The Da Vinci Code

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The Da Vinci Code
By: Dan Brown
Publisher: Double Day

Recently I got to lay my hands on the much talked about book The Da Vinci code.
The first thing about the book is that the story from the start is very gripping in nature and not for one moment while reading the book did I feel lost out or bored. What I like about Dan Brown is that he writes small chapters and that repeats with The Da Vinci Code. What this does is makes you read a few more pages and then a few more, because you feel that it’s a few more pages to end the chapter and so the next one. This coupled along with an intriguing story makes a deadly combination.

Here is a little list of the main characters in the story:

Jacques Sauniere: Curator Louvre Museum
Robert Langdon: Professor of Religious symbology , Harvard University
Agent Sophie Neveu: Department of Cryptography
Captain Bezu Fache: French Police
Opus Dei: Conservative Catholic congregation, established in 1928 which literally means God’s work
Bishop Manuel Aringarosa: Head of Opus Dei
Silas: member of Opus Dei
Sir Leigh Teabing: A British citizen who was knighted, is an historian and the owner of Chateau Villete in the suburbs of France.
Remy Legaludec: Sir Teabing’s Butler

At the start of the story the book features a page, with the heading FACT. It says a few things and then it mentions-
“All the description of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in the novel are accurate”.
This is quite similar to rest of Dan Brown’s novel but the matter inside is striking. It might be unacceptable to Christians but when you hear the author explaining the matter he has put forward you might be start looking at the possibility that it might be actually true.

The back of the book says this –
“While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body and the floor around him covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu, sor through bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci – clues visible for all to see & yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.
Even more starting, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion – an actual secret society whose members including Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo & Da Vinci , among others – and he guarded a breath taking historical secret. Unless Langdon & Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle – while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move – the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever.”

I guess saying more than a word about the story will be injustice to such a marvelous book & talented author. If you like to read fiction you should go for the Da Vinci code. It's a must read.

Score 9/10

Thankyou for reading

With Warm Regards
Anurag Singh

You might consider visiting the following sites for more information
DaVinciCode.com
DanBrown.com

Diwali

Today is Diwali here in India. The festival of lights.
Check out fire crackers being sold in the make shift shops on the eve.
I did not buy any crackers this year as I am all alone (no firecracker partner lol) and it ain't fun busting crackers alone. Anyway may be I'll have some fun next time. I did get a few candles (2 packets 18 in each) and some sweets & ummm what else did I get ??? Yes I bought three games for my Ps2

(1) Burnout : Revenge
(2) The Warriors
(3) Tony Hawks : American Wasteland

Bacteria !!

I grabbed this photo in my Microbiology Lab. That is a petri dish containing Maconkey's Agar with Ecoli colonies.
This in common language called "culture". When a person is infected by certain pathogen then they are tried to be isolated to make a confirm diagnosis so as to decide the best line of treatment .

Fetch That Mail

Mozilla ThunderBird

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THUNDERBIRD MAIN WINDOW



(1) Fetch Mail
(2) Folders
(3) Connection Status
(4) Address Book
(5) List of Mails in the Folder
(6) Preview of the mail

INTERFACE

ThunderBird now features a sleek, neat & tidy work area and a large number of features(as u can see in the above screenshot). It's pretty easy to work with,
Searching mail is a breeze just as in Gmail or Yahoo. Just type it in the search box and " Hey Presto U've got it ! "
Apart from the normal functions it features Labels (Yeah , just like in Gmail) sadly you can't create any new ones(gotta work with the predefined ones).
ThunderBird Supports Themes , it simply means that you are no longer stuck to the boaring interface.

COMPOSING


ThunderBird features pretty basic features (as one would expect). What users would appericiate is Email suggestion as you type, from the Address Book.



SWITCH-OVER (Uh! Why¿)

Most of you (guess excepting a few...errrr.leave it) have email accounts and more than 60 percent of you use an Email Client(so....?) . If I were to say "Quit your Clients and Adopt ThunderBird" you'd definatively be aroused to ask "Why ?"

Privacy

The Most prime concern these days seems Privacy. I dunno whom to thank the media, the viruses or the spam..anyway... ThunderBird seems to have it all undercontrol.
It's Adaptive Spam filters ensure that all the spam goes where they rightly belong and also that you need not download any addons. Spam fighting is very well inbuilt in it. Apart from that , easy to create 'n use rules add the iceing on the cake(or the flag on the mountain..whatever)
ThunderBird integrated well with PGP and GnuPG as well. Ofcouse you need to download Them seprately.

RSS READER

Now there's no need for a seprate Rss reader your mail client does that for you and it does it in a style. It's a breeze (as walk in the park,or talk in the back or......Shutup!) to use it.

ADDRESS BOOK


I particulary like the Address Book functionality of ThunderBird. One can easily import address book from Outlook or any supported file format. Apart from that the Address Book is pretty much similar to Outlook.

MESSAGE GROUPING


Another nifty feature let's u group messages. It Neatly labels them and arranges in folders.

EXTENSIONS

If all of this doesn't answer your appetite then there are extensions to the rescue. Basically extensions are notting but Plugins that increase the functionality of the program. There are tons (literally) available on the net.

WHAT'S NOT COOL

Every-one has got both something good & Bad. So does ThunderBird.
If you are looking for Email Client only then ThunderBird's For you but if you depend heavily on reminders , scheduling , appointments etc the arrow turns the other wayround. Calander Project (an extension) can be downloaded but it's has very limited functionality.

So If you are looking for a EMAIL CLIENT and ThunderBird suits you then Go Get It.

Thankyou for reading the posting
Looking for your Comments & Creative Suggestions
With Warm Regards

Anurag Singh


For more Information please visit :
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird