Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy: The Swedish Films (2009)

Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy has been planned to be a series of ten books but due to Larsson's death only the first three novels have been completed. The trilogy is about Lisbeth Salander, a troubled young woman with great computer hacking skills and Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist and editor of Millennium, a magazine with an inclination towards criminal investigations. The trilogy is comprised of the books Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women), Flickan som lekte med elden (The Girl Who Played with Fire) and Luftslottet som sprängdes (The Air Castle That Blew up). The titles that have been used for publishing the books in English are The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest and I am going to use mostly them while reviewing the Swedish films based on the Millennium trilogy below.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women)

The first book of Stieg Larsson's bestselling novels has already been filmed twice. The future will show whether it will be the best installment in the American version of the series but it is clearly the most successful effort of the three Swedish movies. This could be due to the still fresh introduction of the two unknown and unconventional main characters or it could be attributed to the quality of the plot. Either way The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the most shocking, thrilling and accomplished film in the Swedish adaptation of the Millennium trilogy. In the first installment of the series, Salander and Blomkvist investigate a 40-year-old case of a missing woman and some shocking events related to it. In parallel, we are introduced to the dark side of Lisbeth's past and present existence. Lisbeth Salander's outward fragility and unrestful sleep combined with her formidable composure and uncanny attractiveness disarm you and involve you in the story with ease. Noomi Rapace seems like the perfect choice for the role of Lisbeth but Michael Nyqvist is also a very good cast for the part of Mikael Blomkvist. He is really believable in the skin of the determined and honest Millennium journalist. Even the look of his blue eyes helps a lot. We should also note that the rest of the actors sport great supporting performances. The film is easily recommendable for either viewing it on its own or as a part of the trilogy. It is also a good reference to compare the recent American release with.

The Girl Who Played with Fire / Flickan som lekte med elden

The second installment in the Swedish film adaptation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy is probably the weakest of the three movies. One of its issues is that Lisbeth Salander becomes a main subject of the investigations in the film and this somehow limits the story and makes it more predictable. Another weaker point is related to the increased improbability of the narrative. There is a good deal of events that won't make you agree with the filmmakers' decisions, especially at the times when a big blonde guy called Ronald Niedermann copes (or not) with his victims and Lisbeth. Finally, some of the violent scenes lack an appropriate atmosphere. The story could still be considered interesting but it is not delivered on the same quality level as the first part. The movie does not stand good on its own cause it is closely related with the third film and practically does not have a clear ending. Thus it is not advisable to see only the second piece of the trilogy. Either go for the entire series or just skip this one.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest / Luftslottet som sprängdes (The Air Castle That Blew up)

Since it continues the subplot of the second film, the third installment in the Millenium series shares some of its defects as well. The story still revolves around Lisbeth Salander and hence suffers from the limitations of the previous movie. The unlikeliness of the narrative is not quite striking though and the film offers a few highlights (in addition to Noomi Rapace new hair-style). For example, the scenes in the court are likeable although a little bit artificial. The main issue with the third installment is that it lacks actual climax and the court trial directly offers the practical denouement. There is a final confrontation, which is probably intended to compensate the aforementioned lack of climax but in fact, this clash sequence is not fitted very well into the narrative. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is slightly better than its predecessor but still it is not as good as the first film and it is not suitable enough for a separate viewing. Consider it only as a part of the whole Millenium trilogy.

It is good to observe that the first part of the Swedish adaptation has been directed by Niels Arden Oplev while director Daniel Alfredson has made the next two films of the Millennium trilogy. This fact has surely left some mark on the creation of the series. My advice is to either see only The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or the entire Millennium trilogy. Choosing just the second and/or the third movie is not a good option.

Web Hosting Affiliate Program Research: HostGator, BlueHost, FatCow

I have always wondered what motivates web hosting companies to offer big affiliate commissions. And I have never found a good answer. The most probable explanation I have been able to think of is that hosting services actually do not pay for every sale an affiliate refers. Instead they just pay a commission for, e.g., one out of three or one out of five sales. In the course of time it has appeared that my thoughts have been right. Most of the hosting companies (if not all of them) avoid paying for each customer their affiliates refer. The differences between the various providers are mainly in the way each web hosting affiliate program accomplishes this "goal".

I am going to write about my experience with three of the most popular web hosting providers among affiliate marketers. Advertising high commissions have enabled these hosting companies to offer some of the best affiliate programs in the eyes of the publishers. What my experiment shows though is you should not trust these companies. And since you cannot trust them in regard to their affiliate programs I am not sure they can be trusted in respect to their hosting services either. Note that all of the described events below have happened through Commission Junction's affiliate network but I do believe CJ is not involved in the "cheating".

I have already used a dozen or two of affiliate programs and I have never had any major problem with any of them except for the hosting companies. I try to test somehow each program before investing much time or money in it. I usually do this with just a small exposure first without putting too many resources into it. Sometimes if there is a friend of mine wanting to purchase a service or a product I decide also to recommend him something through an affiliate program if I think there is a suitable offer in that moment. And I actually explain this to my friends so they are aware I would get a commission. So it happened I was able to test three hosting companies this way. They were HostGator, BlueHost and FatCow and unfortunate for them I was aware they owed me particular commissions.

FatCow affiliate program

I have already written about the case with FatCow's affiliate program here so I won't go deep into details. FatCow.com offers a relatively cheap web hosting and good affiliate commissions. In periods of promotions the commissions are so high and hosting prices so low that FatCow are actually going to need three or even more years in order to get the money they've paid for a commission back. There is not any guarantee a client will stay with them for years so practically FatCow can lose a lot of money if they pay correctly for every commission. So after losing 4 of my 5 commissions with them (as explained in the referred article), here is my opinion about their affiliate game.

When you make a sale for them, FatCow list it under your CJ's reports. Later they cancel it. Thus you do not get the commission paid but FatCow probably list the sale initially with the idea to become a 5 green bar advertiser. There is an indicator on Commission Junction based on the volume of commissions paid by each advertiser. By listing sales they actually cancel later, I suppose FatCow aim at higher ranking in regard of this indicator. I could be wrong but what is their real purpose does not have such big importance anyway. So to recapitulate, FatCow's approach of not paying your deserved commissions is the following. They initially list a sale you've made in your CJ reports and later cancel it. In my case this happened 4 out of 5 times and you can find more details by visiting the link mentioned earlier.

The above happened a couple of years ago. I tried another web hosting affiliate program after that and I had some mixed experience with it so I stopped promoting any hosting companies. Since I do not have any particular evidence that company has been doing something improper I won't include it in this review.

The second part of the article recounts my experience with BlueHost and HostGator affiliate programs.

Web Hosting Affiliate Program Research: HostGator, BlueHost, FatCow - Part 2

Read the first part of this article introducing a common problem and my experience with FatCow here: Web Hosting Affiliate Program Research: HostGator, BlueHost, FatCow - Part 1.

BlueHost affiliate program

This month a friend of mine asked me for a web hosting provider. Having in mind the experience with the cheaper FatCow hosting I recommended to him BlueHost, whose hosting service had actually a lot of good reviews on the Net. He made a purchase of one of their hosting packages but a commission for the sale did not show in my CJ account. I asked BlueHost about it and they answered very fast asking about the primary domain of my friend's account. I wasn't able to find whether they would credit my account with the commission cause my friend decided to cancel his purchase after BlueHost temporarily deactivated his account with the requirement to submit a copy of his personal ID. It appeared that HostGator would want the same later but he didn't know at that time. So I could not tell if BlueHost were going to pay me for that sale but even if they did it, I wouldn't be happy. If I was going to promote their hosting not to my friends only, I wouldn't be able to know who and when signed up with them in order to chase my commissions. And this is not acceptable.

Anyway, I decided to research though why I hadn't got the commission immediately and here is what I've found. If someone commences signing up for a BlueHost account and enters his data (most importantly an email address) but for any reason does not finish the registration in a few minutes, BlueHost send an email to that address with a link for completion of the registration. It's a promotional link and offers a discount but what is the most unpleasant here is the link actually rewrites the affiliate cookie previously set in the client's browser. This means that all about 120-day-long referral period is actually nonsense cause chances your affiliate cookie will be rewritten by a link in a follow-up BlueHost email or by a competitor's link is practically very high. I've personally checked this a few times and each time the affiliate cookie has been rewritten. Thanks for such affiliate programs. They make me stop promoting them even before I've started. :)

HostGator affiliate program

After cancelling his fresh account with BlueHost, I referred my friend to HostGator. (Un)surprisingly they also requested a copy of a photo ID. This time he made it and sent it to HostGator.com sales team after which they reactivated his hosting account. Now about HostGator affiliate program. Similar to the experience with BlueHost, a commission didn't appear in my account after the sale was made. I asked HostGator via CJ mailing functionality but unlike the case with BlueHost, there was not an answer for a few days. I decided to ask directly through HostGator's affiliate email address and the response was considerably faster. They asked for the domain name of the claimed referral and after I provided it, they awarded the sale to my CJ account.

Around this time I received also an answer to my initial message sent through CJ (of course, asking about the domain of my claimed referral). I answered I had already got the commission but I was bothered by the fact I should contact HostGator in order to get it. This time, no response followed at all. I decided to write once more directly to their affiliate email address and asked what was the reason for not getting the commission automatically. There was no any reply again. I suppose HostGator have just ignored these two inconvenient emails cause there has not been any response for weeks now. So thanks to this affiliate program too - nothing tempting in it for me. (Read a follow-up to this case here.)

Summary

Apparently, each of the web hosting affiliate programs has its own way to minimize the number of actual commissions it pays. This is not a big surprise having in mind how unnaturally big amounts they advertise for providing them with referrals. Obviously, if you make a broad promotion you won't be able to know the majority (if not all) of the people that sign up though your affiliate link so chances are most affiliates won't be able to complain with some firm arguments against these web hosting companies' behavior. Something more, most of the affiliates won't be even aware they are ripped off by the hosting providers. Maybe there are other companies in the area of web hosting offering lower commissions that actually pay for each sale. This is not impossible cause I haven't had any serious issues with other affiliate programs (in categories which do not pay such inflated commissions).

Finally, I suggest everyone to think again if (these) hosting providers are worthy of promoting and whether they actually pay you what they advertise and have to. What they deserve is an affiliate boycott but I am not so naive to think this is going to happen. There will always be people that like and even love to be cheated one way or another. A reasonable action I can ask for though is those who have been patient enough to read until here to share this article in any appropriate place they know without spamming. Let's bring at least some awareness of these shady web hosting affiliate programs.

The Artist (2011): Black and White, Silent and Charming

To make a black and white film for the broad audience in the 21st century requires courage. To make a silent movie for the average moviegoer in 2011 calls for more than just boldness. To do it you have to be imaginative and inventive with a spice of craziness. Apparently, The Artist's director Michel Hazanavicius does not have any deficiency of these and he deserves respect for his risky initiative to create this movie. But what makes the story really charming is the fact his effort has proven to be a quite successful film enchanting the audiences all over the world and wining several of the most important Academy Awards in 2012.

The Artist does not sport an original plot or even an original score despite its win in the category of Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures. Nevertheless the plot is decent and the music is actually very cool and appropriate for the movie. You will most probably even recall some of the melodies for at least a few days after watching the film. The rest of The Artist's five Oscars are well deserved and the movie's win in the category of Best Motion Picture of the Year is not surprising although there will be always people arguing which the most worthy film has been. Of course, it's a matter of personal preference but we can safely say The Artist is one of the better and amongst the most notable movies of the previous year.

With this almost entirely silent black and white picture director Michel Hazanavicius proves to be a good moviemaker and unconventional entertainer. He has successfully managed to put in the movie simple but effective details to make his task of conquering the public easier. One example could be the presence of a cute dog and his owner's interaction with him. Another praise we own Michel Hazanavicius is for his skilful utilization of the otherwise limited in sound or color silent or black and white characteristics of the movie. For example, the story of The Artist (about a silent era movie star's struggle with the rise of talking pictures) might not be very original but it is perfect for using silence as a creative device in the film.

Of course, the accessibility of an old fashioned movie to the general 21st century audience does not come only from the clever use of antiquated technologies. The advancement of filmmaking furthers not only talking and color movies but also their ancient relatives. What I mean is you won't see here a black and white picture quality on the level of the films made in the dawn of cinema. The same is valid for The Artist's audio quality. Being a 2011 movie provides for a high-grade picture and sound thus bringing the film far closer to the contemporary audience compared to the early 20th century movies, which are definitely not for everybody.

The cast of The Artist is something we should not miss mentioning. The lead actor Jean Dujardin has not won his Best Actor Academy Award for nothing. He is funny, colorful and he doesn't need to speak in order to fascinate you. His partner Bérénice Bejo (receiving "just" a nomination for Best Supporting Actress Oscar) is captivating even more than Dujardin. She is convincing simultaneously as an admirer and opposition of Jean Dujardin's character. John Goodman and James Cromwell have also solid although not long screen appearances in quite suitable roles for themselves.

To be objective, the movie has some flaws. There are a few moments that are a bit boring but nothing too extensive to drive you away from the film. And as already noticed the story lacks originality but this is well compensated with its incorporation into the movie's realization. It's not the plot that makes The Artist easily recommendable for everybody. It's the overall experience you get by watching a well-crafted "old" film in a 2012 movie theater. Do not expect a tribute to the silent era black and white films cause you may be disappointed at the end. Just go and enjoy The Artist for what it has to offer on the big screen.

Top Ten Highest Grossing Movies: The Current Trends

In laymen terms, the highest grossing movies are those that have done impeccable business since the time they've been first released on the big screen for the broad audience. Their success is measured by the length of the time period they've been successfully viewed in the cinemas and more importantly by the amount of revenue generated by the films. While mostly a movie's performance is evaluated by how it does business in the theaters, there are certain other streams as well that contribute heavily to the revenue. Some of these other channels include entertainment through home video, rights to broadcasting on television and various merchandising.

We are going to look at ten of the highest grossing movies of all time in the Hollywood cinema while trying to find a recipe for inclusion in the top ten list. You should also note the fact, that all of these movies have grossed over a billion dollars and still earning. For reasons of inappropriate data collection of old films and inflation, only the most recent movies have been taken into consideration. If the revenue of Gone with the Wind is calculated with contemporary prices, it could easily take the top position with a safe earning of more than $3 billion. It has been the most successful film for up to 25 years after its initial release.

While evaluating the top scoring movies of the past fifteen years, the first position is secured by none other than Avatar, an epic science fiction American film; the movie directed, produced and written by James Cameron has done an enormous business of $2.7 billion. Surprisingly enough, following Avatar is again an epic movie created by James Cameron: Titanic. Records show that the film has done the astonishing $1.8 billion.

Moving on to the next spot, the movie taking the third position with $1.33 billion is the franchise film Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part II. The next three movies following suit are Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – all doing business of approximately $1.1 billion and all of them being franchises too.

Animated movies have also managed to pull in a lot of fanatic viewers to the cinema for a long time now. With a dedication to quality and originality of the story, the animated films have done just as well on the box office as movies of serious nature and with live characters. So the seventh highest grossing film is none other than Toy Story 3, which has done $1.06 billion at the box office. The last three movies having a place in the top ten of the world’s highest grossing movies yet are Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Alice in Wonderland and The Dark Knight, each with a revenue slightly higher than a billion dollars.

By a survey of the records, it becomes evident that the franchise films are the ones, which have performed the best in worldwide cinemas. With the exception of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, it seems a film should be either a franchise's episode or a James Cameron movie in order to be on the top ten list. Generally speaking, franchise films are the movies that have been made into series. So to emphasize the power of franchises even further, some of the popular series that have not been mentioned in the countdown above are Star Wars, Spiderman and Superman. And there are numerous animated franchise series too that have reached great heights of fame, like Ice Age, Shrek and the recently re-released in 3D The Lion King.

The latter leads us to another notable trend. Despite all of the criticism (including ours) 3D movies receive, more than the half of the films among the top ten highest grossing movies are actually 3D films. Of course, this could be attributed to the higher prices for viewing movies in 3D but it is a trend worth mentioning and it explains why even blockbusters like Titanic and The Lion King have been recently re-released in 3D.

You are welcome to read our USA vs. Non-USA comparison of highest grossing movies of all time or just continue browsing our Review Maze.

Academy Awards 2012: Oscar Winners and Nominees Trivia

This year's Academy Awards broke a few records and introduced novelties. Some of them were probably expected and others not so much. Most notably it had never happened before a movie produced by a country different from the United States or the United Kingdom to win the Oscar in the Best Picture category. Well, it happened this year. There were also other interesting developments like the cease of Pixar's domination in the Best Animated Feature Film category. And a few personal achievements contributed to make 2012 Academy Awards a curious event. Here are some of the particular achievements and trivia.

French/Belgian movie The Artist won the Oscar in the Best Motion Picture of the Year category. For the first time, the winning film had not been produced by the US or the UK. Consequently, The Artist became the first French movie to win Best Picture. It also became the film produced by a non-English speaking country winning the most Oscars (5) in a single year. In addition to Best Picture, The Artist also won the Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Costume Design and Best Music Written for Motion Pictures. Finally, the film had received 10 Oscar nominations which equalled Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's record for a foreign movie. Some could say that all these achievements are actually due to the fact that The Artist is a silent movie thus it is not exactly a foreign language film, which makes it more accessible to the American public. On the other hand it has enough non-appealing to the general audience features (silence included).

Something to be expected was Meryl Streep's 17th Oscar nomination. An Academy favorite almost since the dawn of her acting career, she had been nominated for an Academy Award roughly every two years. And not so surprisingly, in addition to breaking her own record for the most acting nominations, Meryl Streep also won the 2012 Oscar in the Best Actress category for The Iron Lady. Now only Katherine Hepburn has more awards than Streep.

Similar to Meryl Streep, Woody Allen broke his own record for the most Oscar nominations in the category of Best Writing (Original Screenplay) with his beautiful film Midnight in Paris. He made them 15. Woody Allen also won the award for the third time, which made him the person with the most Academy Awards in the category.

Canadian actor Christopher Plummer won his first Oscar in the category of Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for the movie Beginners (2010). As a result, he became the oldest actor to win in this category and the oldest person (82) to win an Oscar in the entire history of the Academy Awards.

After Pixar's heavy domination in the last decade it was about time for something new in the field of animated films. Pixar movies have been regularly nominated throughout the decade and they won six Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film since 2004 including 4 consecutive Oscars for Toy Story 3 (2010), Up (2009), WALL·E (2008), Ratatouille (2007) in the past 4 years. This year they did not win (Industrial Light & Magic's Rango did). Actually, Pixar hadn't even been nominated. Let's hope it will motivate them to make a better animated film in 2012.

War Horse (2011): Of Men and Horses

Steven Spielberg has done World War II movies a lot but War Horse is his first World War I movie. It is peculiar in a lot of ways. For one, it is a war movie rated PG-13 (and distributed by Disney). Not that it is not occasionally brutal. War Horse also has a rather unusual protagonist: this World War I tale is told through the eyes of the horse Joey. It is a somewhat convoluted story centered on his wartime woes. Human characters come and go; Joey changes English, German and French masters. Interestingly, Joey's feats are mostly simple and the focus is on survival rather than heroics.

This is also a traditional movie in a lot of ways. It is romanticized and sentimental. This sentimentality often shows in Spielberg movies but here it is taking center stage. In a traditional fashion, Germans and French speak English amongst themselves with the corresponding stereotypical accents. The music score of veteran composer John Williams is traditional to the point of coming through as generic. Cinematography is also old school in manipulating reality, no matter if its Devon's meadows, French forests or the mud of the Somme.

In this thirteenth collaboration between Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski both England's warm rural landscapes and the foggy war views are beautifully rendered. The latter are almost too beautiful. Spielberg has always been a master of storytelling with the camera. And War Horse doesn't disappoint here. It is invariably technically impressive. Cinema buffs will delight in the numerous clever shots throughout the movie. One can argue that cinematography is the film's best merit. This, or the amazing lack of CGI in the numerous horse stunts involving Joey (five horses played him; each one specialized in specific skills).

War Horse is also occasionally whimsical. Which is not surprising when your main protagonist is a horse. It is hard to rein a story like that. (See what I did there.) But in fact, these whimsical moments are amongst the movie's best. In particular, Joey's wild gallop through the trenches at the Somme and a consequent surreal scene in No man's land. On the other hand, the final scene may be a bit too blunt with its color choice.

War Horse wastes no time in establishing human characters other than the boy who raised Joey and his family. This helps to keep the pace going. But also effectively turns everyone else into passing figures. Which is both good and bad. Good, because it reinforces the feeling of passing through war and leaving people behind. Bad, because the audience has little time to relate with Joey's masters which strengthens the sense of a somewhat messy narrative.

It is easy to recommend War Horse for its visuals and technical competence. But some viewers may find it overly sentimental, while others may find the story of a horse and a boy getting separated lacking. I certainly would not think it worthy of a Best Picture Oscar nomination but apparently the Academy thought otherwise.

(3D) Blu-ray Player Software for Windows: 2012 Reviews

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Contents

1. Introduction, shared features and limitations (this page)

2. CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Ultra Review

3. ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 Review

4. Corel WinDVD Pro 11, Nero 11 Platinum and Roxio CinePlayer with 3D Reviews

5. Comparison table, overall impressions and conclusion

Here is the new installment in our traditional Windows Blu-ray player software reviews. There's been quite some development in the field since our 2011's comparison. But first things first. Nope, the year may be 2012 (and the end of the world approaching) but there are still no free Windows Blu-ray players. As explained before this mostly comes down to patents and licenses. Licensing Blu-ray technology costs money, which makes it an unlikely proposition for free media players. Laptops which feature BD drives sometimes come with OEM versions of one of the software movie players described here. But OEM versions are often lacking features and they are not updated as regularly as the retail versions of any Blu-ray / DVD player software package.

Since last year Roxio stopped offering Blu-ray playback in their CinePlayer with 3D although it's apparently still marketed as a 3D player. We don't know the exact reason behind this move but it's probably something related to licensing again. And then Corel bought Roxio altogether. So currently there are just four commercial software packages for Windows supporting BD playback. These are CyberLink's PowerDVD 12 Ultra, ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre 5, Corel's WinDVD Pro 11 and Nero 11 Platinum. Some of these manufacturers sell also low-end packages offering cheaper video playing software with restricted functionality (like CyberLink's PowerDVD 12 Pro or PowerDVD 12 Standard), but for Bluray disc playback you will always have to purchase the high-end edition. Note that sometimes we will shorten or abbreviate the name of the reviewed 3D Blu-ray player software package but in all instances we will refer to the highest-end version, e.g., PowerDVD will stand for PowerDVD 12 Ultra. Since Nero have disabled BD playback in their trial version and it's more of an add-on anyway, Nero Platinum 11 is included mainly for completeness rather than being actually tested.

Before we delve into the individual Blu-ray player reviews, here are some of the features and restrictions PowerDVD 12 Ultra, TotalMedia Theatre 5 and WinDVD Pro 11 share in common. All of these Windows media players:

• Run on Microsoft Windows 7, Windows XP (with Service Pack 3) and Windows Vista.
• Are capable of Blu-ray 3D playback.
• Offer support of HDMI 1.4.
• Can convert 2D video to 3D.
• Achieve very high picture quality during BD playback and any distinctions among the video players are practically impalpable on a full HD display. (But this is not exactly the case in regard to upscaling standard definition content or any other content of lower resolution to high definition displays.)
• Support hardware acceleration. This means that decoding calculations are done on the graphics hardware, which enables HD video playback on systems having slow CPUs. Note that hardware acceleration will disable some video processing features because it relegates work to the graphics card driver.
• Work with DTS-HD audio and Dolby TrueHD audio.
• Upscale standard definition / low res video files and DVDs to full HD.
• Support AVCHD video playback. AVCHD is currently the most popular HD video format for video enabled photo cameras and consumer camcorders.
• Offer Remote Control support.
• Enforce content protection and will disable frame capture and clip capture (if applicable) from BDs. Other functions may also be disabled when playing content protected 2D or 3D Blu-ray discs.
• Support player profile 2.0 of BD-Live.
• Allow for several changes of the Blu-ray region code setting (usually limited to 5) inside the BD player software. Not writing the region setting directly in the drive itself uncovers a nice opportunity for turning your PC into a region free Blu-ray player: Windows 7, XP or Vista, two or three different bluray playback software packages and just one BD drive on your computer will do the trick.

Our (3D) Blu-ray player software reviews continue with CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Ultra.

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CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Ultra Review: Blu-ray, DVD & Media Player

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(...continues from Page 1: Introduction to 2012 3D Blu-ray Player Software Reviews)

CyberLink's PowerDVD is the oldest media player in this pack. It is also the first that introduced Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D playback. The current version is the freshly released PowerDVD 12.

In the new edition of their 3D Blu-ray player software, CyberLink have diminished the significance of the monikers TrueTheater HD and TrueTheater 3D for the corresponding upscaling and 2D to 3D converting parts of their video processing engine. In PowerDVD 12 they simply call the whole engine TrueTheater Effects. It is only available when hardware acceleration is disabled though as acceleration relies on the video card driver which is not entirely controlled by the software. TrueTheater Effects offer three notable new features. All of these are pretty nice to have for homemade videos, but we don't recommend them turned on for movies.

First, there is frame rate smoothing which interpolates frames to increase apparent smoothness in movement. This is pretty nice for video, especially home videos, but don't ever turn it on for movies unless you want to make them look like TV. Cinema is shot in 24 frames per second, which induces the strobing effect in object movement and camera pans. Some people call it the dream effect. No reason for anyone to want to get rid of it in a movie, so, again, only use this for home videos. Next, there is a video stabilizer, which attempts to decrease image shaking from handheld cameras. Note that it will cut the borders of the video in order to manage a stable core. Last, there is a denoiser to strip videos from noise. Again, nice for home video, but don't use on movies or you will remove filmic grain from the image.

For some time now CyberLink have put focus on online features. Since version 10 PowerDVD integrates MoovieLive, CyberLink's online movie database and community portal. Initially somewhat lacking in content, this service is now more richly populated. The integration allows the user to post ratings and reviews online and to get context information related to the currently watched movie. There is also a counter taking track how many times a movie has been watched globally. This includes all PowerDVD users and is essentially serving as a popularity rating amongst the PowerDVD community. The Live Comments feature enables status updates to Twitter, Facebook and MoovieLive from within PowerDVD. It is probably most appropriate to use with Twitter as it is closely related to the Twitter paradigm. And for the purists, there are options to turn all these online features off. Publishing to YouTube has been streamlined and you can now publish videos to Facebook. YouTube support has been extended to include 3D videos as well as 2D to 3D conversion for YouTube videos. 2D to 3D support has been made universal, now being extended to Blu-ray playback too. The new version also integrates support for the online music store 7Digital, a DRM free music store with a huge selection of tracks and, coincidentally, our music store of choice. (7Digital integration is supported in selected countries initially; US, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, to be precise.)

As expected, PowerDVD 12 can be integrated with Windows Media Center. In this case it launches a minimalistic interface (the so called Cinema mode), which blends beautifully with WMC. This interface mode is simple, clean and designed to be friendly to remote control use, but nevertheless includes most features of the Classic mode (except files playback). Cinema mode can also be toggled on through an icon in the standard Classic mode interface. The Classic mode itself has been polished and now looks slicker. The media browser also got some new toys and now can rearrange and scale thumbnails. Scaling also extends to actual playback allowing for real time video zoom in and zoom out.

In another move towards integration PowerDVD can now work and cooperate with various devices. Android and iOS devices (smartphones, tablets) can be used as remote controls for PowerDVD 12. Media files and playlists can be synced with Android and Blackberry devices. Syncing will also take care of any format conversions necessary if the mobile device does not support the source format. PowerDVD can also act as both DLNA server and DLNA client and stream from and to devices connected to the home network. Intel WiDi is also supported for wireless streaming to TVs (Blu-ray playback included).

PowerDVD has always been in the forefront amongst commercial video players in terms of format support. Now in a welcome addition there is support for OGG and FLAC audio files (about time, we may say). The new Matroska 3D format MK3D is also supported. And new is support for DTS-HD 7.1 sound from Blu-ray discs. PowerDVD 12 Ultra can now also play from Blu-ray folders, a feature which was previously unique to ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre. An interesting move toward strengthening its status of a universal media player is the support for various picture RAW file formats from advanced photo cameras. Photo enthusiasts will probably enjoy this.

Follow the link to check for a current CyberLink coupon code.

Our 2012 Blu-ray player software reviews continue with ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 5.

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ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 Review: Another All-in-One Media Player

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(...continues from Page 2: CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Ultra Review)

ArcSoft haven't released a new major version of TotalMedia Theatre for more than a year so this part of our 2012 Blu-ray player reviews will partially retell some stuff from last year's article. TMT 5 got some updates during that time though, with optimizations, bug fixes and even some features, so we will cover that.

TotalMedia Theatre 5 was a major update since TMT 3 (version 4 was skipped, thus showing the big leap from version 3). With TMT5 ArcSoft got rid of the multiple editions like Standard, Gold and Platinum and went with just TotalMedia Theatre 5. The others should do well to follow this and unify their offers. The most important addition to TMT 5 was the support of Blu-ray 3D. The Sim3D engine, which is doing the conversions from 2D to 3D, was improved and optimized. After the latest updates the upscaling engine SimHD now includes support for OpenCL on AMD graphics cards (NVIDIA's parallel computing architecture CUDA was already previously supported on NVIDIA hardware). And similar to CyberLink's TrueTheater Effects engine, SimHD includes video post-processing features like noise reduction and framerate smoothing.

ArcSoft have been carefully watching CyberLink's love affair with the Internet. Their online venture though is in a slightly different direction and is mostly focused on YouTube. TotalMedia Theatre 5 can serve as a YouTube browser and player. It allows searches for particular videos and access to the Most Popular and Featured channels. The user can also link and share the currently playing YouTube video to their profile on Facebook.

The user interface of TotalMedia Theatre also got more minimalistic and slicker, and thus feels more streamlined. An elegant interactive grid of thumbnails called Magic View (check the screenshot), which is essentially a very nice media browser, allows browsing all the video lists: user playlists, UPnP media servers, YouTube, the library. You can preview media directly on the grid. A beautiful feature that can also be switched off if you get dizzy by awesomeness like this. There is a Smart Menu feature simulating the pop-up menu of BD movies for DVDs and video files. It enables the user to bookmark scenes or search in IMDB for information about a particular movie in addition to the usual subtitles, audio and chapters options. The integration with Windows Media Center is also improved. It is abundant of features and trouble free.

TotalMedia Theatre 5 added support for various file formats, most notably FLAC, WTV and AVCHD 3D, making it a pretty decent dedicated media player. It also has a pretty extensive and useful subtitles system with manual subtitles selection for video files (unlike PowerDVD's auto subtitles) and What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get positioning of the subtitles. It was also the first Blu-ray player software to include BDMV support (playback from Blu-ray folders). The latest updates have also added various improvements for MKV playback: audio bitstreaming, chapters support, SRT and VobSub subtitles from the container, plus multiple audio tracks support. A notable unique feature of TMT deserving mention is the support for HD DVD. If you happen to have guessed wrong during the format wars and have an HD DVD collection then TotalMedia Theatre should obviously be your player of choice.

A cool recent addition to TMT 5 is the ability to temporarily switch the display's refresh rate to match the frame rate of the video source. This means that if your display has 24hz support, TotalMedia Theatre will automatically play Blu-ray discs (and 23.976 fps files) in 24p. Pretty neat. Similarly to CyberLink, ArcSoft have also released Android and iOS apps, which turn mobile devices into remotes for TMT.

One minor annoyance with ArcSoft's video player which keeps presenting itself version after version is the need to reboot Windows in order to finish off the installation of TotalMedia Theatre 5. Yes, you do this once and it is certainly not a big deal, but, hello, this is 2012 and that's a thing you don't endure with neither PowerDVD, nor WinDVD.

Check the link for an active ArcSoft coupon.

Our Blu-ray player software reviews continue with Corel WinDVD Pro 11, Nero 11 Platinum and Roxio CinePlayer with 3D.

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Corel WinDVD Pro 11, Nero 11 Platinum, Roxio CinePlayer with 3D Review

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(...continues from Page 3: ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 Review)

Corel WinDVD Pro 11

Corel have released a new version of their Windows media player WinDVD since our previous Blu-ray player reviews. The company still offers two variants of video playing software: WinDVD 11 and WinDVD Pro 11, with Blu-ray and 3D support only available in the Pro edition.

Corel's WinDVD lacks some of the bells and whistles of PowerDVD and TotalMedia Theatre but Corel have apparently made a serious effort with this version. WinDVD Pro 11 can now convert 2D to 3D and has updated and optimized 3D support. The processing engine has been improved with video stabilization and framerate smoothing. Both have some problems though. Smoothing introduces some weird artefacts, probably interpolation related, most noticeable around patterns in moving shots. Stabilization occasionally creates lateral jumps in the picture with the default lateral stabilization setting. WinDVD 11 also adds support for MKV, MP4 and FLV formats and for playlists.

Corel now have their own online service FlixFinder, which is integrated in WinDVD. It does meta searches in movie streaming services. Currently these include Amazon, Hulu and Netflix. This allows to compare prices, select the best price and watch the movie immediately.

New users are taken care of with in-software Starter Guide, video tutorials and links to a dedicated Vimeo channel. It seems with this version of WinDVD Corel have also tried more aggressively to gain market share. The list price has been lowered to $79.99 and a free copy of WinZip Pro is added as a bonus at the time of writing of this review in the beginning of 2012. The boxed version also includes a pair of 3D glasses.

Other notable features of WinDVD Pro 11 include: uncluttered and clean interface; multitude of power management options for battery control on notebooks; a time-stretch function to squeeze in the end of the movie you're watching in limited time situations; PAL TruSpeed - an option to play sped up 24-to-25 fps PAL videos at their true speed with automatic correction of audio pitch; parental control; clip capture.

Nero 11 Platinum / Nero Kwik Blu-ray

Nero used to offer a Blu-ray playback plug-in for some of their applications. Things are much more simple now: in order to get BD support you need their flagship application suite Nero 11 Platinum. The suite includes Nero Kwik Media for media browsing, sharing on Facebook and syncing with Android devices, Nero Video for basic video editing, Nero Burning Rom for burning discs (including Blu-ray discs), Nero Recode for transcoding various media formats and ripping DVD discs, Nero BackItUp for files backup.

BD playback here should really be thought of as a bonus. That is, you should be getting Nero for their other applications and not for the BD playback alone. Nero doesn't support 3D (including Blu-ray 3D), nor does it support any HD audio formats. Also, note that Blu-ray playback is not included in the free trial so you are not able to test it before buying.

Update:

To confirm the trend of frequent changes in the Blu-ray software world, a new option for BD playback appeared just before publishing this article. It seems that now Nero 11, Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Essentials, Nero Video 11 and Nero Kwik Media can also play Blu-ray movies with the additional purchase of Nero Kwik Blu-ray. You can check this opportunity directly in Nero's store cause it seems there is not detailed information about Nero Kwik Blu-ray at the time of this writing. Our advice to think of Nero's Blu-ray disc playback only as an added bonus to other Nero's applications remains. But if you plan to buy one of the mentioned Nero products or already own one of them you can consider getting Nero's BD software player too cause the price for this addition won't be too high. Even if it's not as good as its competitors and you decide to buy a better video player you can still use Nero's as an option for playing Blu-rays with region codes different than your regular discs.

Roxio CinePlayer with 3D

This paragraph is here to inform that Roxio's CinePlayer that used to be a 3D Blu-ray player is currently only a 3D player. We don't know exactly why Roxio do not offer support for BD playback in their CinePlayer anymore but it could do something with the fact that Corel has recently bought Roxio. There is still 3D video support in CinePlayer with 3D, as the name suggests, so if you happen to be just after a cheap 3D video player and don't care for the lack of Blu-ray playback support too much (although why would you be reading an article comparing Blu-ray player software then?), this inexpensive video playing program may actually be a good option. Also have in mind that Roxio CinePlayer offers RealD 3D support so it is a possible choice if you are looking for cheap RealD 3D player software too.

To look for available discounts of WinDVD or Nero's products check here.

Let's complete our 2012 reviews of Blu-ray playback software with comparison table and conclusion.

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Blu-ray Software Player Reviews 2012: Comparison and Conclusion

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(...continues from Page 4: Corel WinDVD Pro 11, Nero 11 Platinum & Roxio CinePlayer with 3D Reviews)

Comparison and general impressions

Performance was once again tested on the computer system we used for our 2011's Blu-ray player reviews. It is equipped with Intel i5-430m CPU, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics video card, 4GB DDR3 RAM and MS Windows 7 OS. We actually used the same disc for the 2012's tests, so the result can be compared with last year's (bear in mind that some error of measurement surely exists).

	PowerDVD	TMT	WinDVD
CPU load1	9.0%	6.6%	11.2%
Loading times2	4:12s	9:13s	9:28s
Upscale to HD	Yes	Yes	Yes
2D to 3D	Yes	Yes	Yes
Blu-ray 3D	Yes	Yes	Yes
WMC integration	Yes	Yes	No
HDMI 1.4	Yes	Yes	Yes
Time stretch	Yes	Yes	Yes
Online features	Lots	Some	Some
.mkv support	Yes	Yes	Yes
FLAC support	Yes	Yes	No
Blu-ray folders	Yes	Yes	No
DLNA	Yes	No	No
HD DVD	No	Yes	No
Mobile remote	Yes	Yes	No
Free trial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Built-in updates check	Yes	Yes	Yes
Price3	$99.95	$99.99	$79.99

1. Average CPU load during playback of MPEG-4 AVC stream with hardware acceleration on.
2. Average BD loading times based on 5 measurements with each Blu-ray software player.
3. Regular price; various promos or discounts may apply.

Blu-ray playback quality is good with all three players. Image quality is indistinguishable between them due to decoding being done by the graphics card driver.

Funnily, the problem with WinDVD we mentioned last year manifested itself again. At some point during testing WinDVD refused to run in full HD resolution and started requesting a change to lower screen resolution on startup, then quitting. From then on, this happened on each and every start of WinDVD when there was a Blu-ray disc inserted in the Blu-ray drive. TotalMedia Theatre has obviously been polished in the updates following the initial release of version 5 because there weren't any glitches whatsoever this time around. The table even shows some small performance increase, probably due to optimizations. PowerDVD got a major version update recently and this shows in occasional slight lag in the options menu. No crashes or apparent bugs though. On top of smooth playback PowerDVD 12 Ultra impressively does quick fast forwarding (also on Blu-rays) most notable when dragging the movie playback position on the timeline. None of the others can boast about that. It is worth mentioning that PowerDVD and TMT tend to get updated more often than WinDVD, which may result in fewer problems (if any) with newer Blu-ray discs.

In terms of upscaling PowerDVD still looks most pleasing when software upscaling is used. It is a bit subjective, but to these eyes here this is the case. So if you watch a lot of DVDs or standard definition files it is probably best to get PowerDVD 12 Ultra. With hardware acceleration enabled the differences between all of the software Blu-ray players vanish and as already mentioned it is better to have any post-processing options in the video card driver's control panel disabled. Image "enhancements" like oversharpened picture, plasticky faces or edge enhancement may appear otherwise.

Conclusion

It is once again a tough call between CyberLink's PowerDVD and ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre. On the other hand, things are simple: both are pretty good, so you can't go wrong with either. Nevertheless, we can safely recommend PowerDVD 12 to online addicts or people who like to have lots of features available, and TotalMedia Theatre 5 to the purists or anyone who finds PowerDVD's online expansion bloated. Everyone else will most likely do fine with either of them, but if you can't make a choice yet better have another look at the dedicated paragraphs: maybe there is something you've overlooked in our reviews which can help choosing the best Blu-ray player software for your particular needs. For users whose main consideration is price, Corel's WinDVD Pro 11 may be a solution although it's not considerably cheaper than its competitors and it's not as inexpensive as last year's cheapest offering in the face of the retired Roxio CinePlayer BD with 3D.

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The Effects of Listening to Music on Our Body

This is a guest article sent to us by an anonymous user.

There is nothing like listening to good old music to calm your nerves or to get you in an even more elated state than you already are in some of the most happiest moments of your life. Turning to music is one of the most primitive reactions of an average person.

No one is alien to the fact, that when we feel down or saddened, our feelings are most soothed by listening to slow, soft music which usually is written on a sad note. Similarly when excited or in a party, our body craves to move on rhythmic beats accompanied by loud music. And it is therefore no wonder that romantic movies are best accompanied by some of the most popular love lyrics.

But this is a craving exhibited by our body that knows no scientific laws and is therefore part of the most innate natures of mankind. Now, however, when science sees no limits when exploring in new aspects of the human brain and mind, research has unravelled the mysteries of how music really affects the brain and its psyche. So buckle up to find the true ways of how music affects our body.

A new branch of health care, known as Music Therapy has been evolved after research confirmed that not only does music affect the brain's cognitive functions, it can even be used for therapeutic purposes in patients suffering from chronic to general ailments. So far experts have used Music therapy to help kids suffering from ADD, patients going through painful recovery, patients suffering from mild to chronic depression, those whose bodies are showing restricted movements and even cancer patients.

Music can have a varying effect on different people and is therefore varyingly used by experts on these patients. To help understand better, let's look at what are the different effects music has on the human body.

The Effects on Brain

The beat of the music can actually stimulate the waves in the brain in sync with the music beat. So that the relatively faster beats, can instigate sharper thinking modes and similarly slow music can promote calmness in the brain. This ability of the music can be used to a great advantage. For instance, the brain could be stimulated to a state with the help of the music and it is going to stay there for a long time after the music has stopped.

The Effects on the Heart and Breathing

Just as the brain waves are stimulated with the help of the music, other bodily functions are also affected by listening to different sorts of music. The autonomic nervous system in the body can bring about a few changes of its own when a person listens to music. Some of the changes that it can bring are reduced rate of breathing and reduced heart rate bringing about a totally relaxed bodily response. Therefore, listening to soothing music can relieve stress.

Miscellaneous Effects

Some of the other effects that have been revealed through research and experimentation are a positive state of mind, lowered blood pressure and a general reduction in the risk of some heart diseases.

Duel (1971): One of Steven Spielberg's Less Popular Jewels

Most probably, you've already seen plenty of Steven Spielberg's movies but it's quite possible you haven't seen one of his first films made for the TV yet. Duel is a remarkable movie in many aspects. Duel does not have an extensive cast. It does not sport any huge film stars. One of the two Duel's characters that matter is practically invisible throughout the movie. There is not a lot of talking and almost everything in Duel's an hour and a half long time span happens on the road or along it. Yet, this is a film that captures your attention from the beginning and keeps it absorbed until its end.

Duel's plot is quite simple. David Mann (Dennis Weaver), a man from California, drives through the desert for a business appointment outside of his town. After David passes a massive truck, its driver begins to chase him and does not give up independently of David's attempts to lose him. It appears the truck driver has no other occupation than pursuing David hidden in his big truck.

As unpretentious the plot might seem, it's enough to entertain you for the entire continuance of the movie. Duel starts with random transmissions from various radio stations that are interesting on their own. It continues with some common road activities and subtly proceeds to the thrilling part. From then on, the suspense is constantly there and if you've been wondering what substance could stuff a movie based entirely on a road chase, you are going to stop at this point. It's easy to guess where the movie is heading for and even that the chase could have a tragic conclusion for one of the participants but you will not know who and how until the very end of the film. In fact, you won't be completely sure about the reasons for the pursuit even after Duel ends.

Dennis Weaver has a heavy task in this movie because he must carry out the whole narrative on his shoulders. He copes with the assignment quite well. His character tries to simulate self-confidence but he is a man who has doubts about everything. He is easily frightened and tries to avoid any possible problems, yet this results in overreactions and often inadequate behaviour. David is the perfect guy to be chased by a psycho.

The problem I have with this character though is why he doesn't just turn his car back when he has many occasions to do it and especially when he realizes that he has missed the meeting. This is pretty much the main flaw of the movie since it doesn't fit in the character's profile. David Mann is hardly a man who would like to prove anything to a malevolent stranger. It would have been much better if the moviemakers had decided to present the whole chase as happening after the meeting and David travelling towards home since his wife waiting for him would be a substantial reason to continue in that direction regardless of the truck following him. Of course, it's not very likely to expect from a movie with a plot limited in the aforementioned boundaries to be flawless so this fault is excusable although diminishing Duel's realism.

Despite that flaw and a couple of other minor plot issues the execution of this project is rather good and Duel is an important demonstration of Steven Spielberg's capabilities in his early days. Duel is suspenseful. The events happening along the road are feasible. And the chase itself is memorable and haunting. This results in an easy recommendation of Duel to all movie lovers, a recommendation which is even more easier to the fans of Spielberg or to the admirers of thrilling experiences.

Haywire (2011): A Watchable Film with Wasted Potential

What happens if you put together a beautiful retired mixed martial arts fighter (Gina Carano), an Academy Award winning director (Steven Soderbergh), several famous actors (Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor) and a mediocre story? Well, apparently a haywire movie. Although in reality Haywire is not a disastrous film I expected a better film bearing in mind all of the people involved in its production.

Haywire presents a couple of weeks in the life of secret operations near-freelancer Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) who is regularly hired for various undercover missions via her "boss" Kenneth (Ewan McGregor). After a hostage rescue mission in Barcelona, Mallory is quickly assigned to a new task in Dublin. She has some suspicions though and discovers that she has been set up and her life is in a real danger. Mallory has to use her fighting skills (which she uses well) to survive and her training for secret missions to escape her chasers and get back into the United States where she is determined to find out the truth and to revenge on all implicated in her getting in trouble.

In fact, Haywire starts fairly well and slowly loses potential. While we see some of Carano's martial arts skills, there are a lot of other misused people and items. As mentioned before Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas and Ewan McGregor star in the movie but they are rarely shown on the screen. Michael Douglas plays government agent Coblenz but he is pretty much an expendable character and rarely appears in the movie. Antonio Banderas' Rodrigo is kind of Coblenz's contact but he is almost as redundant as Coblenz himself and it's strange why these two actors have accepted their minor roles in Haywire. Ewan McGregor, whose part is to be the head of the private firm Mallory works for, does not have much to do throughout the movie as well although the amount of his participation could be considered passable. From the rest of the cast, Michael Fassbender is worth a mention giving a good performance as a British agent who is unfortunate to meet Mallory at the wrong place and time.

It should have become clear from the above that Gina Carano is the main driving force in Haywire. But speaking of driving, even the appearance of a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution car in the film is not used to its full potential. Mallory drives the car of a random guy who tries to help her but there is nothing noticeable in the few driving scenes to justify the use of this mighty vehicle (even in the light of product positioning). And speaking of that random guy with the car, he is also completely expendable.

The direction of Steven Soderbergh is decent but he has filmed much better pictures than Haywire. There is enough suspense in the movie up till a certain point (mainly while the retrospective sequences last) and after that it becomes quite straightforward without twists and surprises. The only not so obvious part is whether Michael Douglas' character is "good" or "bad" but you cannot be completely sure about this even after the ending of Haywire.

For fans of Steven Soderbergh or any of the actors, Haywire is understandably a must see film. For all of the rest, it's a decent movie but if you have better opportunities for spending your time do not wonder too much which option to choose.

GoDaddy.com Attempts a New Domain Name Registration Scam

I had quite an unpleasant domain name registration experience with GoDaddy yesterday. I don't know if this is a new way for Go Daddy to cheat you and "steal" your money but at least it was the first time they attempted to pull this domain scam on me. I have been using GoDaddy.com for registering domain names for years and I haven't been so displeased by them as other people. The registrar usually tries to sell services you most probably do not want but once you've become accustomed to their methods, they are easy to be quickly omitted. So, until yesterday, I didn't mind to register generic top level domains there. Now, after they supported SOPA bill and my recent obnoxious discovery about them, I think it's time to reconsider using GoDaddy's domain registration services.

So, what's the story? Yesterday, I decided to register a .com domain name for a new website which I intended to create with a friend of mine. We liked a name and I incidentally checked if it was available for registration at EuroDNS (the registrar where I had registered some international domain names, mainly European and Asian). The domain look up at EuroDNS showed that this particular name is unoccupied. So, I went to GoDaddy.com and began the steps required for domain name registrations. What was my surprise when immediately upon entering the domain it showed that the name had been already taken but available for purchase at GoDaddy auctions for $499 USD. I repeated the search several times while trying to figure out what was the reason for this "unavailability" and all of my attempts at Go Daddy showed that the domain name was already registered.

I knew that EuroDNS sometimes displays wrong information about domain availability so I decided to check if the domain name is free at a couple of other domain registrars. I did the check and there was nothing wrong with EuroDNS this time, the domain appeared to be available for registration wherever I checked. Then I thought of another test. I went back to GoDaddy and instead of searching for [domain name].com, I made a search for [domain name].info. And as you might guess, now the .com version was listed as available and ready to be registered.

Obviously, GoDaddy's trick is pretty simple. When you make a domain name lookup at GoDaddy.com, sometimes, they decide to show an unregistered domain as already taken and listed for sale at GoDaddy's auctions. If this scam successfully misleads you, there are 2 options. If you really want this domain name, you'll have to pay tens if not hundreds of times bigger amount for it instead of the regular GoDaddy's domain name registration price. If the multiplied price is too high for you or you are not so much into this particular domain, I suppose Go Daddy assumes that you are just going to register another name with them and thus, they will still get (or keep) you as a customer.

The bad thing is, as nasty as GoDaddy's behavior is, the fraud could actually work quite often. In fact, if you haven't accidentally become aware a particular domain name is available for registration, chances are not very huge that you'll figure out Go Daddy is trying to cheat you. I hope this writing creates some awareness about the described GoDaddy scam scheme and if you think it could be helpful to your friends, just share the article with them.

A necessary addition

Because it appears there are a lot of people with a "headache" that have not other job but to accuse others, here are some further clarifications.

1) I did not write the above because GoDaddy "stole" the domain name from me. I successfully registered that name and I own it now. It has been available for registration for all of the time in question so I have not had any problems with its registration. It was available for registration at all other registrars and even at GoDaddy if I searched for the .info version instead of the .com version.

2) Actually, the whole problem described above lies in GoDaddy's implementation of their website and particularly the domain look up. Apparently, if a domain name has been listed for sale through their auctions (and has not been removed) they directly display it as already taken and they offer it to you at the auction price instead of making a check if the name hasn't become available at the time of the check. I don't know the reasons behind this implementation but it's hard to believe it's implemented this way unintentionally. Whether this is a scam depends on your definition of the word but definitely, it is not proper.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974): Agatha Christie's Mystery

Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express is packed with great actors. It has a good and interesting (despite being a bit narrow) plot based on a book by the world famous Agatha Christie. The director is arguably one of the best directors that have ever lived. The costumes and all other details are carefully crafted. And pretty much everything seems to be perfect at first glance. Then it's quite strange that although plenty of people like this movie, there are many that nearly hate it. The main reason probably lies in Albert Finney's representation of detective Hercule Poirot who creates a distinguishable character which is easy to be loved but equally easy to be hated too.

Multiple Oscar nominee (incl. for his role in Murder on the Orient Express) Albert Finney presents a really notable Hercule Poirot. He is intelligent but arrogant. He does not show sympathy for everybody. He could be gentle and charming with ladies yet impolite and restrained with particular men. He speaks with accent and sometimes it's hard to understand what he is saying. He manifests a sense of humour but he is also capable to be plain serious. He is a bit annoying at times and overly self-confident most of the time. All this translates to a character that could be simultaneously enjoyed and disliked depending on different people's perceptions.

While Finney gives quite a distinctive performance of Poirot, the rest of the all-star cast has not been misused either. Lauren Bacall as Mrs. Hubbard plays an important part constantly providing Poirot with clues and pieces of evidence. Martin Balsam enacts the train line director Bianchi who shows a lot of concern for the future of the Orient express after the murder has been committed on his train. Ingrid Bergman gets her 3rd Academy Award for a convincing (yet small) role of religious missionary in this movie. Jacqueline Bisset, Vanessa Redgrave, Wendy Hiller, Sean Connery, John Gielgud and Jean-Pierre Cassel are only some of the other renowned actors that make great portrayals in the film.

The movie exposes the life in 1935 with very typical shades. Almost all of the colorful and rich characters are very snobbish. The vehicles, the papers, the costumes are well selected and fits perfectly in the epoch. Sidney Lumet creates enough suspense although he has made tenser movies. The tight environment determined by the dimensions of a train car could call forth some parallels with Lumet's 12 Angry Men but this is quite a different film. In fact, the lack of space here probably furthers any theatrical resemblance that the acting could prompt eventually.

Another moment that could dissatisfy some moviegoers is the fact the ending revelations are not quite naturally coming out of the investigations presented in the film. Still, this is a common "feature" of most of the movies based on mystery books (a recent example could be Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) so it's not such a specific flaw of Murder on the Orient Express. Despite its shortcomings this is a solid film. I can see where both its admirers and their opponents are drawing arguments from but it's a movie that is worth a look even just because of its (kind of a controversial) ending.