Fast 4 Furious Review

As the small introduction of a movie, L.A., fugitive ex-con, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) teams up with Agent Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) to take down a shared enemy, who both of them owe something they really wanted. But for that they have to gain the respect to infiltrate gang to by street racing and transporting stuff across the border and all. And these 2 men are ready to do what ever it take to take their revenge and take this psychotic drug kinpin to justice.

The Good Side

The movie was really awesome. Unlike the other fast and the furious episodes, the 4th was really superb from the writing. The story was continued from the first episode where Brian let go Dom and meet up when they wanted. So they have team in this 4th episode to carry on with the normal story. But Brain also stared in the second installment but it has nothing to do with the first one and Fast and the furious - tokyo drift has nothing to do with any of these. And in the forth , it all came back on track.

Another thing about this movie is some of the stunts have performed by the actors without using any fake visual effects. There was a scene where Dom and the clan taking of the oil tanks one by one, which you must have already seen in the trailers. There, most of the stunts by professionals , without adding any effects.

The script was also done nicely.. I don't about others, but for me, its posiible to understand what are they telling every single word.

The favorite scene of mine is the cave scene. When they cross the border with the illegal stuff, they were using some underground cave system to cross over. And inside the cave movie was shot perfectly and really awesome. And evey scene which was done it inside the cave is MAX. ( Now thats u call special effects :D )

Freaky little things

Of course everone knows , fast and the furious is all about car and illegal races though the city. But in this what i have spoted is that there are more action other than races. yeah that is kinda bad ... well not quiet.. because its not just only normal action, its about car action. Everything is done by ride. And not that much of a races.

And is this about new modified rides with some new stunts, gadgets and technology ? or its about the girls ? its up to you to deside :D

Finally

Well it is worth of watching this movie @ cinema other than watching at home. And if u are a fan of Fast and the furious series, specially the 1st one, you definatly gotta see this.;)

Fast and the Furious 4 in Majestic Cinema

As everyone was waiting , Fast and the furious 4 is now officaillay show in Majestic Cinema - Bambalapitiya, starting from yesterday(16th of may). After the 3rd installment , Fast and the furious 4 - Tokyo Drift, the director,Justin Lin carried on with the forth installment with the old team Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez.

Cast
Vin Diesel - Dominic Toretto
Paul Walker - Brian O'Conner
Michelle Rodriguez - Letty
Jordana Brewster - Mia

So there's a good movie to watch in this weekend. Hope ouy all enjoy it. ;)
Will Be back with reviews (Fingers crossed) :D

Misconception about PNGs ?

What all this PNG all about?

Portable Network Graphics (ping), shortly known as PNG is an image type like every other image types. Mainly it was found and developed as a replacement for GIF format, which had some designing issue and for some other legal stuff, which is kind of complicated.

With this great tool designers can almost able to create new unique designs for their website, other that sitting inside the boring looking layout, with a big banner and a menu underneath and so on. Its like breaking the ground rules of the web designing industry with by introducing the PNG file, until getting into misconception because the old technology.

What’s the different between other images types?

This PNG tool gives us a wide range of features than the old formats.

• Color depth
  The new image breed has some awesome good quality comparing to the other images.
• File size
  As I mentioned above, it gives some good quality image for a normal size JPG file size.
• Alpha-channel transparency
  PNG supports ultimate transparency and fully opaque like you have seen in your favorite image editing software.

It is also Ideal file to create logos, vectors with PNG so it be more quality and clear.

If we look closely the transparent compatibility of a PNG is more effective than the old GIF formats. For an example, if we take a box with a shadow, slice it and preview in Mozilla Firefox, GIF formats wont show them the way it was. But in PNG every detail you saw in the scratch can be seen in your site.

Misconceptions about PNG?

Everything went well, but not quiet. There are limitations in these PNG working with older browsers like IE 6 and Netscape because they are not up to date as the web industry get more complex. So is there any special superpower in these PNGs ?

PNG file type contains a filter called Alpha-channel transparency which contains all the unique details like transparency and opaque. Since the older browsers haven’t updated recently, they don’t recognize what all this PNGs and it features all about. Even though some browsers like IE6 has a filter that overcome with this problem, called AlphaImageLoader, but it wont support the PNGs images at all. So the browsers just show them as normal image and convert the transparency area with a blueish looking green color.

And this is where all starts. Since most of the developing countries people still uses Windows XP , where the default browser will be IE6. And developers has no time to go through this problem or they will end up with nothing at the end and they still stick with their old way, using GIF images, even if they gets more heavier as they get more quality. And that’s why the GIFs are still keeping running on.

But thanks to some of the brave developers, they have came with some solutions, which can solve this headache. Some of them developed JavaScript’s and attached to the file which includes the PNG files. Or add some special styles and put them between conditional comments so they will be only detect by the IE6.

Bad solution

As a result, Microsoft came up with a solution. By defining AlphaImageLoader filter from CSS to solve the problem.

Example

But things didn’t go very well, as they came up with some list of pitfalls of it.

• Links become unclickable
  After applying this link to PNGs, it will become unclickable in IE6. So u wont be able put any anchor tags to the images.
• Consumes more resources
  The filter may take some times to render the PNG file and consumes a load for resources, which will end up crashing the browser in most of low performance PCs.
• Background CSS style may not work
  CSS rules like background-repeat, background-position may not work with this.

50:50 Solutions

But the good news is some of the other developers also came with some great way to dodge this bullet, with some minor pitfalls of it.

Faux Transparency on the Web
In this way, the developer hasn’t involved the transparency option in this. The main thing that they have done is, to use a solid, normal JPG image and place it where you wanted. For a example, if a nice logo overflow on top the navigation bar, the developer slice it with the navigation part and place where u wanted.

As a disadvantage, the same images take the same time to load and it will take a lot of time to load the whole website if you have used it along the page. And if u want to change the navigation bar position or remove the navigation bar, you have to go all the way back to scratch so slice the images again.

The example you going to see is a menu on a css background image. And move a little and see what will happen

Example

Using SuperSleight JavaScript
This also a great way to overcome this crisis. The only thing u have to do is to attach the javascript within conditional comments, to the page you are working on, , only to effect on IE6 browser. The script will detect and re-lay the PNG transparency with the existing 1 by 1 GIF file by using AlphaImageLoaded.
The only pitfall this has is that if the user who doesn’t have javascript or javascript disabled, he has to face into some ugly design errors.

The above example done by PNG before adding the script.It may display with errors in IE6

Example | Download

IE PNG Alpha Fix
The Twinhelix developers came up with a solution, by using a file type called .htc , replacing the transparency with the 1 x1 pixel GIF image.

But as you know the behavior is not a valid CSS declaration. Even though its commented inside conditional comments so it will be only read by IE6.

Example | Download

Conclusion

PNG is break through for the web design industry. It has just given the chance to designers and developers to create more creative and unique design than before. Sadly some old browsers are not compatible of supporting this tool. But still ,it’s a great challenge for the developer to find solution for this headache that will be helpful in the future development.

Dragon Ball Z : Evolution Sucks Hightime

Hey.
Guess who's back :D

Today me and our gang (k-1) :D went to see Dragon Ball Z.. Well didnt actually went to see that But ended up there. Embarrassingly it wasn't showing and still on the next movie list @ the theater. Well that's my fault all right. Hope my colleagues ain't mad at me. I feel like guilty myself :|.. Also there was a list who said coming to see the movie and didnt make at the last time. Classes , whether, gone out and unlucky ended up with two of us. Hope he is not scolding at me atm :|


Anw Back to the movie...

Two words i have to say if u ever planned to watch the movie. "DBZ Sucks".. I dont know whether you guys agree with me, but they must have done something better than this.

First of all, comparing to the cartoon its way to flop. Well i dont follow the DBZ cartoon that much. But once i watch 2 or 3 episodes, it was really addicting. Like even some fights goes around 2,3 episodes. It seems the cartoon series was better than the movie. I dont know how all the cartoon series lovers disappointed after watching this.

The other thing is the film plot is not that good enough. Lets say about that about that devil monkey guy i dont remember his name. They just give a basic introduction of it thats all.. just like come and goes lol.. I dont think a new comer will really understand what this all about. So surely he ll be like "HUH ?"

Also not strong enough. Sometimes the inside stories breaks up without ending it correctly. Like when Goku at the party he just suddenly feels something is wrong and runs away. It doesn't give a very good reason for that.

And i thought i was wrong about myslef.. Well not quiet ;)
Rotten Tomatos Reviews


I would rather stay home and do some other works. :$

The movie effects are ok.. But sometimes they have over used them. Like in the beginning. Too much slow moves :D
I think the Silver Surfer was better than this :D

So i think its not worth of watching the movie in theater. But still if u really wanna watch , Dont watch it !.


Well this is what came to my mind. And i dont know whether these comments are how correct. Just what i felt about the movie.. Anw feel free to leave your comments ;)\


Anw planing for some new movies to watch soon as they get to the theater :D ( err... i better double check before im going, whether is it showing or not :S .. Sorry again mate :)

Signing off
Hash ;)