DE ANNUALPRICE 75.00 % 01/05/2011

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DTPL9 PL ANNUALPRICE 87.00 % 01/05/2011

8TEL10 TEL ANNUALPRICE 61.10 % 01/05/2011

9NET09 NET ANNUALPRICE 44.00 % 02/05/2011

CONLLIVE CO.NL ANNUALPRICE 21.00 % 10/06/2011

EU9EU EU ANNUALPRICE 50.00 % 10/10/2011

18PRO PRO ANNUALPRICE 81.63 % 10/10/2011

GOSE43 SE ANNUALPRICE 43.00 % 10/12/2011

GOEU70 EU ANNUALPRICE 70.00 % 10/12/2011

To use a promotional offer enter the discount code in the section "Voucher Codes" or use it during the process of a particular domain name registration. If you haven't heard of EuroDNS yet, read the following EuroDNS review.

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Strictly Ballroom (1992): A Clichéd Film Suitable for Romcom and Dance Lovers

Strictly Ballroom is the debut movie of Australian director Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, Australia). Unsurprisingly, it is a movie about dancing. It does not feature big actor names and it does not offer anything original or groundbreaking. If you expect great cinematic achievements this is not the right film for you. Strictly Ballroom is a romantic comedy with a recycled plot that offers moderate entertainment based on dancing competitions. If you are into romcoms or dances, it could be your thing.

Strictly Ballroom is about Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio), a promising ballroom dancer who participates in Australian dancing competitions. He has one major "problem" though and it is his belief in using his own steps, which is something not to the taste of the Championship's orthodox judges. Due to his lack of respect for the conservative rules, Scott loses his regular female partner Liz (Gia Carides) and Fran (Tara Morice) who is neither as beautiful as his former partner, nor such a skilled dancer, decides to take the place of Liz next to Scott. The new couple decides to win Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Championships and to show everyone new dancing steps should not be ignored.

The plot of Strictly Ballroom does not offer genuine storytelling. There is a standard romantic relationship, there are people who are against the innovative couple, there are parallels and references to the past. Some of the characters are far over the top but it's part of the movie's style and the director's vision. Naturally, unexpected twists, profound dialogue or life-changing discoveries are not something you will find in a film like this.

Like every other movie, this has also some good aspects worth mentioning. The most notable objects in Strictly Ballroom are the costumes. There are plenty of them so if you are into costume design, you have one more reason to see the movie. There's a family with Spanish origins that demonstrates real pasodoble dancing and these scenes are among the highlights in the film. The movie could also be considered inspiring although at the same time its cartoonish flavor and excessive sentimentality detracts from this of its qualities.

Baz Luhrmann does a good job and visually the movie is Ok. You won't be surprised by the story or its ending, neither you will see any great filmmaking accomplishments but it has hardly been the creators' intention. Strictly Ballroom is one of those movies you can watch together with your loved one(s) and care for the characters along the way.

State of Play (2009): Lots of Twists to Resist

Russell Crowe looks fatter than usual. Ben Affleck acts without showing much of emotion. Rachel McAdams is not as beautiful as in some of her other roles. And State of Play's story is nothing you wouldn't expect from a movie like this. Don't be bothered with all of those cause State of Play has more serious issues to offer.

As mentioned the film's story is nothing original. Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) is an investigative newspaper reporter who's writing about a couple of murders that have happened in a small alley. Then, after an accident with a subway train, another dead body comes in sight. It's of a woman who has worked closely with congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), not unfamiliar to McAffrey. Apparently she has also had an affair with the congressman. McAffrey suspects that all of the murders are connected so he starts looking deeper into the cases while trying to help Collins. To add some feminine flavor, the filmmakers have decided to add the young and ambitious online blog writer Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) as McAffrey's assistant and Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren) as a masterful woman in charge of the newspaper.

Russell Crowe is fatter in State of Play cause the movie has been shot just after Body of Lies for which Crowe gained some extra weight. Ben Affleck does not show miracles of acting but this is his usual approach of performing and to be honest I don't find it to be (always) necessarily bad. Unsurprisingly, Rachel McAdams is not the best actress either and she does not make her loveliest appearance here but it's probably because of her shorter haircut in this film. So, all of these are "flaws" to be expected and do not actually bother me. Well, the investigative team manages to do the job quite easily and it's kinda unrealistic but the ordinary excuse "It's just a movie" could work for a fault like this. And there is not a real confrontation between print journalism and its online counterpart but even if it was there, it would be a bonus anyway. The real issue that troubles me is the addition of an absolutely uncalled-for twist near the end of the film which spoils the entire State of Play movie that is otherwise not completely bad.

You see, when everything in State of Play is settled and just waiting for a calm and commemorative ending, somebody decides to put another twist in. And as often happens, it does not work at least a bit. The twist starts with a standard question of the type "How does she know it?" and unfortunately, we don't receive an answer to this question till the end of the film. Instead, we just listen to a few newer "facts" without any proper reasoning behind them. And if this is not enough, the final appearance of the assassin happens at the "right" time and place but we do not understand what is his motive to be there.

If you pause the movie and read what Cal McAffrey is writing on his computer at the very end of the film, you'll notice that the text does not match the events you've just seen in the movie. This could be intentional but it's rather due to a change in plans made in the last minute. To be honest, State of Play is not such an awful film if you watch it until a pen necklace shows up. Of course, I don't believe you will watch the movie almost until its end and skip the stuff after the necklace scene so be prepared for a dose of disappointment and a quick emotional landing. But don't worry! The movie never actually takes off considerably so you won't be falling from too high.

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Midsummer Madness (2007): Charming Funny Craziness

Midsummer Madness is one of those movies you will encounter most likely accidentally. It's a production of several countries and also several languages are used in the film: English, Latvian, Russian, French. It's not a blockbuster movie and it's not the most usual one. Without being exceptional and of greatest quality Midsummer Madness is a good choice to watch if you come across it.

Midsummer Madness is about Latvia (the country of origin of director Alexander Hahn) but not only about Latvians. The movie follows the stories of several different people, either Latvians or foreigners, happening on the day of Janu Nakts (St. John's Night). According to a legend, on this night, love seekers should go on a quest for a glowing magic fern in the forest. The magic fern fastens together the experiences of the characters in the movie in an artificial way but the events don't need fastening anyway in order to be appreciated.

There is a big variety of stories, each of them fascinating in its own way: We meet with Curt, an American in a search for his half-sister that he has never seen. We follow Livia, a French lady carrying the remains of her husband to the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania (thinking it's the same as Latvia). We see a couple of locals trying to steal some fuel. We celebrate with a group of Latvian firemen showing hospitality to a couple of English colleagues. We laugh at the cheap attempts of a local businessman trying to make a deal with two Western guys. And we appreciate the simple wisdom of the common taxi driver Oskars.

Midsummer Madness tries to present the post-communist reality in an Eastern European country like Latvia with a lot of humor and an international touch. Apart from the use of the already mentioned several languages, in the movie there are characters of Latvian, Lithuanian, English, American, Russian, German, Austrian, French, Chinese and maybe other nationalities. But despite all of this internationalism, it's hard to perceive Midsummer Madness as a product not coming from Eastern Europe. And in this lies the charm of the movie. It's not the best film coming from Eastern Europe but it sports some typical atmosphere that we can hardly sense in a Hollywood motion picture.

Midsummer Madness shows mainly the life out of the big cities and thus there is some beautiful scenery to appreciate. For people, seeing it for the first time, the Hill of Crosses looks very captivating and creates the impression that it is coming out of a fantasy movie. There are also some annoying or not quite feasible details like a very artificially attached kangaroo appearing all of a sudden several times throughout the movie or like portraying Americans as taking a single shower for whole 2 hours.

Despite its flaws Midsummer Madness is an interesting movie. It's not the most profound film about love, neither it's incredibly funny but it offers enough cheery moments in order to make you laugh even though some of them seem almost absurd. If you are not an inveterate Hollywood follower, you can give this Latvian craziness a try.

Walk through our Review Maze to read other movie reviews.

Montenegro .ME Domain Names Landrush Has Started

This is just a short notification message that .ME Domain Landrush has started on the 6th June. You may submit your applications for Montenegro domains until the 26th of June. In order to apply 2 of the good options are to use either EuroDNS or GoDaddy.

The price of the .me domain names at GoDaddy is $49.99 per year and the minimum registration period is 2 years.

The price of the Montenegro domain names at EuroDNS is 48 Euro per year and the minimum registration period is also 2 years. There is a promo code that you may use to receive a 10% discount on the price at EuroDNS. The .me voucher code is 7ME10 and it is valid till the end of the landrush period.

Have in mind that domain names that get more than 1 application are going into an auction and domains with just one application automatically will be assigned to the sole applicant after the 26th of June, 2008. There is also a .ME Auction FAQ available at the registry for more information about Montenegro domain names auctions.

The .ME registry provides in addition 2 lists of names that are not possible to be registered:

Premium names (www.domen.me/cms/site_files/dotME_Premium_Names.txt)

and

Reserved names (www.domen.me/cms/site_files/dotME_Reserved_Names.txt).

Explore the Review Maze for another domain registration review.