‘News’ Category

The Top Five Cruise Ship Movies of All Time

May 3rd, 2011 Tushar Mathur

Cruises, we either spend our lives saving to go on one or go to the ends of the earth the avoid them. The truth is, luxury cruises have moved on and no longer conform to the stereotypical view that many people hold of this unique type of floating holiday. That’s right cruises are no longer synonymous with shuffling coffin dodgers sunbathing by day and waltzing lethargically by night. This is indeed demonstrated by modern Hollywood and while the events of the big screen admittedly don’t always mirror the actual goings on on the average cruise ship. These movies do however demonstrate that cruises aren’t all about light aerobics on the deck and talent shows.

1.       Speed 2: Cruise Control

In this high-octane thriller, Sandra Bullock and Jason Patric play a couple partaking on a romantic cruise. This is soon foiled by an Evil genius who reprograms the ship’s computers, sending it on a collision course with the island of St. Martin.

2.       Ghost Ship

When on a mission in the Baring sea, a salvage crew discover a ship that went on luxury cruises lost since 1962. The crew claim the ship as their own, but upon further exploration, find that the vessel is home to some dark secrets.

3.       Titanic

The this a classic, Titanic is one of biggest grossing films of all time and charts the burgeoning relationship between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet aboard the doomed ship.

4.       The Poseidon Adventure

Much in same vein as Titanic, the Poseidon adventure follows the exploits of a ship struck by disaster. The crew and passenger’s lives are quite literally turned upside down when a wave hits the rickety old ship causing it to capsize and forcing the survivors to find a way out.

5.       Triangle

This film begins on a yacht, but when it’s caught up in a storm in the middle of the Bemuda Triangle, a cruise liner comes to the rescue, aboard the cruise liner the stricken survivors notice something’s wrong and begin a terrifying adventure.

It certainly says something about the nature of cruise ships that all these movies have to inject some element of horror or disaster to create a viable storyline! It’s not all bad if you are going on a cruise however, at least you be surrounded by the walking dead or hounded by an evil genius!

Joe is a travel blogger who doesn’t let such movies interfere with his perceptions of the cruise industry. You can follow him on Twitter @joe__johnson__

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Planes, Trains and Automobiles?

December 14th, 2010 Tushar Mathur

We’re getting to the time of year again where a colleague of mine spends her time planning for her mammoth return home to see her family across the channel.  She’s frantically packing already, making sure that she has all of the expensive essentials needed for the trip … no not presents for the family Christmas when she gets there, but for the trip itself!

After two years of being subject to queues and strikes at ferry terminals she was, last year, tempted by the underwater, rather than overwater journey and so signed up for her first ever sub-channel crossing.  Regrettably, she then found herself caught up in the under channel equivalent of ‘leaves on the line’ with the unfortunate pre-Christmas cold spell that arrived around mid-December, causing the breakdowns of trains in the tunnel, which then caused chaos both underground: with passengers being shuttled off the frozen trains; and over-ground at the terminals: with tailbacks of transport well into the A20 at Dover.

Notwithstanding that she did find herself enjoying some comedy moments worthy of the Steve Martin classic ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ (and some of the language moments – if you know the film, you will know what I mean), trapped as she was, in full possession of the tickets-money-passport essentials but without the thermals-boiled-sweets-cocoa sustenance required, she is not taking any chances this year: her packing is taking on the appearance of that required for the base camp of a trip up the Eiger – everything ‘just in case’ literally and metaphorically.

This leaves me with a few questions, such as:  my poor mate learned valuable lessons from last year’s trip, albeit on the basis of “I’ll laugh about this when it’s all over”, but have similar lessons in advance preparation and prevention also been learned by those worthy executives that run our heavily relied upon under-channel service?  Has anyone looked at the forecast and noticed that it’s only November and some parts of the country are already getting snow? What’s being done to prevent the ‘leaves’ on the cross-channel line?

And lastly and very importantly, should I make her a gift of Kendal Mint Cake for this year’s Secret Santa or is that just taking the ****?

Musa Aykac is a guest blogger for billet angleterre, he absolutely loves the internet and is a tech geek at heart.

Author Byline: Musa Aykac

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About Calling cards for Indians

November 30th, 2010 Tushar Mathur

The current era of telecommunication is a very dynamic one. The more the customers are aware of the various calling options the better it is for them, as it is their awareness that can help them save a lot of money which otherwise would have been pocketed by the service providers. Over and above of the basic telephony provided by the service providers in the foreign land callers today have the option of using calling cards. These cards help the caller to connect with their near and dear ones from any part of the globe with adequate ease and reliability.

These calling cards are nothing but pre-paid minutes which are utilized when calls are made. Normally they offer discounted rates in comparison to the rates charged by the basic telephony service providers. Calling cards are available in two forms disposable or refillable.

There are many calling cards available that offer various schemes and prices. When a caller uses a calling card he is utilizing the air time which he has already paid for and because of the special pricing callers can talk for a longer period of time for the same amount spent in comparison to calling without a calling card. There are special calling cards for specific countries where calls are made. These cards offer very low call charge for pre decided countries and many even offer more discounts for frequently called or pre disclosed special numbers.

These cards are like credit cards and the balance can be checked when ever desired. To protect the interest of the lawful owner of the calling card, the calling card company have PIN assigned with each and every calling card they are normally printed on the card itself. But, if a caller wants he can also call the IVR and opt for a different PIN, which can either be system generated or customers can choose PIN of their own choice.

This guest post was written by Malvika Sampat on behalf of http://www.affordablecallingcards.net, which helps people make cheap calls to India.

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Calling cards for Indians – Bridging gaps

November 27th, 2010 Tushar Mathur

The life style that we lead today can bring forth such situations that we have to travel long distance even to foreign land to accomplish and achieve our aspirations. This means that we have to be away from our loved ones. Now this could be a difficult situation as not many have the courage to fight home-sickness and it forces us to contact our loved ones.

Gone are the days when we used to send hand written letters or telegrams. The advent of technology has made us conquer the distance gap by just pressing a few buttons, may be via an email or the most preferred calls. It is as good as talking face to face with 3G. But even if not the visuals we can still talk to our loved ones easily. Honestly they are just a phone call away. Like everything else it comes with a price.

There are many telecommunication services providers that come to our aid but then they charge a hefty amount. If that’s the case you can now sit back and just talk to your hearts content. Prepaid calling cards help us buy air minutes and then utilize them to talk to our loved ones.

There are various calling cards that offer various schemes at different price points. Some offer time bound calls and some offer time slot calls. There are calling cards with special and discounted rates for specific countries. Like if someone is an Indian and only needs to call a number in India, then he has a choice of using a calling card which offers special price for calls made to India. Some even offer the facility to opt for one or more special numbers with further discounted prices. These cards piggy back the service providers basic telephony and hence are able to offer lower call costs.

It entirely depends upon ones need when selecting the right calling card. However one must be careful as the quality of voice may be a challenge as the caller may experience latency over voice transmission.

This guest post was written by Malvika Sampat on behalf of http://www.affordablecallingcards.net, which helps people make cheap calls to India.

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How to use Calling cards to make calls from India

November 20th, 2010 Tushar Mathur

When someone is travelling or maybe operating out of a foreign land or maybe a different city than where his near and dear ones are, telephone is a good and reliable mode of solace. But then one has to pay dearly to avail this facility as the case normally is that the local telephony services providers charge a hefty amount to make long distance calls. If this is something that is bothering you then you can resort to using calling cards. These calling cards would allow you to make calls like you normally do but at a discounted price. This is possible as the calls are made piggy backing the basic telephony service provider’s service and then switching over to voice over internet protocol.

Normally two types of calling cards are available. One, that can be refilled and the other which is as good as nothing once the calling value is finish. The caller has to decide about the kind of card he needs. The disposable calling cards come with pre loaded amount of specific denominations and the refillable one’s can be topped up by the amount the caller wants.

Usually calling cards have a toll-free number associated with them. The caller first calls this toll-free number and then the IVR informs about the available balance. Post this the caller is prompted to call the desired number and then just talk as long as the caller wants or till the time the calling value exhausts.

Calling card companies offer various price plans for various time slot in a day or they offer duration based plans. If the caller wants to call for a long time then he has the choice to call during specific pre-declared time slot or may choose duration based calling plan offered.  Some calling cards are specific about the place the call is made to. These are really advantageous for people who would call a specific place only and there are calling cards that offer special prices for specific numbers that the caller can declare before hand and enjoy low price calling.

This guest post was written by Malvika Sampat on behalf of http://www.affordablecallingcards.net, which helps people make cheap calls to India.

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Long Distance Calling Cards for Indians

November 14th, 2010 Tushar Mathur

Communication is and will always remain very important to us Indians. Whether we are far, far away from our near and dears; living out of India; and when lot of travelling is involved in our businesses, we Indians get home sick quite often and keeping in touch with our family, relatives, cousins, friends and even associates of our business becomes very important.

At present, with growing technology, we are very much thankful to the various ways through which we can easily communicate with our loved ones. For example: we can either send emails to them and keep in touch with each other or we can so chatting and get daily updates from them as if we are never that far, far away from them. Isn’t this cool?

There are still many Indians who are not used to these current technologies of sending mails or chatting on internet, like many of our parents. But still we have our very own telephone to thank. We can always make an international call to our elders or even they can call us back on daily basis. Yes! Gone are the days getting huge bills every month. The new calling cards have made our lives very easy.

Using calling cards means we can now call our near and dear ones anytime and anywhere they are currently living. We can now use such calling cards conveniently from our home telephones, hotels and even outside pay phones. Life has indeed become very easy with such calling cards.

There are so many telecommunication companies out there which have started such services. All you have to do is walk to the store and ask for the calling card of your desired amount. The card is very handy and you can keep it either in your wallet or anywhere which is quite feasible for you to call your family anytime.

It is but obvious that with so many companies coming out with calling cards every now and then, you have to be very selective, as in, whether there are any hidden costs involved? Is the company giving you enough talk time or not. The best possible way is to always compare with other calling card companies and whichever is suitable for you, just go for it.

Make sure you have complete knowledge and information about these calling cards like fees, expiry dates, rates etc. Such calling cards come with a PIN which are supposed to scratch, so make sure the seal of the PIN is intact.

This guest post was written by Malvika Sampat on behalf of http://www.affordablecallingcards.net, which helps people make cheap calls to India.

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Long Distance Services for Indians Gone Cheap

October 31st, 2010 Tushar Mathur

Mentioned below are some of the advantages of cheap long distance services as per Indians:

  • Purposeful and contemptible for our business entity
  • It offers an inclusive calling card facility after dialing a PIN
  • Customer services are integrated and very friendly
  • Such services are very smart to work from different continents and countries

So, now if you want to avail such services, then I must say that you certainly are in the right direction and that too moving timely. Long distance services which are cheap are really an economical way of communicating your messages in a correct path.

Making calls in a different country either for your business purpose or for a personal purpose are very much different from the calls which we make that our either short distance or the calls that are locally made in our local code area and even the services that are been offered by various providers are very much different.

Services for long distance are basically inclusive with the services provided by the phone companies while you make a call in another state, city or even in another country. Telecommunication services not only give you a chance or an opportunity to save your money but also provide you to save your time as well as energy.

Such services are also inclusive of:

  • Mobile SMS trigger which has a call back facility
  • Web trigger which has a call back facility
  • Online access to records of calling details are direct with various other options which are really good

The providers of phone services also offer you certain other services which are customized especially for communicating with long distances. There are many services which are being offered to a user and these are mentioned below:

  • Rates are very low when making an international call
  • There is no monthly fee and connection fee and apart from this, dialing is also very easy
  • Integrity and speed are basic two aspects of making phone services the best of all apart from chatting or sending emails, which has become quite normal with every other person

Using the services from Telecommunication Company is very much beneficial for commercial and home use. All you have to do is get into the habit of using these facilities. It is very effectual and all that is required from you is PC, VOIP technology and a broadband service.

This guest post was written by Malvika Sampat on behalf of http://www.affordablecallingcards.net, which helps people make cheap calls to India.

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Cell Phones, Internet and Long Distance Communication is Quite Happening with Indians Now!

October 30th, 2010 Tushar Mathur

As per the survey conducted on Indians living in and outside of India have stated that the communication via long distance has changed in the past few years and has not become very easy. There was a time when people had to keep waiting for days, weeks and even months to receive a letter in their mail box from their loved ones. Long hours of writing about their whereabouts and whether they are doing well or not, would keep people worried until they receive news.

This is not the case now. In today’s society which is really fast paced has now become really easy in which no more letter writing is required. Not even booking a phone call to speak to your loved ones. Usage of cell phones and internet has gone really high now and with the growing technology, it has now become even cheap rather than being expensive, like it used to be. You don’t have to think twice for making a call or a certain time frame to talk to your own people living in other countries. We are now certainly able to communicate with each other plainly instantly.

There are many ways of communicating when it comes to using internet services. It is not just a simple chat but chatting face to face. We now have digital web cameras and several programs like Skype or iChat which makes us speak to our loved ones either through microphones or even looking at each other face to face via web cam. A person sitting in New Jersey, USA can easily speak to his or her loved ones in New Delhi, India face to face at a very good frequency.

Programs like Skype also allow you to have a telephone conversation if you don’t have web cam and can communicate as if you are using a phone. Instant messaging is another popular way of communication via text. Use your Gmail and even your Facebook accounts for it.

Cell phones with calling cards are a new way of communicating with your loved ones. The tariff plans are very cheap and almost affordable for everyone. Many of the cell phones now allow the users to send their pictures or even video messaging to their friends and family members.

All of the above mentioned ways of communication is considered to be quite happening these days among Indians.

This guest post was written by Malvika Sampat on behalf of http://www.affordablecallingcards.net, which helps people make cheap calls to India.

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Communicating Gone Easy for Indians Living in Abroad

October 29th, 2010 Tushar Mathur

Living in abroad has become much easier for Indians than it was earlier, as they have now several modern ways of communicating with their loved ones. Be it with their cell phones, personal computers, iPhones or iPads, Indians make sure that they are never disconnected from their loved ones. Gone are the days when a student would get into depressions in a few weeks of entering into another country’s soil.

Even India is not behind. Each and every city is not surrounded with good internet cafes with fastest broadband connections. Earlier even the best five star hotels had slow connection but no more. You can easily chat with your loved ones; see each other face to face on webcams. It is just like sitting with them and talking.

The most commonly used methods of communications while living far from your loved ones are: email, posting on various social network websites, telephones and cell phones and even calling from internet by using cheap calling cards. Another phone based system via internet is VOIP which is basically called as voice over internet protocol. These are very effectual and high in quality.

The most popular internet phone services are MajicJack, Skype and Vonage.

  • Skype is the very less costly when you make calls to other users who are using Skype, but
  • MagicJack and Vonage offer you a local number of your home area and when you get connected with internet, you can make calls to numbers of your home area as if you never left for the U.S. or other countries.

In order of cost the services are:

*Skype for most of the calls is free,

*MagicJack has an annual fee of approximately thirty to forty dollars and

*Vonage has a monthly fee of about fifteen dollars and it goes up.

Each one of these has limitations on their own, and at the same time is beneficial for us.

Easiest way of communicating through instant messaging services like Yahoo, AOL, and Gtalk gives you an opportunity of chatting or talking through mike with your loved ones for as much as or as long as you want to and that too sitting from anywhere in the world.

You can also use calling cards which are now low in rates and works well for those elderly people who can’t use or never have used online services. Students from India can now keep in touch with their parents, lovers and friends with so many options that are now open for them.

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Problems for Indians in Communicating in Long Distance Relationship

October 21st, 2010 Tushar Mathur

Study shows that when your living in the same city, it is very easy for a couple who are dating, to meet and communicate with each other and also get prospects of sharing aspirations, feelings, and thoughts with each other. Couples are able to converse with one another in a very easy manner.

Such things surely lack when you are in a long distance relationship. Indians living in other countries like UK, UAE or UK find it quite expensive to make a call to their loved ones on daily basis.

The same kind of feelings can’t be expressed or shared by everyone. The level of understanding always lack in this kind of communication. Sometimes you want to say something and you just say the opposite. Many Indians have faced such problem.

Some people have started sending voice mails to each other with messages like ‘I love you’, ‘I’m missing you’, and even ‘I’m thinking about you’. The best way to do it is to try sending it when the other person is not at home. Once he or she comes back, it is going to be a good surprise for them.

But still, to make sure that you will be able to strengthen and improve your relationship which is long distance one, get the supreme importance and also that you share your feelings while communicating on regular basis.

I have personally seen that relationships which started on a very happy and a romantic note have ended miserably due to the fact of staying in another country. It is said and especially in India that long distance relationships never survive.

Mentioned below will give you an idea about how much positive you can make your relation with your lover if it’s a long distance one.

The main and most vital factor that lacks in failure of such relationships is communication. Those days are gone when people used to write letters to each other or become friends through pen pals. Now the only fact that remains to survive in a relationship is to communicate in such an effectual way that you will also be able to sharpen your own speaking skills.

Use VOIP phone, email or chat through internet. The sources left with them are either e-mailing or texting in the morning times or they use their web cams or talk from Skype in the evening. There are so many options now. The choice is all yours. All you have to do is make an effort.

This guest post was written by Malvika Sampat on behalf of http://www.affordablecallingcards.net, which helps people make cheap calls to India.

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